Meatless Days, by Sara Suleri

1. Meatless Days
- Sara Suleri
Salman
The University of Lahore

2. 2
Sara Suleri Goodyear
▪ 12 June, 1953
▪ Education: Kinnaird College,
Punjab University, Indiana
University.
▪ Occupation: Professor
▪ Notable work: Meatless Days
▪ Known for: Founder editor of
YJC.
▪ Parents: Z.A. Suleri

3. Introduction
to Meatless
Days

4. Meatless Days
◂ Sara Suleri Goodyear's heart-
breaking 1989 memoir of life in
Pakistan, Meatless Days, circles
backward and forward in time and
space, from Lahore to Connecticut
and around again. The author
renounces plot in favour of an
intimate, impressionistic survey of
her family's tragic history.
4

5. “ Leaving Pakistan was,
of course, tantamount
to giving up the
company of women.
5

6. Major
Characters

7. Dadi
◂ Dadi with her flair
for drama had
allowed life to sit so
heavily upon her
back that her spine
wilted and froze
into a perfect curve,
and so it was in the
posture of a shrimp
that she went
scuttling through
the day.
7

8. Mustakori
◂ Yoking identity and
performance.
◂ Suleri’s childhood frind.
◂ Entertain Multiple
names, cultures and
identities.
8

9. Major
Themes

10. Meatless Days
◂ Weaving a History:
◂ Memories of childhood.
◂ Remembrance of her family.
◂ Memories about historical and
political Pakistan.
◂ Talking about relationship
between her father and
grandmother (Dadi).
10

11. Meatless Days
◂ Weaving a History:
◂ “I saw my mother's grave and then came
back to America, hardly noticing when, six
months later, my father called from
London and mentioned Dadi was now
dead. It happened in the same week that
Bhutto finally was hanged, and our
imaginations were consumed by that
public and historical dying. Pakistan
made rapid provisions not to talk about
the thing that had been done, and
somehow, accidentally, Dadi must have
been mislaid into that larger decision,
because she too ceased being a
mentioned thing. My father tried to get
back in time for the funeral, but he was so
busy talking Bhutto-talk in England that
he missed his flight and thus did not
return.” 11

12. Meatless Days
◂ Time and Chronology:
◂ Happenings of events and
time are totally opposite.
◂ She used her own markers of
time to show in which time
frame we are now.
◂ ‘My audience is lost, and angry
to be lost,’ –Kamila Shamsie
12

13. Meatless Days
◂ Food and Humor:
◂ Sara Suleri uses her
experiences with food to
examine many other aspects
of her life.
◂ culinary humor of kidneys
and testicles
◂ gol guppas are a strange
food
13

14. Published
Articles

15. Motifs of Patriarchal Touches in
Meatless Days
◂ Sara touches the topics of politics, history
and culture of Pakistan but motifs of
patriarchal touches are rife in this book.
Norms of traditions prevalent in Pakistan
always favour male member of society. All
major feminist concepts favour ideology;
where patriarchy, dominance and upper
hand are norms.
15
International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS)
Vol-4, Issue-3, May - Jun, 2019
ISSN: 2456-7620
https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4.3.3

16. Sara Suleri’s Meatless Days a Post
Colonial Woman’s Autobiography
◂ The personal and communal identity crises
resulted from migrations, the pangs of
displacement, the memories and
recollections of home lands, the struggle
to cope with the new world and finally the
active response to the new world by the
reconstruction and relocation of identities
are some of the striking features of
‘expatriate writing’.
16
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL)
Volume 5, Issue 5, May 2017, PP 38-40
ISSN 2347-3126 (Print) & ISSN 2347-3134 (Online)
http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.0505005

17. Thank You!
☺
End. 17