Browsing by Author "Fiza Saeed"

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    A Postmodernist Re-Presentation of Pakistani Politics: Irreverent Historical Revisionism in Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes
    (UMT Lahore, 2021) Fiza Saeed
    This thesis aims at qualitatively analyzing Mohammed Hanif’s novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes (published in 2008) in the context of the postmodernist theories of historical revisionism. In doing so, it focuses on how a discourse apparently intended to be a hilarious political satire can illustrate the fluid nature of historical data and its potential to recreate the meaning of historical events. Drawing on one of the most important streaks of postmodernist thought – incredulity toward metanarratives – this study regards Hanif’s corrosive comedy as a reinterpretation of President Zia-ul-Haq’s regime in the history of Pakistan. As such, it analyzes the role of ideology in the (re)construction of historical constructs while treating history, in accordance with the teachings of theorists like Keith Jenkins, as nothing more than multiple open-ended discursive practices. In this regard, the debates surrounding the antagonistic interpretations of Zia-ul-Haq’s character and legacy among the liberal and the conservative factions of Pakistani historians and political analysts are here set within the context of ambivalent nature of available facts. The study intends to show how, with a change of narratorial tone and perspectives, historical personages and events can be reduced to farcical images even when they deal with ideologically sensitive issues like military dictatorship and the use/abuse of Islamic laws in Pakistan.