The chapter uses stylistics to analyse six extracts from Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan ([1956] 2006), the first novel written in English which focuses on the events following the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, at the end of British colonial rule in India. After clarifying the theoretical and methodological background of the chapter and discussing the socio-cultural and symbolic significance of trains and railways within the context of the (de)colonisation of India, the case study is investigated through stylistics, in order to demonstrate how the evolution in the representation of the train in the novel is functional to a delineation of the socio-cultural and historical consequences of Partition.
Colonial power, trains and Partition Literature: A stylistic analysis of Singh's Train to Pakistan
Elisabetta Zurru
2022-01-01
Abstract
The chapter uses stylistics to analyse six extracts from Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan ([1956] 2006), the first novel written in English which focuses on the events following the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, at the end of British colonial rule in India. After clarifying the theoretical and methodological background of the chapter and discussing the socio-cultural and symbolic significance of trains and railways within the context of the (de)colonisation of India, the case study is investigated through stylistics, in order to demonstrate how the evolution in the representation of the train in the novel is functional to a delineation of the socio-cultural and historical consequences of Partition.
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