Bapsi Sidhwas The Pakistani Bride The Oppressive Patriarchal Structure Depicts Zaitoon, Carol and Shehnaz as Marginalized Women

Name of Author : Dr. Anju Bala

Abstract: The debut and seminal novel of Bapsi Sidhwa, The Pakistani Bride is a frightening critique of the multi layered patriarchal institutions of the post-colonial Pakistani community. Wrapped amid the socio cultural borderline between the metropolitan flatteness of Lahore and the tribal inexplicability of the Karakoram mountains, the novel questions the organizational act of obliterating female agency. The present paper focuses on how Sidhwa defines the architectural settings of the patriarchal oppressions and how Zaitoon, Carol, and Shehnaz are inherently marginalized female characters who are enclosed in different paradigms of the male hegemony. With a hybrid theoretical approach of post colonial feminism and spatial marginalization, it is proven in this study that no matter the socio economic status, the geographical place of origin, and the cultural socialization, the female body is an objectified commodity that is vulnerable to monitoring, containment and disciplinary violence. Zaitoon is the victim of tribal codes of barbarism of the Kohistani mountains; Carol is the fugitive of psychological alienation and domestic entrapment of an upper class urban feudal world; and Shehnaz is the prey of the entertainment predator of the extreme socio moral faramine. Through analysis of these three different archetypes, this paper reveals how patriarchy employs tradition, honor codes and localized geographies to bolster the dominance of men, and how traditionally, female resistance and survival tactics are subversive.

Keywords : Patriarchy, Spatial Marginalization, Subalternity, Tribal Honor Codes, Post Colonial Feminism.

DOI :