Meta Language of Gothic Images in Nadeem Aslam’s Postcolonial World

Abstract

This article is an intensive post-colonial study of gothic meta language of images and reading of signs, symbols, images of anxiety, repulsion and loss conveyed through them. Howard L. Malchow, a renowned scholar of history, in his book Gothic Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britaindefines gothic “as a language of panic, of unreasoning anxiety, blind revulsion and distancing sensationalism” (4). In his writing Nadeem Aslam employs gothic language to bring forth even the tabooed realities and to convey physical and psychological states of anxiety and violence. He could have delved into social realism to evoke the effects of racism but he wields gothic medium to underscore the nuances and subtle effects without compromising on the aesthetic appeal of the works. What lends his postcolonial fiction an artistic appeal is the use of gothic vocabulary and the narrative structure as opposed to a dry factual account of history. One of the elements that contribute to aesthetic appeal of his fiction is the structure of metaphorical language and how it is woven into varying patterns to lend richness to its multiple meanings. He clearly divides his novels into seasons and each season either parallels or contrasts with the underlying meaning of the plot.