Rewriting Of History: A Historiographic Metafiction Critique Of Doctorow’s The March

Abstract

This paper focuses to analyze the intertextuality of the American civil war through E. L. Doctorow’s ability to rewrite history in his fiction The March from the genre of postmodern Historiographical metafiction in the perspective of the problematizing grand narrative of, the reality of the ideology, ‘American dream.’ Doctorow invented his fiction on the real patterns where he painted the real picture of American culture and their attitude towards women objectification, racism, war victims, freed slaves, political interests, sufferings of migrant, and the unanimity of the nation. Doctorow exposed the wide-ranging scabs of demolition after the awakening of people from the futile dreaming of a better future at the end of the war. He established his postmodern narrative by transforming the customary historical chronicles with the help of the literary concept of Linda Hutcheon’s parody, comic satire, memory, self-reflexivity, and the intertextuality of the historical events and personages. This paper will help to understand the real picture of American war genera and its effects on the future generations, especially the psychology of black people through the connection of history with intra-textual fiction. It painted the true picture that dialogue is the only and real roadmap for peace and stability, but not the war after another war. The current study, in the light of the postmodern theoretical notion of Lyotard in integration with the qualitative and empirical style of analysis, along with the critical exploration of the novel, as a research method, will explore the transformation of ideas from postmodernism in general to the problematizing of the grand narrative of the reality of historic pieces of evidence. The findings of the research will help future researchers to understand the real American picture.