The Visual Symbolism and the Making of Criminal Minds: A Comparative Study of Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar and Saadat Hasan Manto’s Select Stories
Ananya Shukla
, Dr. Archana Gupta
Visual Symbolism, Criminal Consciousness, Partition, Transgression, Disintegration
The paper discusses the role of visual symbolism in the formation of criminal consciousness in Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag and select few partition stories by Saadat Hasan Manto. As both the authors address the common theme i.e. crime, they have a lot in common in terms of addressing it through their technique of narration and symbolic patterns. Shanbhag locates the space of criminality in domesticity using the image of entanglement, closure and flow of money to illustrate the slow normalization of ethical transgression. Manto, in his turn, makes criminality substantially manifested by physical provocation, social discontinuity, and sensational visual surprise, especially in works like Khol Do, Thanda Gosht, Mozel etc. This paper presents a close reading of the texts to argue that both these authors embody crime with a difference of symbolic economy, one not obvious, but rather internal, and another one corporeal and violent. Regardless of these disparities, both focus on this common ground which sees criminal consciousness as a socially constructed phenomenon and not as an individual aberrant premise. In presenting these texts in dialogue, the paper has shown how literature changes abstract concepts of crime into sense and expression adequately.
"The Visual Symbolism and the Making of Criminal Minds: A Comparative Study of Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar and Saadat Hasan Manto’s Select Stories", JETNR - JOURNAL OF EMERGING TRENDS AND NOVEL RESEARCH (www.JETNR.org), ISSN:2984-9276, Vol.4, Issue 4, page no.c413-c420, April-2026, Available :https://rjpn.org/JETNR/papers/JETNR2604318.pdf
Volume 4
Issue 4,
April-2026
Pages : c413-c420
Paper Reg. ID: JETNR_233838
Published Paper Id: JETNR2604318
Downloads: 00020
Research Area: Medical Science All
Country: Lucknow , Uttar Pradesh, India
ISSN: 2984-9276 | IMPACT FACTOR: 9.87 Calculated By Google Scholar | ESTD YEAR: 2023
An International Scholarly Open Access Journal, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed Journal Impact Factor 9.87 Calculate by Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar | AI-Powered Research Tool, Multidisciplinary, Monthly, Multilanguage Journal Indexing in All Major Database & Metadata, Citation Generator
Publisher: RJPN (IJPublication) Janvi Wave
