PHALLOCENTRISM AND PATRIARCHAL AUTHORITY IN AHMAD ALI’S TWILIGHT IN DELHI: A FEMINIST-STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF MIR NIHAL

Abstract

Twilight in Delhi by Ahmad Ali fits in a great niche of Pakistani English fiction as it is a critical portrayal of Muslim society in pre-Partition India. Despite the fact that the novel has been treated as a historical and cultural discourse, this study examines the novel as an efficient critique of the patriarchal government on the topic of phallocentrism. According to Jacques Derrida concept of the phallocentrism and the feminist theory of patriarchy manifested in the writings of Gerda Lerner and Sylvia Walby the study discusses how the family and social relations in the novel is dominated by male structures of power. The study is a qualitative, descriptive-cum analytical study where a close textual analysis is involved which examines the nature of Mir Nihal as the embodiment of the overriding system of patriarchy. Mir Nihal as depicted in the analysis is absolute in her control over women, subservient men and servants, depriving them of agency, choice and emotional independence. Not only material but also ideological power, his authority defines the life of other people in the modern sense of the way he desires it and reinforces an austere phallocentric pecking order. What the results reveal is that Ahmad Ali is not merely utilizing Mir Nihal as a character, but he is also utilizing him as an allegorical personification of the old-rooted patriarchal order that prevailed in pre-Partition Muslim society. The oppressive nature of phallocentric power is brought out in the novel by anticipating the oppressive aspect of the same, and in this manner, it unveils the marginalization and psychological suffocation of people who had been the victims of male domination. This study contributes to feminist readings of Pakistani English fiction by highlighting Twilight in Delhi as a critical narrative that interrogates patriarchal power and its impact on gendered and social identities.