From Biological Essentialism To Situated Knowledge: A Comparative Study Of Plath’S The Bell Jar And Shah’S Before She Sleeps

Abstract

In this paper, the author discuss Plath’s The Bell Jar and Shah’s Before She Sleeps in the light of Haraway's Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. This paper demonstrates how specific culture, knowledge, geography, and power dynamics shape gender identities and reinforce objective stereotypes. From a medical humanities perspective, it examines how medical and biological sciences have shaped women's experiences across various cultures. This study claims that the dimorphic concept of gender, which holds that men are essentially independent owing to their biological anatomy, is only one side of the coin. Donna Haraway's concept of Situated Knowledge challenges deterministic ideals of science and proposes a new science that includes and prefers women's lived experiences over their biology. In The Bell Jar, the protagonist, Esther Greenwood resists and questions the psychiatric institutions that label her nonconformity as mental illness. Dr. Gordon ignores her medical history and administers electric shock therapy, exacerbating her condition. Ultimately, with the arrival of a female psychiatrist Dr. Nolan, Esther begins to feel that her personal and lived experiences are acknowledged with empathy and respect. Similarly, in Before She Sleeps, some women create their own space, Panah, to resist the regime of the Green City. It manifest their struggle against the medical gaze, which reduces women to their reproductive capacities without considering them human. Medical authorities conducted experiments on women without taking into account their emotional, physical, social, and psychological well-being. This study acknowledges that women are influenced not just by biological traits but also by social structures, cultural norms, and values. It emphasizes their resistance to imposed biological roles using both mind and body, while also demonstrating that their responses differ among cultures and are not universally defined.