Characterization As A Rhetorical Device In The Crafting Of Ice Candy Man As A Bildungsroman

Abstract

Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice Candy Man (1988) is a bildungsroman narrated by Lenny Sethi, the character whose coming of age is at the core of the story. The backdrop consists of events building up to and transpiring during the socio-political upheavals of the independence of Pakistan and India. In view of a discernable autobiographical element, the author’s choice of setting indicates an awareness of the impact of traumatic events in the formation of a child’s psyche. However, a high degree of willing suspension of disbelief is expected of the reader as Lenny, at the age of four, begins noticing and reporting incidents quite beyond the cognition and eloquence of a child her age. This contrivance enables Bapsi Sidhwa to reveal human motives in a raw form only possible when placed in a child’s perceptual mechanism. Given the sensitive nationalistic, racial, and religious issues involved, her plan seems to be one of generating astonishment and shock without being judgmental. In this way, the writer can test ideas, assist advocacy, and shape knowledge without making her work controversial. These social functions of rhetoric are the goals towards which the writer works using the technique of characterization as her main tool. This study utilizes James Herrick’s The History and Theory of Rhetoric (1996) as a lens to examine Bapsi Sidhwa’s use of characterization as a rhetorical device in her crafting of Ice Candy Man as a bildungsroman.