Punjabi Cultural Ideology and Social Resistance: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Waris Shah’s Heer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48047/Keywords:
Critical Discourse Analysis, Waris Shah, Heer, Punjabi poetry, family disputes, moral commentary, socio-cultural norms, Fairclough’s modelAbstract
This paper critically analyzed Heer by Waris Shah in terms of criticism to understand how the text establishes social norms, power structure, and moral reasoning of the eighteenth century in Punjab. Through the three-dimensional model by Fairclough, the research examined a total of eight thematic categories including patriarchy, resistance, honor, and love to divine justice and moral retribution. A purposive sample of verses was examined in the aspects of linguistic characteristics, intertextual resonances, and socio-historical connotations. The results indicated that the discourse of Shah criticizes and reinstates the same patriarchal precepts: though his poems critique the exploitation, injustice and feudal oppression, they also affirm communal morality and gender regimes. The discourse of accountability used by him through making use of imperatives, metaphors, idiomatic language, and moral judgments holds the capability to question social injustice but within the framework of an Islamic-Punjabi moral order. Notably, the analysis has shown the cultural memory into the text was not the only and Shah also inserting resistance, identification with the marginalized, and idea of moral retribution of the oppressors. This paper is a contribution to knowledge in the understanding of Heer as a literary work art and a socio-historical document which denotes continuity of culture, negotiation of morals and contestation of power.
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