TECHNOLOGIES OF GENDER IN SOUTH ASIAN ROMANTIC FOLKTALES:A FEMINIST NARRATOLOGICAL READING THROUGH BACCHILEGACASE STUDIES OF HEER RANJHA,SASSUI PUNNHUN,UMAR MARVI,AND ADAM KHAN-DURKHANI

Abstract

 This study utilizes Cristina Bacchilega’s feminist narratology, as articulated in Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies, to examine four canonical South Asian romantic folktales: Adam Khan and Durkhani, Heer Ranjha, Sassui Punnhun, and Umar Marvi. Although these stories have long been regarded as cultural treasures and romantic archetypes, scholarship has primarily focused on their poetic, moral, or symbolic value, ignoring the narrative structures as ideological systems that construct and regulate femininity. To close this gap, the current study uses Bacchilega's concepts of "technologies of gender," "narrative containment," "voice and silence," and "bloody chambers" to show how these folktales both glorify and constrain female agency. The analysis reveals that female characters are portrayed as embodiments of beauty, loyalty, endurance, and moral authority in all four cultural traditions. Nonetheless, these qualities are narratively intended to maintain patriarchal social orders. Voice is permitted, but it is always framed in masculine terms, whereas silence, suffering, and sacrifice emerge as the ultimate markers of authentic womanhood. Symbolic spaces—rivers, deserts, havelis, and pastoral landscapes—begin as sites of empowerment but eventually function as mechanisms of containment through narrative closure. Comparative findings show significant regional variation. Pashtun and Punjabi stories resolve female resistance through romantic martyrdom or tragic transcendence; Sindhi tradition prioritizes spiritual disappearance; and Thari folklore allows for community reintegration, but only with divine validation. These differences point to culturally specific strategies that share a common ideological goal: to celebrate women's strength while keeping it non-threatening to patriarchal structures. By reimagining South Asian folktales as active "technologies of gender," this study broadens Bacchilega's framework to non-Western traditions and emphasizes folklore's ongoing role in shaping cultural understandings of women. It contributes to feminist narratology by emphasizing the ideological machinery embedded in narrative form and lays the groundwork for future comparative, intersectional, and reception-based studies of folklore, gender, and cultural identity