Territorial Conceptualization: Woman and Nation in the Short Story of the Partition

Abstract

In this paper, an analysis of the way ‘woman’ and ‘nation’ are defined as ‘territories’ has been
attempted in more senses than one. It is important to note that the short story is the only
genre, which has successfully captured the immediate trauma of Partition. Short stories
written in Urdu by Saadat Hasan Manto, in Hindi written by Krishna Sobti, Bisham Sahni and
Mohan Rakesh, in Punjabi by Rajinder Singh Bedi are all vignettes of the Partition holocaust.
These stories provide an opportunity to study gender roles, both the accorded and the
appropriated within a social system on the verge of total collapse.