Symbols In Ishwar Singh's Game Of Cards

Ishwar Singh finally enters a house where he murders several people and then makes a grab for a young, pretty girl and carries her some distance with the purpose of raping her at an abandoned place. It is his intention as he describes in his words using a metaphor from a game of cards to “shuffle her a bit”. It is only after a while he realizes that he has committed rape on a dead girl.

During his next meeting with Kalwant Kaur at her house, he indulges in a flirtatious banter with her where they both refer to sexual foreplay as a game of cards. Ishwar Singh then proceeds to be sexually aggressive with his mistress (something which the author seems to suggest is a common incidence between them). Kalwant Kaur lightly admonishes him …show more content…
Therefore, he seeks to escape this feeling of insufficiency by transferring his violent intentions towards his mistress, Kalwant Kaur: another “other”. He “ogles Kalwant lasciviously, kisses her roughly, pinches her …show more content…
This angers his mistress who, upon hearing his confession about his intentional unfaithfulness, jabs his sword (a masculine and priapic symbol of power ) in his neck. Hence, Ishwar Singh becomes doubly the victim of his own phallus – for it causes the symbolic death of his sexuality and later his physical death. The character of Ishwar Singh thus represents the phallocentric self which always depends on violence to assert his subjectivity.

In her short story “Lihaaf” Ismat Chugtai shows us subversion within the gendered space of the zenana where Begum Jaan challenges patriarchy that attempts to subjugate her on account of her anatomy and sexuality. Sarat Jena is of the view that the gendered space in Chugtai’s Lihaaf becomes a space for acknowledging and celebrating the desires of the body. Begum Jaan’s sexuality is empowering and she poses a challenge to the oppressive politics of the patriarchal set up that tries to rein in female