INTERTEXTUALITY IN EGYPTIAN NOVEL WOMEN AT ZERO POINT AND BAPSI SIDHWA’S THE PAKISTANI BRIDE: AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF GENRE

Abstract

The present work tends to analyze Bapsi Sidhwa's novel "The Pakistani Bride" (1983) from the perspective of 
intertextuality. For this purpose, the researchers have taken into consideration an Egyptian novel under the title 
"Women at Zero Point" (1975) and a Pakistani novel "The Pakistani Bride" (1983), and sorted out the references 
that Sidhwa has adopted in her work from the selected Egyptian novel. So the the major source of primary data was 
the texts of the two selected novels. Resultantly, this paper presents various types of oppression like physical 
oppression, psychological oppression, sexual ill-treatment cultural turmoil, etc as intertextual clues in Sidhwa's 'The 
Pakistani Bride' (1983) adopted from the Egyptian work Women at Zero Point (1975). The first intertextual clue that 
was found was the similarity in the main characters i.e. Zaitoon from Sidhwa's novel and Ferdaus from the Egyptian 
novel. In addition, other references like theme, context, and cultural practices are also used as intertextual clues. 
The findings of this work reveal that various clues that have been utilized by Sidhwa connecting her work with the 
Egyptian novel