Exploration of Marginalized Characters in “The Search”: Subaltern Voices (Published)
Shaheen Akhter’s The Search is a novel that gives insight to how the 1971 liberation war was perceived by various groups of people, from the people of power to the powerless and the victims of that power. It also explores the theme of marginalization, subalternity and cultural hegemony particularly through its portrayal of women, who were not only victims of war and oppression of the enemy but also by their own people and kins. Through the lens of subaltern theory and by using a qualitative approach, this paper aims to expose how the characters of the novel became subalterns, were marginalized by the enemy power and the very society that they themselves belonged to. While focusing on the possible causes that are responsible for their silence, this paper tries to be the voice of the unrecognized whose voices often go unheard, misheard and ultimately muted. Even if they attempt to express themselves, their words are never truly acknowledged.
Keywords: Subaltern, War Victims, cultural hegemony, marginalization, oppression.
Tyrannizing Diversity: Feminist Politics and Sectarian Strife in Aslam’s The Golden Legend (Published)
The Golden Legend (2017) by Nadeem Aslam is a fictional work that explores the intersectional issues of women’s oppression and sectarian violence in Pakistani society. The present study aims to examine the depiction of women’s oppression, exploitation, and marginalization in Aslam’s The Golden Legend. It seeks to unveil the patriarchal structures that exist in Pakistani society and contribute to gender oppression faced by women on a daily basis. Sylvia Walby’s work, Theorizing Patriarchy (1990), serves as the primary text for this research, which outlines six interdependent patriarchal structures, including patriarchal production mode, patriarchal paid work relations, male violence, patriarchal state, patriarchal culture, and patriarchal relations in sexuality. The research employs these structures to demonstrate how they work together to promote the ideology of patriarchal tyrants in society. Additionally, the study also highlights sectarian oppression to bring attention to the injustices faced by women from different sects. The research argues that the intersection of gender and sect is one of the major factors that exacerbate oppression in any society, which is why women from different sects are often subjected to coercion, as portrayed by Aslam in The Golden Legend. The research seeks to shed light on the urgent need to eradicate patriarchal and sectarian ideologies that perpetuate oppression in society. Therefore, the study first exposes the oppressive patriarchal structures in contemporary Pakistani society and then brings to light the oppression faced by women of the Christian faith due to their gender and sect.
Keywords: intersectional oppression, marginalization, oppressive patriarchal structures, sectarianism, systematic violence
The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights (Published)
This paper is an attempt to bind the reader to the complexities of otherness and marginalization as trauma experienced by the protagonist and other immigrants in the America depicted in Brooklyn Heights[i]. In all of their complexities and nuances that this paper seeks to explore and discuss these concepts, otherness, alienation, and marginalization, in light of Homi Bhahba’s concept of otherness and Daphne Grace’s theorization on the geographical senses of ‘belonging’ or ‘dislocation’. As such, since Al-Tahawy’s narrative focuses on spaces of otherness and marginalization, this paper aims to reveal how the novelist tends towards the deeply personal, and creates interesting transnational connections through a wide cast of multi-racial immigrants and refugees. The paper further exposes how Al-Tahawy, through her compelling and masterful style, captures the confusions and conflicts of marginalized immigrants and how otherness and marginalization, as experiences of social and psychological disjunction, lead to cultural alienation in America; how attempts at assimilation in a new host country even further highlight the sense of loss and alienation, especially if the immigration from the original home country takes as a result of a traumatic event; and whether or not assimilation necessarily nullifies one’s ethnicity or means total disappearance or “dissolving” into the mainstream.
Citation: Farouq Rezq Bekhit Sayyid (2022) The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.3, pp.1-15
Keywords: Acculturation, Assimilation, Otherness, Trauma, al-tahawy, brooklyn heights, marginalization