I denne study guide kan du få hjælp til at analysere novellen “The Dutiful Daughter” af Saadat Hasan Manto, som kan findes i antologien Wider Contexts, s. 278-281. Udover analyseh jælpen kan du finde et summary af teksten samt idéer til fortolkning og perspektivering.
Præsentation af teksten
Titel: “The Dutiful Daughter” (1948/1990)
Forfatter: Saadat Hasan Manto
Genre: Short story
Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) var en pakistiansk forfatter, som blev født i det dengang britiske Indien. Hans forfatterskab tæller både novellesamlinger og skuespil. Mange af hans fortællinger handler om opdelingen mellem Indien og Pakistan, som skete i forlængelse af, at det britiske imperium frigav deres indiske kolonier.
The “The Dutiful Daughter” blev udgivet første gang på urdu i 1948 (umiddelbart efter opdelingen mellem Indian og Pakistan blev foretaget), mens den engelske version først blev udgivet langt senere, i 1990.
Uddrag
Nedenfor kan du læse et kort uddrag fra vores study guide til teksten:
Title
The title of the short story “The Dutiful Daughter” by Saadat Hasan Manto is misleading. The word “dutiful” misleads readers into thinking they are going to read about a daughter who obeys her parents.
The title suggests how the old woman perceives her daughter, as she thinks the young woman should be returning home from India. However, the title is ironic because the old woman’s daughter ignores her mother (p. 281, ll. 23-26). She most likely accepted or chose to live a new life with her Indian husband and, consequently, to distance herself from her past life and culture.
The narrator also thinks about whether some of the abducted women have really been abducted or have chosen to follow their husbands willingly: “I had always thought that when a woman ran away from home with her lover – the police always called it ‘abduction’ – it was the most romantic act in the world” (p. 279, ll. 27-30). This suggests the nuanced and delicate situation of women after the partition of British India, as in some cases they didn't fulfill their parents' expectation and might end up (willingly or unwillingly) renouncing their culture and origins.
