Elements of new historicism and historiographic metafiction in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance

Abstract

New historicism and historiographic metafiction represent two of the most recent trends in the study of literary works which developed in the 1980s as a reaction to structuralism and post-structuralism’s rejection of history altogether. They both mark a return to the story itself and the importance of history. However, it is not official history that they are mainly interested in but those stories of the excluded that have been left out by legitimate historical discourse. History is used as a subtext in Rohinton Mistry’s “A Fine Balance” where the destiny of all characters is entwined with major events from national history. I argue that in their focus on synchronic analysis new historicism and historiographic metafiction lose sight of historical change.