Discourse of Resistance and Identity: A Comparative Analysis of Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” and Khaled Hosseini’s “And the Mountains Echoed”

Abstract

This study examines the discourse of resistance and identity in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) and Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed (2013) through a comparative linguistic and discourse-analytic approach. Both novels portray marginalized voices and social realities shaped by political oppression, displacement, and cultural fragmentation. Using the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis combined with stylistic tools, the research explores how each author employs language to construct ideological meaning and to challenge dominant power structures. Roy’s discourse is marked by fragmentation, multilingualism, and political symbolism, reflecting open defiance against caste, gender, and religious hierarchies. In contrast, Hosseini’s narrative employs empathy, silence, and moral reflection to depict resistance as an act of emotional endurance and human resilience. The analysis focuses on lexical choices, syntactic structures, pragmatic features, and ideological representations to uncover how language mediates individual experience and collective struggle. Findings reveal that both authors transform language into a site of ideological negotiation, where resistance emerges not only through overt confrontation but also through compassion and remembrance. The study concludes that discourse in both novels functions as a powerful tool for reclaiming identity and rehumanizing marginalized subjects, emphasizing that storytelling itself becomes an act of linguistic and ideological resistance.