Religious and Cultural Manipulation of Gender Roles in The Bull and the She Devil by Zeb Un Nisa Hameedullah

Dr Amna Saeed,Azan Khalid,Dr Syed Shuja'At Ali

doi:10.51411/rahat.4.2.2020.240

Dr Amna Saeed, Azan Khalid + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.51411/rahat.4.2.2020.240

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Abstract

This paper attempts to study the exploitation of women that takes place in the rural areas of Pakistan in the name of cultural and religious norms. Its main focus is to do analysis of Zeb Un Nisa Hameedullah’s short story titled The Bull and the She Devil under the Lacanian psychoanalytic model delimited to the Mirror stage. The Mirror stage speculates that an individual recognizes himself in the mirror literally and figuratively. In the short story, Ghulam Qadir, the main character, sees himself in the mirror of his newlywed wife and recognizes his weakness. He projects his weaknesses that mainly surface up after his marriage. He does not realize his own shortcomings; rather he puts the entire blame of his failures upon his wife, Shirin, who is committed to her, and does not resist to him like a typical rural woman of Pakistan. The setting of the story locates the rural area of the Punjab province of Pakistan. Ghulam Qadir gives different labels to her and one of the harsh label he uses against Shirin is Devil. This term reveals the psyche of Ghulam Qadir who conceives his wife as a sign of bad happenings, murders her, and commits suicide in the end. The very term, foremost, reflects the inmost of the Pakistani rural men who hold absolute power in the family and misuse the religious and cultural norms just in order to extend their long established hierarchical structure where woman is mere a subject to them. This study reveals that males of the rural areas of Pakistan express their psychological frustration over women and allege them by taking refuge under the umbrella of religion.

Highlights

This paper attempts to study the exploitation of women that takes place in the rural areas of Pakistan in the name of cultural and religious norms
“In both rural as well as urban society, Pakistan remains rigidly a patriarchal society, in which women are treated as chattels, ‘given’ or ‘acquired’ through arranged marriages to spend their lives in the service of a male dominant system.”[6]. Marriage is one of the major sources to control women in the patriarchal setup of Pakistani society
Research Questions: 1) How is husbands’ lack/inferiority projected in/onto the wife and to what consequences in Pakistani society it leads as depicted in the short story The Bull and the She Devil? 2) How is religion misused to control the women in patriarchal society of Pakistan with reference to the selected story? Religious and Cultural Manipulation of Gender Roles: Islam, as a religion, is one of the only religions that gives women rights, equality and protection in society

Summary

Introduction

This paper attempts to study the exploitation of women that takes place in the rural areas of Pakistan in the name of cultural and religious norms. While nowhere in religion one comes across any claim that men are superior to women but cultural interpretation of religious norms enforces these things in society It has, grown out to be a common tendency in the psyche of the male that he can dominate whenever he is stressed, frustrated and alone. It appears to be a chaotic state of mundane affairs when the rural women are suppressed in both situations: if they do not do their household works, they are badly treated, and on the contrary, if they enjoin with their husbands to resolve the daily affairs, they are again maligned as happens with Shirin He calls her ‘She Devil!’ which basically reveals the typical manly nature of the rural men of Pakistan who assume women as sign of negativity and evilness.

Objectives

Conclusion