Language, Resistance, and Power: A Feminist Discourse Analysis of Sultana’s Dream

Abstract

Feminist discourse occupies a vital place in Indian literature, offering a critical space to interrogate deeply entrenched patriarchal systems within Indian society. Voices, opinions, and ideologies historically suppressed by male-dominated social structures have increasingly found expression through literature, narrative, and poetry. This paper examines Sultana’s Dream (1905), a feminist utopian narrative by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain who is a pioneering feminist activist from colonial Bengal, to explore how its language constructs and reverses gendered power at a discursive level. While previous scholarship has investigated it from broader educational, psychoanalytic, pedagogical, and empowerment-focused perspectives , none has systematically examined the specific linguistic mechanisms through which authority is produced and challenged. Drawing on Michelle M. Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Constructionist Theory, this study analyzes three discursive mechanisms: the distribution of modal verbs (e.g., "must," "should," "ought") that distinguish authoritative from hedged speech; the assignment of grammatical agency between male and female figures; and patterns of naming versus silence that determine whose voice is granted narrative presence. The analysis shows how Hossain’s use of role reversal, narrative voice, and modality operates not merely at the level of plot but also at the level of linguistic features, in which women are consistently positioned as grammatical agents of rational, confident speech, while men are rendered passive, anonymous, or silent. In doing so, the paper argues that linguistic features that are conventionally associated with male authority are assigned to female characters, revealing that gender-language associations are arbitrary and socially constructed rather than natural. The study concludes that Sultana's Dream demonstrates how language itself functions as a social construct, one through which patriarchal norms are constructed, naturalized, and ultimately dismantled.