A POSTCOLONIAL FEMINIST STUDY OF THE SELECTED PLAY OF NADEEM

Abstract

The present study explores Shahid Nadeem’s Selected Plays Acquittal, A Granny for All Seasons, Black is My Robe, through the lens of postcolonial feminism as a methodological framework, mainly of Spivak’s stance, Can the Subaltern Speak. The study examines how female characters of Nadeem's plays disclose postcolonial as well as feminist issues such as education, liberty, and basic human rights. The main concern of this study is to analyze women’s sufferings, hardships and struggles for freedom, independence, and emancipation in contemporary times. The study finds out that women are treated as "Others" in order to subject them to patriarchal
dominance and exploit their servile existence. Present study claims that female characters that appear in Nadeem's plays are dehumanized, humiliated, and victimized by the institutes of society, specifically religion. Their close patriarchal kinfolks subjugate their human and civil rights. Women are treated as insignificant half of the society, their fundamental rights are denied, and they are
persecuted and jailed for years despite being innocent. Male members of the society persecute and exploit female members of the society to satisfy their desire to dominate and rule. The plays depict men inflicting cruelty, despair, and fortitude on women. They are destined to be the part of the social fabric which gives them no rights, in which denial, pain, and grief are the norms, and freedom of will and happiness are social taboos for women.