Sidhwa‟s Ice Candy Man: Study of Physical and Social Exploitation of Women

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to elaborate on the physical and social exploitation of women through the lens of post-colonial feminism theory in the novel Ice Candy Man by Bapsi Sidhwa. This study analyzed how women are exploited in society by a post colonial tale representing a post-colonial setting and its gruesome effects on third world women. This research exposed the sufferings and plight of women by analyzing the terrific incidents; forced marriages, sexual abuses, mutilation of women to take revenge during the partition times, all kinds of violence, and the patriarchal myths to subjugate women as mentioned in the text. This study contributes to English students and future researchers; enables them to understand the importance of post colonial literature in giving voice to the consequences of the colonial era on post colonial women. It will develop critical skills to analyze post-colonial women's post colonial settings and issues. This research will adopt the descriptive and qualitative study method by using post-colonial feminism theory as a theoretical framework. Post-colonial feminism theory is chosen for analysis as the theoretical framework due to its importance for highlighting the miseries of post-colonial women. It intended to view the entire scenario, including socio-historical factors of partition. The expected findings indicated how the women had been physically and socially exploited in colonial and post-colonial society because of social settings and male-dominated society; contributing to the suppression of third-world women. The findings comprised that Sexuality, religion, race, class, and gender altogether contributed to the exploitation of women in a post-colonial setting