Gendered violence and psychological suppression on women in light of “the young wife and other stories” by zaib un nissa hamidullah (1958)
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Date
2021
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UMT.Lahore
Abstract
This study is particularly aimed at exploring the acts of violence and the psychological suppression of women in the award-winning composition of Zaib un Nissa Hamidullah, “The Young Wife and Other Stories,” (1958). Hamidullah has chiefly unveiled feminine issues of marginalization, objectification, and gendered violence in her short stories. Spivak (1998) in “Can the Subalterns Speak?” has unearthed that women have been continuously deprived of raising voice for themselves throughout history. Using this specific notion of Spivak, this paper argues that Hamidullah's female characters are forced to be silent, and to sustain this situation, men unleash violence on them. Connell (2005) states, “hegemonic masculinity was understood as the pattern of practice that allowed men's domination over women to continue” (p. 832). The study has been carried out in a qualitative descriptive manner via the theory of 'The Excitable Speech' by Judith Butler (1997) to explore Marxist feminist perspective, the acts of violence, and measure the dreadful impact of patriarchal society on suppressed women. The acts of violence are both physical and verbal. Verbal violence is the injury caused by hurtful speech acts. As Butler (1997) says in ‘Excitable Speech: A politics of the Performative’ “Linguistic injury appears to be the effect not only of the words by which one is addressed but the mode of address itself, a mode: -a disposition or conventional bearing- that constitutes a subject, (p. 1).” The study will provide a gateway for future feminist literary critics to explore and analyze the concerns of hegemonic masculinity, cultural stereotypes, and gender roles in the post-colonial paradigm.