Language as a Tool of Patriarchal Discipline: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Power, Knowledge, and Female Silencing in Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session

Abstract

The present study is an inquiry into Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session: A Joint Theoretical Perspective of Michel Foucault’s Theory of Discourse and Power/Knowledge and Teun A. van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) The study explores the role of language in patriarchal control through the creation of social truths, the regulation of female identity, and the silencing of women’s voices. The play’s mock courtroom is analyzed as a Foucauldian disciplinary space where discourse creates knowledge and shapes Miss Benare as a socially deviant subject instead of acknowledging her as a complex individual. In addition, the study uses van Dijk’s CDA model to explore ideological strategies such as lexicalization, categorization, polarization, presupposition, actor representation and the ideological square which normalize male authority and marginalize female agency. Words such as “accused”, “character”, “crime” and “morality” are ideological tools that the study says turn social prejudice into accepted truth. Courtroom discourse studies demonstrate the reproduction of patriarchal ideology through language and the power of discourse as an instrument of control over identity, morality and representation.