Saadat Hasan Manto's Language Games

Swatie studies the representation of the traumatic hurt displayed in the short stories of Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. The short stories and sketches of Partition, namely “Colder Than Ice,” “Toba Tek Singh,” “The Believer’s Version,” “Mozail,” and “The Return,” are explored in terms of linguistic play. She examines Manto’s use of what Jean F. Lyotard terms “language games”’ to express psychic hurt of the collective violence that unfolded during the Partition and the formation of India and Pakistan. Manto provides a traumatic backdrop immersed in language games which allows for the psychic hurt of the characters to emerge. In this, Manto creates a literary community. This articulation of trauma offers him the creation of a third space through which he can explore themes of personhood, liberty, equality, and (literary) community.