Nawabdin Electrician Analysis

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NAWABDIN ELECTRICIAN BY DANIYAL MOEENUDDIN MARXIST CRITICISM The work under discussion is a short story “Nawabdin Electrician” from a book ‘In Other Rooms, Other Wonders’ written by a Pakistani writer Daniyal Moeenuddin. As the name suggests the story is about Nawabdin, who works for a wealthy landlord K.K. Horouni. He is unfortunately the father of thirteen children—twelve daughters and a son. Therefore, he has to work hard to be able to marry them off because for “an electrician and mechanic, no matter how light-fingered, there seemed no question of marrying them all off.” The pay he gets from Harouni is not sufficient, so Nawabdin uses his skills to earn money from his neighbours and villagers and favours from his master. This desire of earning more and more leaves him with an empty soul which cannot extend even a sympathetic gesture to those who are beneath him. “Nawabdin Electrician” does not celebrate the feudal culture it portrays. It is possible to see here a mild social critique of an utterly corrupt system. In this unjust society where have’s and have not’s are widely apart, the story demonstrate in clear terms that everyone here has to resort to some illegal or corrupt way to survive in the society. Whether it is Nawabdin, a…show more content…
There is not a single character that is presented as downright and honest. Although Moeenuddin does not discuss these characters sarcastically, he does not even show them in better light either. It is an unfortunate fact about our society that persons standing at different poles of social ladder think negatively about the others. The writer who is a feudal lord himself could not find any good person from his peasants. Perhaps it is because of the fact that good people do not make interesting characters. There should be some shades of grey to make the character exciting enough to grip the readers’
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