THE STUDY OF ALIENATION IN WAJAHAT ALI’S PLAY THE DOMESTIC CRUSADERS

Abstract

In this study, Wajahat Ali's play The Domestic Crusaders serves as the textual basis for the analysis of alienation. The text is revisited through Homi K. Bhabha's ideas on hybridity and ambivalence in order to interpret the alienation of a Muslim Pakistani immigrant family. Bhabha's concept of ambivalence is an influential notion to make sense of cultural differences. Postcolonial theorists argue that ambivalence is indicative of an adaptable subjectivity that is not fixed by either the coloniser or the colonised, so it provides an explanation for the tension that arises when the two seemingly opposing binaries come in contact with one another. Researching the challenges faced by Pakistani immigrants living in the United States, this qualitative study employs close textual analysis. The characters in the story have to deal with the heat of anti-Islamic and anti-Asian sentiments in their daily lives, and the family is subjected to social stereotypes. The study has used descriptive analysis of the text to explore the marginalization of Pakistani immigrants in the American society after September 11. The effect of ambivalence and stereotypes on the various members of a family in the text provides a theoretical framework based on Bhabha's concept of ambivalence and hybridity for understanding the causes of alienation of Pakistani immigrants in the play. The playwright, according to the available research evidence, has presented Bhabha’s hybrid space as a lens to highlight the contrast between the viewpoints of the parents and children in a diasporic family. The main source of friction is that the older Pakistani immigrants and younger generation raised in American culture have different views on what it means to be an individual in the society they live in. The writers depiction of post 9/11 setting in an American diasporic community, the realistic portrayal of characters facing the anti-Islamic wave in the society , the impact of social ambivalence on various characters within the family, all stir thought to ponder the alienation of a diasporic individual.