Identity Threats and Coping Strategies in Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Nabī’s Fī Ġurfat al-ʿAnkabūt (original) (raw)
Related papers
SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 2018
The research paper attempts to analyse the narrative perspective in Ismat Chughtai’s “Lihaaf†which stands as a revolutionary text, far ahead of its time, in terms of breaking stereotypes associated with gender and sexuality. The inversion of sexuality as represented in “Lihaaf†is an example of a fascinating contrast to the misconstrued ideas about homosexuality, which is anteverted by the means of employment of a narrator who fails to comprehend the intensity of the situation.
Academy of Education and Social Sciences Review, 4(2), 223–235., 2024
This article studies the Negotiation of Muslim Identity in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012) that Muslim characters practice after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. The paper, moreover, evaluates the Muslim characters encountering the backlash, discrimination, harassment, othering, religious profiling, media propaganda, and alienation despite their complete integration and assimilation into the hostland identity. To explore how the Muslim Immigrant characters, as members of the minority out-group(MO), adopt the strategies of identity negotiation and construct the reactive Muslim identity in the selected play in the post-9/11 American context, The Social Identity Theory by Tajfel and Turner (2004) is used as the theoretical model through the textual analysis and Close Reading Method. The paper, furthermore, aims to study the Muslim characters struggling with the identity crisis and the derogatory treatment from the majority in-group Americans (MI). It also adds to research on the selected play the comprehensive understanding to the readers about the identity negotiations and Muslim identity construct after the 9/11 attacks in America.
The identity of Pakistanis is more endangered in post 9/11 situation than it was ever before. Being Pakistani means to be part of a society divided into various groups at war with one another on religious, sectarian and political issues. To have one unique national identity is simply impossible in such a situation, when Pakistan is not only engaged in war on terror but also herself a victim of terrorism. People loyal to different groups mainly divided into liberals (educated, enlightened and progressive) and fundamentalists (religious extremists, fanatics and ‘jihadis’) feel themselves marginalized in their own society. They are looked as ‘others’ in their own homeland. Their situation is comparable to that of the characters portrayed in the selected works of Mohsin Hamid and Hanif Kureishi facing identity crisis in a diasporic environment. Pakistani writers like African, Central and South American writers are responding back to the old colonizers and today’s policy makers. 9/11 transformed the image of the Muslim world into fundamentalists and terrorists forever. Another obsession with Pakistani writers is the loss of values, religious and political exploitation of common masses, suicide attacks, and sectarianism and the consequent evolution of an individual’s perception of his identity in an alienated social framework.
Negotiating Identity and the dichotomy self/other in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The historic attack of 9/11 had changed the very scenario of United States. The so- called ‘melting pot’ of different cultures and religions had become sceptic about its Muslim inhabitants. This paper shall explore the world and thinking of a Pakistani immigrant living in America through Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Among many issues that the novel highlights, one particular issue is of importance and is the topic of heated debate in the intellectual circles. That issue is identity crisis. The identity attained and maintained by the immigrant in his homeland is found to create problems for him in a new environment where the culture, traditions and life style is altogether different. This issue is all the more poignant for Muslim immigrants who immigrate to non-Muslim countries as their Islamic code of life clashes with the secular and more liberal ideas of the west. Keeping in view 9/11 as a major catalyst, I have opt to analyze and discuss the factors and reasons that contribute to the protagonist’s identity crisis in Hamid’s work. Bringing together Erik Erikson’s theory of identity crisis and the works of other eminent scholars on the subject, this paper aims to propose a better understanding of the issue with special emphasis on Muslim immigrants. By using psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory, this paper will explore how the identity of the protagonist, Changez in The Reluctant, is affected by 9/11. The essay will show that living in America after 9/11 and being the “other” could affect one's identity, both in conscious and unconscious ways.
This article discusses the identity construction of a Jordanian Muslim woman through the main female character named Najwa reflected in Willow Trees Don’t Weep novel (2014) by Fadia Faqir. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative. It is supported by the concept of identity by Stuart Hall and that of patriarchy to analyze the text. The aim of the study is to point out how Najwa, as a Jordanian Muslim woman who lives in a strong patriarchal culture without male figure in her family, constructs her identity, particularly when travelling to some different countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and England just to find her father. The way Najwa Lives in a new country, where she interacts with new people and be immersed in new culture, has an immense impact on her. Subsequently self-identity construction is definitely inevitable. Here, Najwa herself strives to negotiate and articulate her identity through her appearance and behavior, especially in Islamic practices and rituals. Consequently, the negotiation and articulation turn out to be the two major things in her self-identity construction. Culture, however, becomes a crucial mean to identity. Different culture represents different identity, and it keeps changing relaying on place where she lives.
ANGLISTICUM. Journal of the Association-Institute for English Language and American Studies, 2016
The texts that have been selected to provide answers to the above-mentioned question are Green is the color by Lloyd Fernando and Mr.Tang"s Girls by Shirley Lim. In the former, how the post modern characteristics of self create and define the protagonist"s identity is discussed while in the latter the influence of the patriarchal society on the protagonist"s identity shaping is analyzed. The patriarchal society for which the protagonist"s father is an example is considered the "other". "the nature of the individual depends upon the society in which he or she lives." (Burke and Stets, 2009, p.3).
International Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 2021
The study aimed to identify the crisis of female identity, dissociation disorder and self-fragmentation in Kafa Al-Zubi's novel X (Al-Zubi, 2014). The novel portrays the female protagonist, X, with a dissociative identity disorder and a sense of self-fragmentation, a generic case of many women struggling to define their identities in patriarchal societies. X's dissociative identity forces her to live a fragmented life. She demonstrates signs of loss of interest, a manifestation of self-fragmentation, relational difficulties, and a desire for death. The novel is analyzed through psychoanalytic and postcolonial theories to define concepts of identity, dissociative identity disorder and self-fragmentation. The textual analysis reveals that, within the socio-religious fabric of a patriarchal society, a female's social/personal identity structure is restricted and psychologically confused. The dominant patriarchal system is destructive to the female's personal identity and her quest for achieving selfhood and independence. The female protagonist's attempt to balance her social/personal identities becomes fluid. She negotiates her social spaces in her attempt to resist a socially bound and labelled identity that stigmatizes a woman's existence as a self. challenges facing learners.
With specific focus on the male characters of Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, this paper seeks to re-address the concept of 'identity' within a neo-colonial perspective. The theoretical insights for this research have been drawn from postcolonial scholarship on identity, by theorists such as Homi, k, Bhaba and Ashcroft. Bhabha's concept of mimickery has been used to analyse both, Daru and Changez's, ambiguous perusal of an identity which is overwhelmingly tainted by the neo-colonial impacts. Whereas Changez grows out of his fascination of the colonist, superiority and delusional sense of identity offered by its cosmopolitanism and returns to embrace his cultural origins in Pakistan. Daru, on the other hand, remains mesmerised by the elite Americanised culture of Lahore, a metaphorical representation of the supposed superior American culture within Pakistan. Both men in the process of 'mimicking' the foreign culture lose their sense of belonging, identity, home and even freedom. The comparative analysis of these two characters is significant as their journey of self-realisations, exposes the dilemma of young Pakistani men caught in the clutches of neo-colonialism. This paper highlights and questions the complexities of cultural assimilation and acculturation as well as its repercussions for an individual's identity, caught at the cross roads of transcultural and increasingly globalised world of today.
Identity is an extremely complex and subjective theme to discuss – especially when it comes to setting a fixed definition. This article examines the construction of identity through the lens of social constructionism and draws in several working definitions from various sociologists to purport the core of this article. The sociological concept will be applied on three different texts: Escape from Harem by Tanushree Podder (2013); The Poor Christ of Bomba by Mongo Beti (1971); and The Book of Night Women by Marlon James (2009). Focusing only on the protagonist from each text, we attempt to carry out the analysis of this paper by looking at the flux of identity within them. We argue that identity is not a fixed and permanent state of a character; instead it is constructed by social, political, economic, and personal experience. All the three protagonists, Zeenat, Denis, and Lilith experience specific identity fluctuation in their lives. As such, we will be looking at the psychological growth and changes in each character and determine whether or not his/her sense of self is reconstructed or deconstructed at the end of their journey to self-discovery.