49 pages • 1 hour read
Ice Candy Man
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
The novel Cracking India (first published as Ice-Candy-Man in 1980), by Bapsi Sidhwa, explores the civil war that occurred during the Partition of India in 1947. The political and social upheaval engendered by independence and Partition included religious intolerance that led to mass violence, killings, mutilations, rapes, dismemberments, and the wholesale slaughter of infants, children, men, and women, along with the displacement of millions of refugees—Hindus fleeing to India and Muslims fleeing to Pakistan.
Told from the first-person perspective of Lenny Sethi, a Parsee child who is about 4 years old when the novel begins and approximately 10 years old at the end, the novel portrays the complicated and shifting political and social ramifications of the Partition of India into two countries: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Lenny and her family attempt to quietly endure the partition that transforms Lahore, India into Lahore, Pakistan in August 1947.
Simultaneously, the novel operates as a coming-of-age novel delineating the parallel growth and formation of identity within the protagonist, Lenny, and the country, Pakistan. Both suffer severe growing pains, as Lenny’s child-like vision becomes a quickly-maturing Unlock all 49 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
