BEYOND THE NARRATIVE: A FEMINIST STYLISTIC APPROACH TO FRAGMENTATION IN TEHMINA DURRANI’S BLASPHEMY

Abstract

The phenomenon of fragmentation is considered as a linguistic and stylistic tool in the novel Blasphemy by Tehmina Durrani that is addressed in the research paper by analysing it with the help of Feminist Stylistics that has been developed by Sara Mills. The study is a combination of both qualitative and the quantitative methodology, as it carries out a specific analysis of the text to get the results about the way language constructs, as well as re-enforces the fragmentation of the female body in a patriarchal discourse. They provide an impressive table, listing individual lexical items and formulations that help operate the perception of women as non wholesome rather than as coherent individuals. The results demonstrate that the language use in the example of Blasphemy greatly supports the gendered stereotypes and the objectification of female bodies, which contributes to the interpretation of the systematic oppression and violence against females in the novel. Such a study will be helpful in the area of feminist literary criticism because it will help to get to understand the stylistic processes within which gendered identities are formed and deformed in South Asian fiction writing.