Ismat Chugtai's Short Story 'Morsel'

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Abstract:
This paper questions the role of marriage through Ismat Chugtai’s short story ‘Morsel’ in achieving a respectable social status for women in society. She ridicules the undue attention given to the marriage ignoring women’s achievements. It highlights how chugtai raises a concern towards the emotional well being of unmarried girls due to the nerve wrecking match making in their daily life. She sarcastically makes a mention of the respectfully married women and gently hints that everything is not so well in their world as well. Finally she ridicules the mythical deliverance of women through marriage in which we so blindly believe as a society.
Keywords: mythical deliverance, marriage an anchor, cultural forces, woman a morsel. Ismat chugtai has a gift of recognizing the ills of the society and presenting them in an utterly farcical manner and finally ridiculing them to nothing. The sarcastic temperament of her work renders her message clear to the reader. In her story ‘Morsel’ Chugtai emphasizes on how the society creates a strong pseudo need in the minds of unmarried girls for a life partner. An unmarried woman is treated as a thing of pity. A divorcee or a widow commands more respect in the society than the girl who has crossed a marriageable age. Even a successful career or a comfortable living condition does not seem to resolve the issue. Precisely, marriage seems to be the only anchor which can absolve a woman of all her woes and miseries to a safe future.

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