DefinePK

Abstract

Historical incidents affect the human kinds which turn the social and physical existence of humanity. Partition of the states let the people suffer in the psychological, physical, mental, and identical issues. Ice Candy Man (1988) is the mouthpiece of the human tragedy, human suffering and brutality at the time of partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Lenny, a Parsi younger girl, records and elaborates the brutal incidents of partition which suffer the human kind. Apart from the textual meanings, the trend of new meanings generation has taken place with the emergence of new postcolonial criticism of Reader Response Theory (RRT) in which the experiences of the reader become the judgments and the reason for new meanings of the text. The present study is conducted to know the causes of human sufferings and its effects on mankind of the subcontinent under the theoretical framework of Norman Holland‘s Reader’s Response Theory (1980). Holland’s RRT (1980) is based on the experience of the reader as Defense (desires, fears etc.), Fantasy (state of equilibrium with nnew thinking) and Transformation (make self-satisfaction through new ideas). These levels create new meanings which are created by the reader after being a part of the situation. The results of the study mention that the feelings of fear, sorrows, pains, brutality, shame and restlessness are created in mind of the reader (Under Defense Level) which is observed as telling that the causes of the human tragedy were cultural diversity, lust of power, lust of sex, duality of human nature, ideological misguiding, turbulence, split identity’s, lust for land and misadministration by the state apparatuses (British Government). Being part of the situation, the reader feels the pains and sorrows so tries to find the equilibrium state so new meanings are created as the humans remain brutal and such new incidents without management could not be acceptable (Fantasy Level). And at the Transformation state, the reader stratified himself/herself through viewing the development and progress in the present time in both countries as the nations could not be lived under the lust of superiority. The results also show that human tragedy of partition put long lasting effects in case of creation of enmity, hatred, feelings of superiority, no bearing and mistrust on the other nation as the proxies to hurt others, are still going on.