Underscoring concerns related to gender studies, postcolonialism, and glocalism, this paper presents a discussion about how local is being presented in chick lit by a Pakistani female author Imtiaz (2016) in her Anglophonic novel Karachi You’re Killing Me! Applying Dirlik’s (1997) theorization about global and local in The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism, where he asserts how the local gives an illusion of empowering the local, but in reality, local is viewed and presented in a parochial manner and put in a reductive category. The focus on the local, therefore, is a new gimmick of colonizers and imperialists. With this theoretical perspective, in this paper, it is argued that the representation of the locals in the novel is eclipsed by the colonial narrative. By underscoring negative aspects of local the writer seems to be performing the role of a native informant and is a re-endorsing colonial narrative about the orient. It is also argued that this local female author has been empowered to write but the agency she is granted is loaded because it is, in fact, quite restricted.
During the Twentieth century Native American literature evolved from anonymity into prominence by assuming a commitment to reflect the particular challenges that faced Native American people during last two centuries. Native American Literature illuminates about Native American lives, culture and how Indian values have changed from traditional tribal to mainstream ones that threatened tribal existence. The paper seeks to substantiate that this literature documents the horrible impact of brutal federal government on Indian’s lives through policies and programs designed to subject them to degrading and confining existence both on physical and mental levels. The paper also seeks to prove that the Indians in order to adapt themselves to the mainstream Euro-American ways lost their old ones along the way but could not adopt mainstream American lifestyle. At the turn of the Twenty First century, because of the coercive strategies for assimilation, American Indians residing on reservations could not become a part of mainstream America but the way back to traditionalism was also farther away and irreversible. The paper also strives to substantiate that Native American literature documents and provokes Indians to assert their tribal identity by retaining many of the tribal ways and values.
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