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A Palimpsestic Approach to Tehmima Anam's Bengal Trilogy Introduction

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A Palimpsestic Approach to Tehmima Anam's Bengal Trilogy Introduction DOI: 10.31703/glr.2021(VI-I).15 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/glr.2021(VI-I).15 p-ISSN: 2663-3299 e-ISSN: 2663-3841 L-ISSN: 2663-3299 Vol. VI, No. I (Winter 2021) Pages: 133 –142 Citation: Ikram, H. H., & Khan, A. (2021). Remapping Bangladesh: A Palimpsestic Approach to Tehmima Anam’s Bengal Trilogy. Global Language Review, VI(I), 133-142. https://doi.org/10.31703/glr.2021(VI-I).15 Remapping Bangladesh: A Palimpsestic Approach to Tehmima Anam’s Bengal Trilogy Hafiza Habiba Ikram * Amara Khan † Abstract I here apply the Palimpsestic approach to the major events and characters in Tehmima Anam’s Bengal Trilogy, A Golden Age (2007), The Good Muslim (2011) and The Bones of Grace (2016). I have explored how Anam remaps particular places in her trilogy by adding a unique narrative in the history of Bangladesh. This research identifies the reactions of some of the major characters when they are placed in a particular time period which eventually changes their perception of the particular situation. I have analyzed three major female characters and a couple of minor male characters to find out what makes them distinctive and challenging in the light of the selected theoretical approaches. The major aspects of the Palimpsest approach such as superimposed structures, overwriting and rewriting of certain events, re-inscription of certain ideas, remapping of particular places, and the special role of memory or recalling of an event highlight the trilogy as a palimpsest text. Key Words: Bengal Trilogy, Palimpsest, Recalling, Remapping, Re-Inscription, Tehmima Anam Introduction The aim of my research is to explore the various Muslim (2011) includes Maya Sheherzad Haque’s elements of palimpsest while analyzing the situation point of view, who is the daughter of Rehana, and The of Bangladesh after the conflict of 1971. After the Bones of Grace (2016) presents Zubaida Haque’s independence, various places were reconstructed or thinking process as being the daughter of the rebuilt by the new government, which signifies the previous narrator, Maya. Anam has drawn many multilayered concept of palimpsest in which each characters by keeping in mind her relatives who layer is superimposed by another one. Palimpsest actively participated at that time. enforces the idea of re-inscription in literature where Anam highlights the idea that the major event of writers rewrite existing history or any other concept history affects the lives of different individuals in a different form. Anam deliberately rewrites the differently, and their ways of interpreting such events history of Bangladesh to make the contemporary also foreground the concept of multiple narratives. situation more comprehensible. Thus, this aspect of history is similar to a palimpsest, Anam explores the history of her country, where each layer is superimposed by another layer, Bangladesh, by interviewing her relatives and but the traces of the previous one remains forever. acquaintances who are first-hand witnesses of this The palimpsest approach highlights the idea that all crucial time of history. Her Bengal Trilogy comprises writing takes place in the presence of other writings; A Golden Age (2007), which has Rehana Haque (the similarly, there are multiple interpretations of a mother of the family) as the narrator, The Good single word or event. *Lecturer, Department of English, Government College University, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. † Assistant Professor, Department of English, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Email: [email protected] Hafiza Habiba Ikram and Amara Khan Methodology A Palimpsest dates back to the 17th century and I have used a qualitative research methodology that refers to a type of paper, parchment, and vellum from further utilizes textual analysis and comparative which many writings have been erased for further study. In this research, I have tried to put together the new writings. During the medieval period, it was a stimulation behind the remapping of particular common practice to wash out a piece of paper due to th places of Bangladesh through specific characters and the insufficiency of writing material. During the 19 its connection with the Palimpsest approach. century, its definition reshaped into a manuscript on which later writing has been superimposed, and the Research Questions previous writing is erased. Palimpsest also denotes a location that contains diverse layers or aspects The research article attempts to address the following apparent beneath the surface. Time, space, and questions: human beings all accumulate different layers of • How does Anam use a specific history to palimpsest. Geographers use this term to highlight identify issues that resonate in places and the urban landscape that is written over by successive times far beyond post-independence generations, but previous writings are never erased. Bangladesh? Similarly, perceiving a city or a country as palimpsest • How does Anam treat Bangladesh as a foregrounds the fact that these localities are Palimpsest text that highlights the similarities constantly evolving and expanding, adding more between cities and the human mind? layers to the preexisting history. This particular city • Does Anam successfully connect the personal or country reveals a brilliant interplay of the past and and political through a family narrative? the present, stating the preservation of the past and its incorporation into the present. Literature Review Thomas De Quincey in The Palimpsest of the Hassan Askari Rizvi’s outlook on the creation of Human Brain relates the human brain to the Bangladesh holds all the leaders of the time (Zulfikar palimpsest “What else than a natural and mighty Ali Bhutto, Yahya Khan, and Sheikh Mujib) palimpsest is the human brain? Such a palimpsest is responsible for the devastating consequences and my brain; such a palimpsest, oh reader! is yours. calls it their failure. Bhattacharjee's approach is more Everlasting layers of ideas, images, feelings, have sympathetic towards the Awami League of fallen upon your brain softly as light” (2016). De Bangladesh as he justifies the violence generated by Quincey also highlights the major qualities of Mukti Bahinis to the non-conformist. Anam not only palimpsest, like the significance of the erased writing, spotlights those turning points of history (Operation which also leaves an impact on the new searchlight, General Tikka Khan’s violent approach superimposed material, similar to the human brain to forcible control, Sheikh Mujib’s 7 March 1970 where the memory of past experiences is always in speech, and the treaty between army chief contact with the present condition and calls it as “our commanders of both territories) but also their own heaven-created palimpsest, the deep memorial abnormal effect on the psyche of the normal living palimpsest of the brain” (2016). Sarah Dillon in family. Anam’s artistic approach to history is evident “Reinscribing De Quincey’s Palimpsest: The when she touches on the palimpsestic qualities of Significance of the Palimpsest in Contemporary places (Shaheed Minar, Louis Khan Parliament, Literary and Cultural Studies” claims that Coleridge Dhaka, and Chittagong port) and characters’ is generally associated with the inauguration of memory associated with the events. She, somehow, palimpsest as a literary metaphor, but it was De blames those events not only for the disintegration of Quincey who initiated the concept of palimpsest Pakistan but also for the disintegration of families. which led to the endless process of “metaphorization Her rewriting of the past revitalizes Bangladesh of palimpsests from mid-nineteenth century (the palimpsestously. most prolific period of palimpsest discoveries) to present day” (2016). 134 Global Language Review (GLR) Remapping Bangladesh: A Palimpsestic Approach to Tehmima Anam’s Bengal Trilogy Discussion In a way, she is preserving it; in the words of Jeffery According to George Orwell’s 1984, “All history was A. Kroessler, in The City as Palimpsest, preservation a palimpsest, scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly is necessary for the development of a country as often as necessary” (1949). This is what Anam does Preservation is essential for the health of the city, and in her Bengal trilogy. Gaining her knowledge by the nation, for it preserves ideas, experience, and exploring Bangladesh, interviewing ex freedom values no less than buildings and places. Maintaining fighters and first-hand witnesses of the 1971 war, she a dialogue between past and present is essential for a actually adds her own narrative about the separation citizen’s sense of identity”. Similarly, Alexander C. of East Pakistan and its after-effects in the books of Diener states that people usually attach memories history. She starts from the time when Pakistan was and identities to a particular place to make it more considered a country divided into two halves where tangible and lasting. Anam in The Good Muslim each part, known as East and West Pakistan, had (2011) pinpoints the fact that most of the places in different lifestyles and they spoke different Bangladesh, after its separation from Pakistan, got languages. Each part wanted economic, cultural, destroyed. The destroyed places were rebuilt in order linguistic, and political supremacy over the other and to keep them alive. One of them was Shaheed Minar considered language as the apple of discord for which is a symbol of Bengali Nationalism and usually separation. Anam’s A Golden Age (2007) is a story of associated with the martyrs of the language a family who lives in the pre-partition time of East movement of 1952. Shaheed Minar is closely linked and West Pakistan. At the start of A Golden Age, with the language movement when the Government Rehana is a young widow who has lost her husband of Pakistan declared Urdu as an official language, and due to a heart attack and now is on the verge of losing the Bengali majority objected to that decision. her children to her brother-in-law because she has no Students of the University of Dhaka gathered at that means to support them.
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