CONSTRUCTING HISTORY, POWER, AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN MOHAMMED HANIF’S A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES: A NEO-HISTORICIST CLOSE READING

Abstract

This paper examines how A Case of Exploding Mangoes constructs history, political power and authority as well as how language, ideology and institutional practices interact to form historical narratives. The novel is set in the history of the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan, and incorporates satire, irony, and historical events to criticize dictatorship and the manipulation of collective memory. Though a lot has been written on the work of Hanif, the research that has been carried out up to now has been mainly focused on the postcolonial or literary stylistic interpretation, and it has provided a gap in the analysis of how the novel is an active discursive production of authority and historical knowledge. In this paper, I will seek to fill this gap by looking at the representation, resistance, and negotiation of power and political legitimacy within the text. The study uses a Neo-Historicist approach intertwined with the Close Reading and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To discuss the discursive strategies applied to build a divine authority, influence the masses, and coerce institutionalized obedience, three major passages are analyzed. The analysis of findings indicates that the narrative of Hanif has constructed power not by mere character actions but mainly by the language, ritual, and ideological performance, and demonstrates how power is a social construction and historical mediation. This paper shows that literature may serve as a counter-historical discourse, challenging official discourses and revealing the processes of ideological domination. This study is also a contribution to the knowledge of how modern fiction challenges political power and offers a broader perspective of how history and power are told and negotiated.