Analyzing Feminine Subjectivity in Male Jingoistic Society: A Critical Study of Naheed's A Bad Woman's Story
The present study tends to explore the feminine subjectivity as a heart-throbbing phenomenon for men that keeps on prevailing in a patriarchal society. This is an exploration into the life of Pakistan's renowned writer, poet and human activist, Kishwar Naheed. Her autobiographical writing Buri Aurat ki Katha (A Bad Woman's Story) probes into the life of a female character who is being restrained by society due to her achievements and fame but gender discrimination prevailing in society compelled her to consider herself a stigma. Naheed is taken as a representative character to project the reality of a patriarchal society that denies feminine subjectivity in society. It covers gynophobia over men's mind towards women powerful and independent existence in society. This study contextualizes within the border of feminism theory that covers threat to female identity by throwing light to the perspective taken by Kristeva's views on feminism, majorly focusing on male jingoistic society. The present inquiry spotlights the ways in which women suffer through threatened, identity crisis, abuse, and oppression that further leads woman's journey of life restrained under social commands.
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Feminism, Gynophobia, Feminine Subjectivity, Patriarchal/Jingoistic Society, Woman Identity, Oppression
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(1) Amna Aziz
Lecturer, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(2) Aniqa Rashid
Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
(3) Tayyabba Yasmin
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Education, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Historico - Cultural Analysis of Gendered Power - Play in Society as Portrayed in Nadeem Aslam's Novels
This paper discusses an important aspect of human society, the gendered use of power on women and its portrayal through the literary texts of Nadeem Aslam. Literature mirrors human society through fictional characters and imaginary situations. A co-relation between gendered power, in the historical and contemporary social context and resultant discrimination through oppression and patriarchal hegemonic structures on women is therein established. Themes of female oppression and exploitation, othering and gendered discriminative power dynamics are the basis of this study. Gendered power through its trajectories is the basis of problems faced by women in androcentric societies, creating situational conflicts at the macro and micro level. The resultant feminist concerns give significance to this study as they give rise to pertinent issues, which need to be addressed in human society.
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Androcentric, Gender discrimination, Othering, oppression, Power, Trajectories.
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(1) Zakia Nasir
PhD Scholar, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Management &Technology Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Make-Belief in Language and Verity of Legitimized Oppression: A Critical Analysis of Selected Extracts From Anita Shreve's Body Surfing
The research in hand is a textual analysis of the novel Body Surfing by Anita Shreve which explains the role of language in the construction of an ideology as reality. The aim is to highlight the construction of a certain concept or ideology as a dominant truth claim in society through discourse and how is it blindly followed by all the members without the least strife to change that socalled dominant ideology. Language as a major agent in the construction and perpetuation of an ideology is forever the discourse of those who are in power. This research will propound the discourse active behind the verity of 'oppression' done to women as taken-for-granted and fair. By employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as research method, the study will critically examine the role of language in legalizing women oppression. We have cultivated the idea of 'women as weak' into something real, that has come to us generation after generation, through language. This supposition provides theoretical underpinnings for the research, which is arrived at through CDA by treating language post-structurally. The literature analyzed highlights the role of language in the process of meaning-making by considering it to convey reality. The various words and phrases from the extracts in hand with contextual and conceptual affiliation, are dealt with under the backdrop of Fairclough's (1992) Three Dimensional Model of CDA, which results in the recognition of oppression thought as legitimate by the ultimate use of language. The analysis done under the backdrop of poststructuralism will show that language is not the depiction of maximum reality rather; it is we, the users of language, who make it real by considering some concepts as truth and others as myth. The paper concludes that the opposite gender is actually oppressed and that this oppression is not given, rather the constructed one. CDA challenges this oppression and declares it the work of language only. It (language) has no signs of reality, subsistence or truth.
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Critical Discourse Analysis, Fairclough, Construction, Oppression, Reality, Truth
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(1) Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, KP,Pakistan.
(2) Rab Nawaz Khan
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, KP,Pakistan.
An Overview of Arthur Miller's Play All My Sons and Locating Aspects Concerning Capitalist Failure
This paper aims at exploring the mentality of the people which was shaped by the capitalist doctrine and how this mental state led the characters to take reckless and unethical decisions. The Marxist analysis is used to unravel multiple motivations and reasons behind those decisions, so basically, this study owes a debt to Karl Marx's class struggle and identification. The attitudes of the people are observed and looked at carefully through the Marxist lens, and the impact and failure of capitalism are identified. This research is organized on the basis of sharp textual and interpretative analysis of the text All My Sons by Arthur Miller under the umbrella of qualitative research method and the curious quest of the research questions besides the objectives to be explored under the lens of Marxist concepts; Class Conflict, Oppression, Exploitation and Commodification. The paper reveals how class conflict leads to the oppression of the masses.
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Capitalism, Marxism, Individualism, Oppression, Class Conflict, Class Consciousness, Social Status
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(1) Farooq Shah
Lecturer in English Literature, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, KP, Pakistan.
(2) Muhammad Altaf
Subject Specialist In English, Elementary And Secondary Education Department, KP, Pakistan.
(3) Saddam Ul Islam
M.Phil. Scholar, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, KP, Pakistan
Social Justice in Higher Education: Revisited, Practices, and Grievances
Social justice is a fundamental concern for ideal social structure and human rights. To develop social order and philosophical discourses, higher education is one of the holistic approaches to educating it. It elevates the level of idealized modern state formation among students. The present study was designed to examine the contexts of students about practices and malpractices of social justice in higher education. The quantitative approach was adopted to gather the data from 630 university graduates. All the data were gathered through a self-made questionnaire. The findings of the study explained that the participants were not satisfied with practices of social justice in higher education. Most of the participants expressed malpractices of social norms.Especially female students claimed their injustice experiences in higher education. The researcher recommended bold recommendations to uphold the social justice in higher education departments
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Social Justice, Higher Education, Social Oppression, Injustice, Human Rights
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(1) Ghulam Dastgir
PhD Scholar, Government College University, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
(2) Khuda Bakhsh
Assistant Professor, Government College University, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.