Abstract
This paper presents a critical analysis of the selected passages from Anita
Shreve’s novel All He Ever Wanted (2003), concerning various roles performed
by women. These (social) roles are manipulated by men for their own interests
and aims, assuming women incapable and incompetent who are negatively
portrayed through their associated roles. People strive to acquire the dominant
roles and, in this race, men always precede. The pendulum hanging over the
point of gender loses equilibrium, becomes awry, and tilts to men’s half. Eagly
and Wood’s (2012) Social Role Theory, which is mainly related to role-oriented
concerns of a person, has provided theoretical underpinnings for the study.
Females, on the basis of their so-called weaker and inferior social status, are
entrusted such roles which identify them to be ‘women’. Relevant ideas of
prominent scholars have been given in the form of literature review which
unmasks the enigma of women with the result that patriarchal society does not
allow women to perform important roles which are thought to be reserved for
men only. The data has been analyzed through Fairclough’s (1989) threedimensional model (CDA). The authors have tried to unveil how various
linguistic patterns contribute to social structures, thereby creating space for
highlighting the injustices and demerits in a social system. The paper is
concluded with the rationale that women’s debilitation is not given; it is rather
the result of the resentment of men against them out of various negative
ideologies associated with women on the basis of the roles that they perform in
the capacity of ‘Women’.
Abdul Waheed Qureshi, Rab Nawaz Khan. (2020) Pendulum Riders: An Analysis of Gender Positioning in Roles in Anita Shreve’s All He Ever Wanted, The Dialogue, Volume 15, Issue 1.
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