The Commemorative Use of Social Alienation and Displacement in Ice-Candy Man by Sidhwa

Abstract

Any kind of evil prevailing in society damages the system on a general level and hurts humans at individual level. Living peacefully and becoming no harm to the other members of society is the first rule of humanity and colonization is one of the major social wrongdoings that ended up affecting nations and societies. With this background, this particular study tends to explore social alienation and displacement from Robertson et al. (1994), as an effect of colonization. This research bases upon the psychological and physical state of the colonized in context to their feelings and actions presenting how the colonization traumatized them with emotions of detachment and loneliness by analysing Sidhwa’s novel Ice-candy Man. The study depends upon the qualitative approach in which the theory of social alienation and displacement is used to analyze the text, implementing the physical and metaphorical displacement and effects of involuntary exile by Robertson et al. (1994). The findings of the research clarify the fact that colonization has a clear influence on social alienation and displacement not only in the physical way but also in extraordinarily subtle and psychological ways. This research draws attention towards how something physically insignificant as displacement without even being moved and alienation without getting socially alienated ruin lives. How harmfully it ignites the engine of utter hatred and revenge and brutally it turns out by destroying not just individuals but communities prevailing hatred and vengeance for coming generations. This research has the tendency to give base to new research that may try to solve issues of subtle displacement and alienation and how it ends in the long run.