(Sub)Version of Power and Pakistani Women’s Narratives: A Feminist Study of Shah’s Before She Sleeps

Abstract

This study explores the conscious slide away of women from weak to powerful in the post-modern Pakistani fiction Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah. This research aims to explore the voice of the suppressed women and to highlight the efforts that have been made by them in getting liberation from the dystopian Green City that is a metaphor for all the unjust cities and states of the South-West Asian region. This study highlights the ideas of Judith Butler about the subversion of identity and the dynamic nature of gender as she claims that gender is a historical situation rather than a natural act just like the unnatural atmosphere of the Green City. There is a spike in the feminist movements about the fluid nature of gender as women have started to work outside the four walls of their houses and tried new ways of termination of patriarchy in all forms. This research also provides an apt reason for revolt against the havoc of a gender-obsessed world. It also brings into light the audacity of the peculiar and strong women who try to subvert their socially constructed gender roles by showing revolt and resilience against the fabricated defences of men to control them. This research lays bare the marriage norms of the Green City to repopulate the city by declaring a gender emergency. An odd type of heterosexual matrix named polygamy is exposed by the researcher which has inflicted an emotional wreck upon the minds of the women who are unmoved by the heavy rewards of the system. The women are treated as cows or animals to turn the number of women to normal levels again as they were killed by a virus about thirty years ago. It mocks at a modern well-structured society where no woman can write a journal or diary to stop them from revolting against the values and to keep them away from the policymaking and political lobby. It also justifies that as everything in the novel is in flux and transition the gender roles for the majority of women are still static so they need a re-adjustment in a balanced way. It further shows that the power of men is just an illusion of the mind manipulated and subverted by a handful of strong-willed women. A tiny agency of women becomes a threat to the top officers of the Green City who consider themselves the best people there as they have done incredible things for the uplift of the city. The women in this novel have an unusual courage that helps to defy the wrong regime altogether by taking strange measures that make them powerful in the eyes of the feminist legacy.