Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Snandaj, Iran.
Abstract
In the realm of the theoretical approach of modernist feminists and with a reference to De Beauvoir and Butler's theoretical framework and origins of phenomenology, this research deals with the phenomenology of subjectiviy of gender identity and their representation in Rajaa Aalam's works, especially the novel of Khatam and it attempts to study Khatam's non-essential view of women's gender identity in an analytical way. Raja sees the basis of gender identity in the construction of cultural and social discourses, prevailing patriarchal norms, and the result of the systematic implementation and repetition of these norms by the female subject. Her works represent the influence of this trend on the type of discourse, mentality, and performance. In the novel of Khatam, the main character, by repeating the context of the rules, produces and reproduces a gender identity, it in the process of representation, and distorts it through the performance of opposing aspects. The repetition of norms by which this character is known within its counterproduction, activates the hidden potential abilities hidden in the nature of the performance. Unconscious biases, conflict of tendencies and discourses, and mimicry and dominance of norms lead to a double performance which enables Khatam to deconstruct the identity made of the prevailing discourse and cultural norms, to break up the duality between sexes, and to question in some cases the original gender identity. By entering the realm of subjectivity and self-efficacy, she acquires a kind of strength and ability, but in the end she is subject to the predominant power. The characters in Raja's novels often disagree with the pattern they simulate in the implementation process and they try to protect their individuality and redefine their identity. Sometimes, reconstructed social norms will lead to subject deidentification because norms and abnormalities imposed on her to do or reject affairs and finally deidentifies her.
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