Published Online:June 2024
Product Name:The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJES060624
Author Name:V Vidya
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:19
The ‘language of breathlessness’ and ‘systemic distortions in breathing patterns,’ often termed as ‘postcolonial breathlessness,’ mark the narrative techniques of almost all the postmodern and postcolonial writers to match the uncertainties that prevail at the backdrops of their fictional works. A number of Salman Rushdie’s novels mark the unusual properties of breath in providing an interface between the physiological, the metaphoric and the linguistic. Rushdie has used a variety of narrative techniques to depict the theme of ‘postcolonial breathlessness,’ namely, Magic Realism, ‘pessoptimistic divide,’‘chutnification of history,’ and many other binary oppositions. One such set of elements is the Grotesque and the Aesthetics. The interplay between these two elements is prominent in Rushdie’s fictional writings. This paper focuses on the last scene of The Moor’s Last Sigh where the interplay weaves an intricate design to portray the final catastrophic climax of Moor’s ‘combat breathing’ amidst ‘intergenerational conflict’ in Vasco Miranda’s palace in Benengeli.
The ‘language of breathlessness’ and ‘systemic distortions in breathing patterns’ (Rose 2019, 113) are quite often echoed in postcolonial literature through various narrative devices. Such types of breathlessness are termed as ‘postcolonial breathlessness’ (Rose 2019, 113). A number of Salman Rushdie’s novels mark the unusual properties of breath in providing an interface between the physiological, the metaphoric and the linguistic.