Analyzing the Portrayal of Gender Roles and Power

Dynamics in the Selected Short Stories of Their Language of

Love by Bapsi Sidhwa

Introduction of Research Scholar Introduction of Supervisor

Name: Usman Najam Name: Syed Abuzar Naqvi
Roll No: 012 Designation: Lecturer
Class: M.Phil Department: English
Session: 2021-2023 Spring Institute: Minhaj University Lahore

School of English
Faculty of Languages

MINHAJ UNIVERSITY LAHORE

 Research Proposal

Program: MPhil Session: 2021-23 Spring

Subject: English Literature
Name of Student: Usman Najam Roll No: 012
Father’s Name: Najam ul Islam

Analyzing the Portrayal of Gender Rules and Power Dynamics in the Selected Short
Stories of Their Language of Love by Bapsi Sidhwa

Introduction

This research probes into the intricacies of gender and power dynamics in post-

partition Pakistan through the collection of short stories Their Language of Love by Bapsi

Sidhwa (Sidhwa, 2013), Sidhwa’s selected short stories written in the backdrop of

multicultural and multilingual society. The research explores how gender roles are portrayed,

and how language and culture intersect with gender to shape the female character’s identities,

relationships, and agency. Tis research will take into consideration the postcolonial theory

proposed by Reina Lewis and Sarah Mills (2003) in their book Feminist Postcolonial Theory:

A Reader (Lewis, R & Mills, S., 2003). It further discusses the marginalization and feminist

thought about race, power, culture and empire in relation to postcolonial theory. From the

theoretical perspective, this research focuses on the key issues of feminist postcolonialism

such as gender, sexuality, representation and development of effective political activism.

This research also investigates the characters’ experience of war, intimacy, and

societal expectations, and how power dynamics related to gender impact their lives. Through

its naunced portrayal of gender and power dynamics, Their Language of Love offers a rich

and complex exploration of the ways in which gender norms and expectations intersect with

language, culture, and societal structures. This research also aims to explore the portrayal of

multifaceted gender roles in Their Language of Love and reveals the complexities and
contradictions of gender identities in post-partition Pakistan. The collection of short stories

portrays how women narrate war experience and centers of power politically and apolitically.

The characters, in the short stories, navigate these gender roles in different ways, sometimes

conforming to them, and at other times challenging or subverting them, providing a rich

ground for analysis of power dynamics related to gender.

This research studies the role of language and culture in shaping the characters’

identities and relationships in the selected short stories. The multilingual and multicultural

context of post-partition Pakistan, with its diverse linguistic and cultural traditions, adds

layers of complexity to the characters’ experiences of gender. The novel portrays how

language and culture intersect with gender, influencing the characters’ perceptions of self,

politics, war and societal expectations.

Furthermore, this research explores how the characters in the short stories grapple

with unequal power dynamics based on their gender, which shape their choices, actions, and

relationships it emphasizes on how power is negotiated, contested, and sometimes abused in

relation to gender, shedding light on the dynamics of power and gender relations in post-

partition Pakistan.

Objectives

1. To explore how the characters in the selected short stories of Their Language of Love

navigate and challenge gender norms and expectations, and analyze the impact of

such actions on their agency and relationships, using a feminist lens.

2. To critically examine the role of language and culture in reinforcing or contesting

gender-based power dynamics in post-partition Pakistan as depicted in the selected

short stories of Their Language of Love, and explore the implications of these

dynamics for gender relations in the society.

Rationale / Significance

The significance of this research is to notice the traces of political oppression, loss of

business and prejudice on religious basis from the experience and voice of female characters

of the selected short stories of Their Language of Love by Bapsi Sidhwa. This research also

provides a deeper understanding of the complexities of gendered experiences in a

multicultural context. The analysis will also highlight the ways in which literature can reflect

and challenge societal norms and expectations related to gender, making it a significant

contribution to the field of literary and gender studies.

Research Questions

1. How do the characters in the selected short stories of Their Language of Love by

Bapsi Sidhwa negotiate, challenge, or subvert gender norms and expectations, and

how does the impact their agency and relationship?

2. What is the role of language and culture in reinforcing or contesting gender-based

power dynamics in post-partition Pakistan as depicted in the selected short stories of

Their Language of Love by Bapsi Sidhwa?

Review of the Literature

Nabi, yasir and Saleem (2021) investigate the approximation of the usage of

appropriateness between two novels of Bapsi Sidhwa naming Water (2006) and collection of

short stories, Their Language of Love (Nabi, S. A., Yasir, L. & Saleem A, 2021). The

qualitative approach was adopted in this research. The elements of appropriateness were

applied to elicit data from the text. The words and verbal tokens were the outcomes, which

were further categorized into the predominant themes and concepts. This analysis supplied

enough evidence to support the hypothesis that Sidhwa has reduced the use of the technique
of Appropriateness are reduced in their appearance in the later work of Sidhwa (Nabi, S. A.,

Yasir, L. & Saleem A, 2021). This work shows that appropriateness has been decreased in its

approximation on the continuum.

Khan, Lodhi and Naveed (2020) gave the thematic progression and the method of the

mimetic development (Khan, S. A., Lodhi, M. L, & Naveed, H., 2020) Their aim of study

was to study the distinct patters of thematic distribution and choice which is revealed to the

two types of structure, distribution and choice. It contributes towards the understanding and

explicit description of these texts. Moreover, the approach taken in this study shows potential

for further research and pedagogic applications. This research is purely qualitative elaborates

the dimension of thematic apprehension (Khan, S. A., Lodhi, M. Il, & Naveed, Hl, 2020). She

was a great writer, authorized many themes related to the feminist fiction. Her short stories

highlight the emotions with some calmness. It employs different techniques with a variety of

themes. This study found that the female characters in Their Language of Love by Sidhwa

have succeeded in conveying a portrait of real women which is both realist and balanced.

Moreover, this study also gives the representations of real women.

Khan, Lodhi and Naveed (2020) elaborate that females always have been the topic of

discussion under different aspects discussed in literature. From some last decades there have

been some debatable titles in writing especially postcolonial literature. In Pakistan, the

writers who have a name on the conversation of feminism; Bapsi Shdwa is a good name in

them. “Feminism is a broad topic to mentioning but it would be interested when telling about

particular comparactive analysis with the male author representing the society” (Khan, S. A.,

Lodhi, M. I., & Naveed, H., 2020). Pakistani society has a patriarchal building block in it so

its criteria of debate and the way the other take it, are different. This study helps to enhance

the space for a female. It also states that the life depends on the thoughts of society and it

varies the representative styles of authors.

 Choudhury (2022) elaborates the Bapsi Sidhwa’s characterization of Lenny Sethi in

he fourth novel, the 1991 historical fiction Ice-Candy-Man, is formulated by the

heterogeneous impact of the 1947 partition of India on the psychopathology of children. This

paper observes how the trope of trauma problematizes the embodiments of childhood,

contracting its axiomatic paradisiacal nature. Parallel to the chaos of communal massacre,

mass migration, dysfunctional parenting and the marginality of women and children, Lenny’s

traumatic experience surpasses a singular-episodic trauma, and is laden with a multiplicity of

source factors, thereby generating complex trauma. The child narrator acquires symptoms of

irregular curiosity, hyper-vigilance. Lenny is a choreographed child, a problem-child,

taxonomized as the ‘adult-child’ in the paper (Choudhury, 2020). The second story was Sera

Bai who was the protagonist of another story titled in the same named, also shows with what

profundity youngsters adopt their culture because these cultures have many things that are

otherwise very cheap but praised by youngsters who are mature enough to see and observe

the curses of civilization this colonial power owns. They’re where this colonial power owns

the family. Their family system has finished. Hence, all the above-mentioned literature

review left enough room open for future researchers to discover new dimensions of gender

roles and powe dynamics from the female voice and experience in the selected short stories

of Their language of love by Bapsi Sidhwa.

Research Gap

This research shows the involvement female characters in the understanding of

political changes, war happenings and alteration in their own socio-economic standing with

the emerging political and peace instability in the nascent democratic country. As in the case

of the selected short stories of Their language of love by Bapsi Sidhwa. Through the genre of

short stories female voice was raised against the religious based prejudice against minorities
and women development in the stories in break such power related stereotypes and creating

new spaces and voices.

Research Design and Methodology

For analysis this research follows textual analysis to explore the gender roles and

power dynamics. It is achieved by investigating female characters and challenging gender

norms established by patriarchy particularly in the corridors of state power. It has used

qualitative method to analyze the primary text in the forms of short stories Their language of

love by Bapsi Sidhwa and theory of post-colonial feminism rendered by Reina Lewis and

Sarah Mills (2003) in their book Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. The development

of female characters and their narration are focused in the short stories of Their language of

love. Further, this research will take into consideration the language and culture and their

intersection with gender-based political and war narratives.

Delimitations and Limitations

S To delimit the findings and area of specialization, this research has only focused on

the major female characters particularly the narrators of Bapsi’s short stories given in Their

language of love. Only five short stories have been analyzed to attain the objectives of this

research. Consequently, the research questions of this research revolve around the female

identity, agency and the impact of language and culture on women to resist and redefine

gender norms from feminist perspective.

The limitations are related to the scarcity of research article on Their language of love

from feminist perspective. The selection of genre in the form of short stories render its own

short coming to analyze the characters particularly the female in the short stories It may keep

research findings open for further research.

Proposed Chapters for Thesis

Chapter No. 1 Introduction

Chapter No. 2 Historical Context

Chapter No 3 Review of the Literature

Chapter No 4 Research Design and Methodology

Chapter No 5 Result and Discussions

Chapter No 6 Conclusion

Reference
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