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Home > from Negation to Assertion: A Post Feminist Discourse Analysis of Bernard Shaws Selected Plays

from Negation to Assertion: A Post Feminist Discourse Analysis of Bernard Shaws Selected Plays

Thesis Info

Access Option

External Link

Author

Shahid Abbas

Program

PhD

Institute

International Islamic University

City

Islamabad

Province

Islamabad.

Country

Pakistan

Thesis Completing Year

2017

Thesis Completion Status

Completed

Subject

English Language & Literature

Language

English

Link

http://prr.hec.gov.pk/jspui/bitstream/123456789/12907/1/Shahid%20Abbas%20Final%20Thesis.pdf

Added

2021-02-17 19:49:13

Modified

2024-03-24 20:25:49

ARI ID

1676724726982

Similar


This study investigated the role of gender and the game of power structures in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Candida by focusing on the functional use of language, and it is conducted with the viewpoint that Shaw highlighted Postfeminist tendencies through the construction of gender in his plays. The study is revisionist or rereading of Bernard Shaw in the light of Structural Functional model, which is based on the models provided by Sinclair and Coulthard and Carter and Burton. It examined the conversation in which the principal characters were involved by analyzing their acts, moves, exchanges and transactions. The results obtained from the analysis of both plays are highly revealing. In Pygmalion, there is a role reversal and the acts, moves and exchanges which are quite peculiar to Professor Higgins are adopted by Eliza towards the end of the play: throwing the slippers as an act of liberation. The study shows that Eliza’s sex remains the same, but her gender changes towards the end of the play when she decides to marry Freddy. In Candida, the maternal aspect of women is emphasized and recommended which refers to Shaw’s ambivalent attitude towards feminism as he tries to uphold patriarchy. The present study is a contribution to the field of language and gender issues that begins with the frameworks of deficient to dominance and difference. But the study tends to move away from an essentialist framework that regards gender as a fixed entity to a constructionist one that considers gender as a fluid social construct residing in interaction. As a result, the study reinforces Butler’s concept of gender as performative, that is, gender is a process which is neither complete nor consummate. Thus, the study upholds libratory and postfeminist tendencies as it helps to identify unequal gender relationship and sheds light on the maternal role of the female. This research is complementary to other approaches of text and is useful for students and teachers because it provides an objective way to explore and construct a response to a text independently. In other words, it equips us with a tool through which we can verify the subjective interpretation of a text made through thematic studies.
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