HEGEMONIC POWER: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS IN AHMAD’S THE WONDERING FALCON AND BAPSI SIDHWA’S THE PAKISTANI BRIDE

Abstract

This research paper compares the discursive construction of hegemonic power/gender discrimination in The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa and The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad in the framework of critical discourse analysis as presented by Norman Fairclough (1992). The paper explores the way these two novels portray the institutionalized oppression of women, orphans and displaced tribes within the tribal societies of the northwestern frontier of Pakistan, where there is a patriarchal society. The analysis shows that discrimination works in three interlaced processes: textual features like lexicalization and transitivity construct discriminative hierarchies as natural; discursive processes, like intertextuality and silencing, naturalize discrimination; and social processes demonstrate how discrimination fulfills ideological functions. The comparative aspect reveals that the psychological realism of Sidhwa uncovers discrimination in the depths of female consciousness; the detached episodic form of Ahmad introduces discrimination as an objective power, which is inherent in tribal social organization. The novels represent discrimination as victims internalize the sense of their devaluation; a process that the study defines as discursive victimhood. The work adds to the postcolonial feminist criticism by applying CDA to the situations where the discriminating power of the state is substituted by the power of kinship.