ضبط کو آزما رہا ہوں میں
بے وفا سے نبھا رہا ہوں میں
لوگ کہنے لگے ہیں دیوانہ
ایسے اعزاز پا رہا ہوں میں
بخدا میرے بس کی بات نہیں
جتنے صدمے اٹھا رہا ہوں میں
میرے احباب کو مبارک ہو
چھوڑ کر شہر جا رہا ہوں میں
عشق کی آگ کیوں نہیں بجھتی
کب سے تائبؔ بجھا رہا ہوں میں
The study critically engages with the issue of continuity of the orientalist rhetoric in the contemporary literary yields. To establish and substantiate the argument, the researchers have analyzed Deborah Ellis’s Breadwinner Trilogy (2009) that comprises Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and Mud City. All the three fictional narratives claims to have represented the life of the Pakistani and Afghani characters who have been shown to face the existential threats in the wake of the insecurities that have engulfed the region. However, the study contends, the Canadian writer has also given way to the parochial psychological and sociological schema that has been held as the prime representational trope regarding the East, that is, Orientalism. The qualitative and textual approach has facilitated the researchers to negotiate the identified thematic patterns with the interpretive freedom. In this regard, framing the fictional representation into the Saidian critique of the orientalist discourse, the study explicates the reductive approach of the writer and exposes the latent ideological triggers working under the manifest humanist projections. Thus, the study strengthens the postcolonial stance and, therefore, will sharpen the Pakistani students’ understanding of the current socio-literary debates.
Subalternity and Representation: A Feminist analysis of the issue of Divorce in the selected Novels For Spivak, the idea of subalternity as encapsulated in “Can the Subaltern Speak”? (1994) is a complex definition, encompassing the way concrete historical locations, social relations as well as political structures interconnect to consolidate subordination of a particular group or people. In terms of the representational neglect of divorce in contemporary literary studies, utilizing Spivak’s concept of subalternity has meant that women, along with many other subaltern groups have long had their experiences being denigrated and excluded in favour of the masculinised knowledge of the discipline. As a consequence, despite the prevalence of divorce as a theme in the contemporary Indian/Pakistani women's fiction, critical exploration of the issue of divorce within postcolonial literary criticism has been slightly considered. This study offers a feminist analysis of the divorce experience of the female protagonists in five postcolonial novels, which include: The God of Small Things, Ancient Promises, Sister of My Heart, My Feudal Lord and Typhoon. This study draws upon Stuart Hall’s idea of representation as an ideologically inscribed process for investigating the context and its relevance with the theme of divorce in the selected texts. It highlights that divorce is an experience, which is meticulously constituted in time and space, and when coupled with the gendered identity of a female protagonist render her marginal. The divorced woman is peripherized by the mechanisms of patriarchal ideology which surrounds the institution of divorce and places her to a subaltern position in comparison to her male counterpart.