Female Characters in Ismat Chugtai’s Short Stories

Abstract

Chugtai is a leading name amongst female Urdu writers of this century. Chugtai’s contribution is easily sequestered to her bold narrative in her famous short story “Quilt”, but the author wrote many other short stories with substantial gravitas. This paper thereby is an attempt to assess female characters in her lesser known stories, and highlight the author’s deftness at bringing up female issues which others felt scared to discuss about. Chugtai is vociferous, her voice is not one to be easily snubbed and she is relevant. She was way ahead of her times, and thereby her stories strike a chord even today.