Guilt

Hello everyone! I am back once again as I have read a good chunk of my book, The Association of Small Bombs, by Karan Mahajan. For this blog post, we have a certain topic. I am supposed to write about the idea of Literary Criticisms. This is the "analysis of a literary text through various lenses that highlight authorial stance, purpose, and perspective". The lens that I will be choosing will be psychological criticism. This would be about the expression of the author's personality and the motives of the characters within the book. I feel like this would be the best lens for this book, as it is filled with lot's of emotions and thoughts for distinct characters. As I was reading, the book started to focus on a character named Mansoor. He was the friend of the Khurana boys who survived the bombing. Moreover, the book basically reveals Mansoor's feelings after a while. What really shows up regarding Mansoor's thoughts is his guilt for surviving. Due to the bomb, his parents are constantly worried about Mansoor, so much that they give him everything he needs. Mansoor stated that the bomb had killed his friends, "but it had improved his life." (Mahajan). I feel that his guilt is an overlying theme throughout the book. For instance, many characters throughout the book have been questioning how they could have let this happen. This gives me a solid reason to say that the author, Karan Mahajan, desperately wanted to reveal the feeling of guilt after a terrible incident happens. The story of the bombing only lasts for about a chapter or two, but the rest of the book has been focused on the emotional and psychological breakdown of the characters who were close to the boys who were killed.

The feeling of guilt is inevitable when a tragedy has occurred, and I think that Karan Mahajan main intention was to bring light into a situation that is sometimes overlooked. When many see a tragedy that has occurred, they are sad for sometime and then move on. However, those affected directly by the tragedy are devastated and have a feeling of guilt that sticks with them. Some people have never had that feeling, so I think Mahajan was trying to convey this topic through his book. Well, that's all I have for today. Thanks for reading! Bye!