Department of English
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://repository.cuilahore.edu.pk/handle/123456789/19
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item Gender and Morality: An Analysis of Social Constraints and Personal Freedom in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins(2025) Muhammad Zia Ul Haq; CIIT/FA22-REL-013/LHR; Dr. Memoona Idris; LHR TP 10061This thesis examines the complex relationship between gender, morality, and personal freedom in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White within the socio-cultural context of Victorian England. Drawing primarily on Catherine Belsey’s poststructuralist approach to textual analysis, the study treats the novel not as a transparent reflection of reality but as an interrogative text that exposes ideological contradictions embedded in language, narrative form, and representation. Through close textual analysis of selected passages, the research explores how dominant Victorian ideologies—particularly patriarchy, gender norms, legality, sanity, and respectability—construct and regulate moral subjectivities, especially those of women. The thesis further incorporates utilitarian moral theory to evaluate the ethical decisions and behaviors of key characters, highlighting how utilitarian logic is selectively employed or distorted to justify oppression, control, and self-interest. Female characters such as Laura Fairlie, Marian Halcombe, and Anne Catherick are analyzed as sites where moral conflict and social constraint intersect, revealing the tension between imposed virtue and individual agency. Male authority figures, notably Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco, are examined as embodiments of patriarchal power and moral relativism. By foregrounding narrative multiplicity, silences, and contradictions, this study demonstrates how The Woman in White critiques Victorian moral absolutism while anticipating modern debates on gender, ethics, and freedom. Ultimately, the thesis argues that Collins’s novel remains a socially resonant text that challenges rigid moral frameworks and exposes the enduring legacy of gendered injustice.Item Devouring Mother Reinventing: The Stereotype of The Archetypal Mother in Burnt Sugar(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Javeria Ahmed; FA23-REL-014; Dr. Memoona Idris; LHR TP 9742This thesis explores the reinvention of the archetypal Mother in Avni Doshi's novel Burnt Sugar, a novel that challenges classical depictions of mother figures in South Asian literature. The book presents a complex and emotionally charged mother-daughter relationship that challenges the idealised image of the self-sacrificing mother. The overall goal of this research is to examine how Doshi reinvents the mother archetype based on Cathy Caruth's trauma theory of Unclaimed Experience, and also examines intergenerational trauma transmission, emotional neglect, and the search for identity. The research finds an interest in the lack of South Asian literary studies, where mother figures are depicted in binary terms, wholesome or monstrous, without any concern for their psychological complexity. The research is significant because it contributes to feminist and postcolonial studies of literature by offering a sophisticated reading of motherhood based on trauma and memory. Through Braun and Clarke's six-step thematic analysis, this research systematically examines recurring themes of abandonment, fragmentation of identity, and unresolved trauma. The study's research findings reveal that Burnt Sugar challenges the conventional maternal stereotype, depicting motherhood as complicated, conflicted, and constructed by personal and societal forces. This thesis, briefly, contends for a bigger, more realistic representation of maternal identity in contemporary fiction.Item Institutional Racism and Reform Failures: A Thematic Analysis of The Nickle Boys in Relation to U.S. Juvenile Justice Policies(Library Information Services, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, 2025) Faiza Ali Azam; FA23-REL-006; Dr. Memoona Idris; LHR TP 9736The thesis explores the fictional depiction of institutional racism alongside reform deficiencies in The Nickle Boys as portrayed in the U.S. juvenile justice system. The research uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Institutional Betrayal Theory (IBT) to analyze thematic elements of The Nickle Boys by Colson Whitehead, which were developed from Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. The study demonstrates how, despite the Juvenile Delinquency Act and numerous policy reforms throughout decades, Black youth encounter higher detention rates and more severe treatment than their white juvenile counterparts in minority-based institutions. The author discovered major themes throughout Whitehead's novel that match with documented shortfalls in actual corrections systems for young offenders. This thesis shows through literary analysis that Whitehead's novel functions as a historical review and today's juvenile justice system conditions diagnostics. Meaningful changes to juvenile justice need to tackle racial discrimination that coexists deeply within both institutions and their policies. The study defines how literary representations present social justice matters effectively for urging institutional reforms.