Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 5 No. 6; December 2014 Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Generalization of Suppression in Norma Khouri’s Forbidden Love Olya Mariam (corresponding author) Department of English Language and Literature, Punjab University, Pakistan 6B/I Education Town, Wahdat Road, Lahore, Pakistan E-mail:
[email protected] Sidra Rana Department of English Literature, Kinnaird University Model Town, Lahore, Pakistan E-mail:
[email protected] Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.75 Received: 15/08/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.75 Accepted: 02/10/2014 Abstract The aim of this research is to critique the repercussions of over-generalization of a social issue as depicted in Norma Khouri’s Forbidden Love. The novel/memoir has been written against the 9/11 backdrop and as such serves as means of sensationalizing and exploiting a cultural event which unfortunately echoes in the East. The objective of this research is to highlight the responsibility of the writer in raising or negating awareness. Investigative journalism such as Anna Broinowski and Malcolm Knox’s helps to highlight the repercussions of such canonship. Michel Foucault’s theory of Discourse Analysis and E Ann Kaplan’s Imperial Gaze have been employed to exploit the core text. The research proves that writers can fictionalize and fabricate events to sensationalize a social practice/ cultural dimension to over generalize and market a given perception. Thereby, helping to develop a condescending attitude amongst (Western) audience and reader. Keywords: sensationalism, post 9/11 Arab world, honor killing, memoir, imperial gaze This paper will focus on the way that culture, especially Eastern culture is being depicted by some diasporic Western writers such as Norma Khouri.