The Politics of Voice in the Stereotypical Representation of the Pashtun: A Critical Study of Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

Rab Nawaz Khan and Abdul Waheed Qureshi
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Rab Nawaz Khan: Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Mardan, KP, Pakistan
Abdul Waheed Qureshi: Assistant Professor, Department of English, Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Mardan, KP, Pakistan

Global Social Sciences Review, 2018, vol. 3, issue 2, 387-403

Abstract: The current study is an attempt to critically analyze the role and politics of voice in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in terms of categorical and stereotypical representation of the Pashtuns. It is a critical discourse study (Norman Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of the selected data. Moreover, the data is viewed from the perspective of critical discourse studies. The novels under study are polyphonic in nature, and the characters belong to various Afghan ethnic backgrounds, like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The study concludes that the novelist's choice of the characters with their respective voices and the roles assigned to them are political, ideological and somewhat biased. The Pashtuns have been stereotypically represented by categorizing them as the social, well-educated and more or less liberal Pashtuns, the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns, extremist and fundamentalist Pashtuns, like Taliban. Misrepresentation of the tribal and fundamentalist Pashtuns as racists, ethnic nationalists, ideologists, sexists, exclusionists, traditionalists and power-abusers is indicative of the novelist's biasedness and exaggeration.

Keywords: The Politics of Voice; Discource; Representation; Categorization; Stereotyping; Critical Stylists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gss:journl:v:3:y:2018:i:2:p:387-403

DOI: 10.31703/gssr.2018(III-II).22

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