اُردو افسانے میں مابعد نوآبادیاتی نسوانی بیانیہ: جنس، شناخت اور مزاحمت

Postcolonial Feminist Discourse in the Urdu Short Story: Gender, Identity and Resistance

Abstract

This research explores postcolonial feminist discourse in the Urdu short story with special attention to the interconnected themes of gender, identity, and resistance. It challenges the common assumption that women in Urdu fiction appear only as silent sufferers of social and colonial oppression. Instead, the study argues that these narratives present women as aware and complex individuals who actively negotiate colonial histories, national ideologies and patriarchal power structures. The research highlights that women’s resistance in Urdu short stories is often delicate rather than openly argumentative. Silence, symbolic gestures, control over the female body and the reshaping of personal and collective narratives emerge as meaningful forms of protest. Such strategies allow women to assert agency within restrictive social environments. Through a close and critical reading of selected Urdu short stories, the study demonstrates that female identity is not fixed or singular. Rather, it is fluid, historically rooted and shaped by class, culture, reminiscence and lived experience.

      Reference Roman Urdu Script:

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