Department of English
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://repository.cuilahore.edu.pk/handle/123456789/19
Browse
9 results
Search Results
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 Construction of Pariah Figure: A Feminist Study of Toni Morrison’s Sula and Qandeel Baloch(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Zuha Khawar; FA16-REL-008; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5169Afro-American novels constitute social, cultural and economic aspects, which deal with the individuality and the social milieu. The novels deal with the exploitation of the black society, their self and identity with psychological and socio-economic dimensions. This critical study analyses Toni Morrison’s Sula and the figure of Qandeel Baloch and her sensational life as presented by Sanam Maher’s The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch, from the perspective of Rene Girard’s theory of Violence and Scapegoat and Sigmund Freud’s concept of Trauma. This research aims to analyse the timeliness and continuing psychological trauma, abusive relationships, rejection, dependence, physical assault, discrimination, brutality, being the victim of a society and the threat of violence from the society. This research deals with the two different perspectives of societies: one is Afro-American and the other is Pakistani. According to Girard’s thought, mimesis is the main characteristic of humans but when it becomes rivalrous it creates conflict and violence between society and individuals. Girard thinks that antiquated religion was founded on the substituting victim and their main goal is to salvage the society from ever-spreading conflict and dissension by conducting violence into a scapegoat. Communal violence, in the form of scapegoating, destroys the subjectivity of the scapegoat or the victim. According to Sigmund Freud, a traumatic event or situation creates psychological trauma when it overwhelms the individual's ability to cope with traumatic events like war and scandals. The traumatic events leave the subject fearing death, annihilation, rejection, mutilation, or psychosis. Toni Morrison’s novel focuses on the psychological aspects of trauma in her work. The traumatic aspect meant to be an innovative experiment in which literature can exceed its precincts by merging into the psychological phenomena. The contradictions and tensions exhibited by Toni Morrison’s characters are the inevitable which is transforming the individuals into the ideal subjects for psychic profiles.Item Freud’s Pleasure Principle in Philip Roth’s Trilogy; The Breast, The Professor of Desire, The Dying Animal(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) MOHIODIN FARHAN; SP17-REL-007; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5321This research explores the patterns of pleasure principle as evident in Philip Roth’s trilogy, The Breast, The Professor of Desire, The Dying Animal. The question of libidinal desires and their fulfillment in the real world has remained a major pre-occupation with human beings from the beginning of this world. In this research, the researcher will highlight the Freud’s view that all of human actions in the world revolve around pleasure principle. The Ego provides a socially acceptable way of fulfilling the desires of Id. Textual analysis has been used as a research method to interpret and analyze the text with the help of extra-textual knowledge such as cross references, Freud’s theory of pleasure principle and secondary resources. The purpose of this research is to highlight the actions which are governed by pleasure principle and how Ego plays an important role in taming the untamed libidinal desires. Id wants the immediate gratification of its desires but Ego puts a check on Id’s demands and provides it a proper way to execute its tasks. Roth’s trilogy, The Breast, The Professor of Desire, The Dying Animal, deals with the protagonist’s divide between the demands of the Id and check put on them by the Ego. This research will also highlight the way in which the protagonist, Kepesh, maintains a balance between his libidinal desires and the societal expectations from him. The reason for conducting this research is that Freud’s pleasure principle with regard to Philip Roth’s work has often gone unnoticed. This research delves into this very aspect of Freud’s pleasure principle and how Kepesh maintains a balance between his desires and the expectations of society from himItem Bride’s Quest for Identity in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child and Closeted Identities in Pakistan(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Abu Bakar Ahmed; FA16-REL-003; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5165This research has been conducted on Bride’s character from Toni Morrison’s novel God Help the Child (2015) and closeted identities in Pakistan. Moreover, a comparison is established between Bride and closeted identities in Pakistan to show how it is impossible for the closeted person to come out of the closet and face the society. In this regard, Bride’s quest for identity being affected by the racism, motherhood and patriarchy is studied through textual analysis of the novel with the help of extra-textual knowledge of the theories related to closetedness, subjectivity, motherhood, racism, social mobility. In the first instant, God Help the Child gives an expression that it merely describes the racism and the child abuse in the society but this research reveals that it also advocates the problems which a child can face in the racist and the sexist society to be socially accepted and how closeted affects the society economically and psychologically. Moreover, this research also reveals that Pakistani homosexuals are suppressed by the religion, constitution and family in the country where a large number of Homosexual minority exist.Item Paradoxical Motherhood in ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘God Help the Child’(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2018) Abdullah Ghulam Nabi; FA16-REL-006; Dr. Jaleel Akhtar; LHR TP 5167This research study has been conducted on the title ‘Paradoxes of Motherhood in The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child’. The aim of the researcher, to conduct this research study, was to investigate the paradoxical factors and their after effects that how these factors affect the lives of black mothers and restrain them from nurturing their children as normal human beings. One aim of the researcher was to get the comparison of the black mother of the modern era and postmodern era in order to understand that either there was any change in the condition of the black mother or not. In order to investigate all these factors, two novels of Toni Morrison, the black writer, The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child have been selected. The argument of this thesis is that the experience of motherhood, especially, mother-daughter relationship gets complicated due to external factors like: slavery, racism, economy, sexism and the single parent motherhood. Because of these factors, mothers displace violence on their children in the form of abuse, emotional neglect and lack of nurture. This research study has used the lenses of Black Feminist theorists like: Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Chodorow, Andrea O’Reilly and Bell Hooks. Primary source of data were both the novels, The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child, and the secondary sources of this study were different thesis, books, articles, and interviews of Toni Morrison. Therefore, the nature of this research was qualitative. The research findings are that the there is no change in the condition of the black mother of old times and post-modern times. Black mother still has to endure all the problems by her own as she used to suffer from breast feeding to nurturance. Morrison exposes the failure of American dream for black people in these novels. Factors like colourism, sexism, racism, residential discrimination and economic marginalization still exist in American society. All these factors put the coloured people, including African American, at disadvantage making the realization of the American dream impossible for them.Item 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.