Literary appreciation of the roots by Donna Robin

 A literary appreciation of the short story ‘Roots’

                             Roots is a famous short story written by Ismat Chugtai. She is one of the first few feminist writers of Urudhu literature. Being a member of a conservative Muslim family she wrote about the issues faced by the women of her era. Roots is a story about her mother.

                            In this story she tells about an old woman who is unable to understand the complexities  of partition. She does not want to leave her homeland. She does not want to cut off her roots from Indian soil. She is not amenable to the  persuasions of her relatives to migrate to Pakistan. Though his family decided to go to Pakistan , she remains in her home land. But due to the timely intervention of a family friend , her family returns back. The reunion of the family is the climax of the story.

                                      The story is narrated by the author herself. The language of the story is simple and beautiful. The theme of the story is communalism which is even relevant now. Though the theme of the story is very serious, the author bring  the wits and jokes  through the conversations  of the family members.

                                    I  am pointing out certain sentences from the story  to illustrate the poetic beauty of the language.

“Then like a deluge, refugees began to arrive’’. The word deluge is used to show the large number of refugees. So it is a typical example of simile.

There are a lot of metaphors can be seen in this story. ‘’ Who knows whether the new soil  will be conducive to these saplings or make them wilt’’. The  painful thoughts of Amma is described using metaphors in this line. Amma is thinking about her  family members  who wanted to  go to Pakistan. She thinks that migration is like transplanting a sapling in the new soil. It may grow or wilt. Here her children are described as saplings and new soil is Pakistan. Wilting can be considered as personification, because plants are wilting.

‘’Then two pearls of warm tears trickled down and fell on Roopchandjis wrinkled hands’’. Here tears are personified as pearls, because here the tears are of due to her happiness .It is precious as pearls.

‘’Look, I have brought all of the Indian good for nothing children from Loni junction’’. Here author used an understatement. Children of amma are very precious to her. But Roopchandji addressing them as ‘good for nothing children’ to lighten the situation.

‘’Getting  angry, Barre Bhai threw away these bundles three times, but she screamed so loudly it was as if Pakistan would become poor without this wealth’’. Here her ‘wealth’ is stuffed bone powder, dry fenugreek and multani mutti. So we may take it as hyperbole.

                                  The author used  a lot of figure of speech to make the story beautiful.