CHALLENGING THE VICTIM-ESCAPEE STEREOTYPES: A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE OF DUR E AZIZ AMNA'S A SPLINTERING

Abstract

This thesis explores how Muslim women are represented in the modern South Asian Anglophone literature using a feminist and postcolonial approach. A Splintering is centered around the main character of Tara and how she challenges the traditional Victim -Escapee dichotomy that tends to limit the representation of postcolonial women. Based on the theory of gender performativity by Judith Butler and critiques of Orientalist stereotypes, this study explores how Tara negotiates personal agency, struggles against structural oppression, and maneuvers strategically to overcome cultural, patriarchal, and class-based restrictions. The thesis uncovers major themes of moral ambiguity, economic ambition, strategic compliance, and negotiation of social norms through qualitative textual analysis to show that the process of enabling Tara is relational, contextually situated, and performed continuously. The research also puts her ambitions and desires in parallel with the male counterparts, and the horizontal organization of agency and ambition is emphasized to subvert literary hierarchies grounded on gender. The application of feminist literary theory and postcolonial criticism to the research demonstrates that Tara possesses a subjectivity that is multidimensional and includes desire, calculation and resistance, and is not limited to the dualistic denial of victimhood or escape discourses. The fact that it is included in the contemporary literature of the Muslim women as it helps to underline the importance of how or small identifications could enlarge the notion of agency, identity, and resistance. Splintering gives us a preview of the complexity of the female subjectivity in postcolonial environments, where empowerment refers to the moral bargain, monetary self-sufficiency, and tactical social acting. The results show that modern literary forms may defy the old stereotypes and at the same time offer politically, culturally significant depictions of women negotiating the systemic limitations.