HONOUR, IDENTITY, AND CRISIS IN THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF GHANI KHAN’S SELECTED POETRY FROM THE PILGRIM OF BEAUTY

Abstract

This article deals with the representation of masculinity in crisis in three English translated poems of Ghani Khan – The Chivalrous and Honour-bound, Oh Young Man! and Go My Child! Proceed Apace! — all from The Pilgrim of Beauty (trans. Imtiaz Ahmad Sahibzada, 2014). This study uses close textual analysis in the context of R. W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and masculinity in crisis, coupled with Catherine Belsey’s model of ideological contradiction in literary texts, to investigate how Ghani Khan’s poetic discourse questions the masculine ideals found in Pakhtunwali, the traditional ethical code of Pakhtun society. The analysis shows how the three selected poems engage in a sustained critique of the performative masculine honour: Go My Child! Proceed Apace! dramatises the crushing weight of hegemonic masculine expectation; The Chivalrous and Honour-bound reveals the gap between claimed honour and actual conduct through biting satirical irony; and Oh Young Man! registers the collective implications of masculine failure as cultural and social decline.  The poems together show Ghani Khan’s poetic persona not as a participant of Pakhtun martial manhood but as its most philosophical critic, one who locates masculinity in crisis not in individual weakness but in the structural contradictions of a patriarchal code that promises moral authority while producing anxiety, hypocrisy and disillusionment. The study contributes to Pashto literary criticism, masculinity studies and translation studies.