UNVEILING THE NARRATIVE THREAD IN SHORT FICTION: STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF TARIQ RAHMAN’S THE PATIENT

Abstract

The structure of any literary piece of work plays a vital role in the delivery of its theme and the meanings that the author/s aimed to convey. A better understanding of a literary piece of work’s structural elements i.e, Title, Plot, Climax, Signs and Signified, Synchrony/Diachrony, Conflict, Theme, Binary opposition etc. and how the writer has used them, helps the reader to receive the intended ideas clearly and swiftly.This study is based on the structuralist analysis of Tariq Rahman’s short story The Patient (1991). This analysis aims at explaining the structure of the story to unveil how subtly and sometimes blatantly, Rahman has tried to convey the brutal reality of a middle-class Pakistani household. This is an example of the kind of household where the mother-in-law rules supreme and would rather allow the daughter-in-law to wither away, instead of treating her right, or allowing her son to treat his wife right.