Department of English
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Item Terrorism: A Critical Study of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Tahoor Ali; FA16-REL-015; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5174This current study critically analyses Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, from perspective of terrorism as cause of modern crises like migration, identity politics and bloodshed in the name if identity. This research aims to analyses post-nationalism, forced migration, change in Muslim identity on global level as resultants of terrorism. In modern times nationalism has become a flawed concept. The lack of belongingness of a person to any place is revealing the emptiness within himself. This shattering condition became more disastrous when World Trade Centre was attacked. The post 9/11 fiction is abundant with such examples where humanity is a victim to terrorism. A new suspicious identity was given to the followers of Islam. Being a Muslim s/he was blamed for terrorist attacks. The legacy of terrorism is haunting the new generation. The corporeal and monstrous transformations in the life of immigrants is demonstrated by most of the South Asian writers. Shamsie and Hamid have declared this alarming chaos through the mouth pieces of their characters. Isma’s interrogation, her brother’s assassination, Nadia and Saeed’s escape through magical doors, all incidents are depicting a graphical picture of the whole terrorized world. Qualitative method of research is used for analysis of both novels. Soren Frank, Hannah Arendt, Alex P. Schmid, Edward Said, Vamik D. Volkan’s Work is used as secondary resources in order to interpret primary texts. This dissertation also borrows insights of Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jurgen Habermas and Sigmund Freud to meet research purposes of current thesisItem Destruction of Landscape: An Ecocritical Study of Hemingway’s Major Novels (A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea)(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Muhammad Tayyab; SP16-REL-010; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5316New critical approaches to literature reveal hidden themes which improve our understanding of literary works. Ecocriticism is a combination of ecology and literature. It is an interdisciplinary field in which literary works are analysed in the light of ecological discourses. According to Aristotelian theory, settings play a vital to understand a literary work. Eco critics explore literary works to explain environmental conditions in literature. Earnest Hemingway presents wars and intrusion of machines on panoramic meadows. He depicts macho animal killers in his work. He presents outdoor activities through fishing, bullfighting and hunting. These activities create environmental degradation. His primitiveness creates eco-ambiguity. Warships in his two novels, A Farewell to the Arms and For Whom the Bells Tolls highlight destruction of environment because of human activities. In panoramic meadows, soldiers fight each other which creates destruction for humans as well as for ecosystem. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway depicts marine life. Young fishermen exploit seascape with their modern fishing techniques in the sea. Bullfighting, hunting and fishing are blood sports. These games exploit non-human world. Hunting and fishing might be presented as search for wilderness. Hemingway’s primitivism projects his characters’ contradicting fight against natural environment. This study attempts to understand the interplay of human activities, like war and hunting, and their destructive impact on the landscape through the lens of ecocriticism.Item Multiplicity of Identities in the New Millennium(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Arooma Kanwal; FA16-REL-013; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5173In our contemporary era of subversion of identities, the issue of millennial identities has assumed unprecedented significance and scope. This research intends to discuss the complexities and nuances of the millennial identities at the dawn of 21st century. One of the basic contentions is to find patterns by explicating Simon de Beauvoir and Judith Butler's perspectives of identities in Toni Morrison's latest novel God Help the Child. At the turn of 20th century, Simon de Beauvior talked about performative nature of gendered identities. She famously said "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman". Famous American writer Scott Fitzgerald also defined human embodiment as a series of performative gestures. What these writers were defining about nature and mercurial essence of human personality or identity is equally true and valid about the millennial identities or the 21st century gendered, queer and closeted identities. Butler's statement "one does one's body" adds weight to the argument that in the new millennium all identities are up for grab as they have become more fluid, malleable and plastic. There are plenty of examples, like Oprah Winfrey, Rachel Dolezal, Tiger Woods, Obama, Micheal Jackson and the list goes on. All of them embody the spirit of the new millennial in their own unique fashion. However, the main objective is to bring in the politically, socially and sexually persecuted oppressed minorities or the subaltern identities, who do not necessarily occupy positions of acclaim and prestige and are struggling to create some space for themselves without giving in to existing societal norms and scripts. For example, in Pakistani context, the new millennial women are those who appropriate aspects of identities which are non-conventional and perhaps multi or transcultural. Their act of passing as the new millennials resides in their ability to demolish gendered prejudice and stereotypes by establishing avenues of cross-racial understanding. This research ix on the new millennial identities aims to demonstrate this by way of comparative study with Toni Morrison‘s latest novel God Help the Child. It is important because Morrison's take on the new millennial in the God Help the Child talks about these kinds of subversive identities to highlight how the queerness of identities and malleability of the black body, in fact, all the bodies in God Help the Child has contemporary relevance to our society.Item Dynamics of Power Relationship in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing and To Room Nineteen(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Samar Muhammad Ali; SP16-REL-009; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5175Doris Lessing contributes to the notion of power dynamics through self-representational social divisions and power-structures in her works. The aim of this study is to explore how Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing and To Room Nineteen portray the dynamics of power behind the social constructions of forces like patriarchy and social constraints. The study aims at finding out how structural power and resultant strategic action are related to each other and to outcomes of these from Lessing’s perspective. Identities are individual and collective that answer the question ‘who am/are/I/we?’ Hegemonic discourses of power and identity politics create invisible experiences of the more marginal members of that specific social category and construct a homogenized ‘right way’ to be its member. This is where the female protagonists of Lessing are Outsiders. The androcentric biased concept, ‘power-dependent’ or ‘power-independent’ complicates the positioning and placement of these women against social and personal domains. Because of the values and culture of male domination and of discrimination against women, women have been deprived of their subjective position. Fanatic patriarchal norms are regulated to suppress women’s exercise of power. The intersectional social divisions or the power structures influence an individual’s identity and control them. These power relations are based on control over authority, legitimacy, resistance, and power-dependencyItem Philip Roth’s The Human Stain: A Millennial Novel of Passing(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2019) Shifa Khalid; SP17-REL-004; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5639The study is analysis of black-white assimilation that was part of African-American history as well as is face of present day progressive but stereotypical world. The aim is achieved by analysing Philip Roth’s The Human Stain which is the final part of a trilogy by the same author. Roth’s fictional alter ego, Zuckerman, as in most of his works becomes Roth’s justification of writing a passing narrative that brings into its focus racial and social structures, and also comments on the discrimination in each sphere that mars the history; the passing of blacks as whites. The qualitative textual analysis unfolds intricate weaving of the characters and the author. Using Lacan’s Mirror Stage Theory, the present study deciphers not only Coleman, who is representation of the blacks in the mentioned work, but also Zuckerman, Roth’s alter ego, and finally Roth himself. Lacan’s mirror stage explains how one develops subjectivity and fragmentation, and how these cause diversion from one’s society in order to reach one’s own self. Protagonist, a black, in the novel struggles with the conscious efforts of marking borders of race, class and self which for rest of the white America is largely an unconscious effort. The study, eventually, establishes the ever present struggle for freedom and social progression which often finds its expression in passing as whites for blacks. It helps in understanding American myth and society, and serves as a window that lays bare the difficulties faced by African Americans when assimilating in a society and a culture that does not support their skin colour. Finally, it is observed that the struggles of the history become the efforts of the modern times and the vicious cycle of passing continues as ever.