Space and Gender in Mansab’s This House of Clay and Water: A Post-Feminist Study

Abstract

Gender ought not to be construed as a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts. The present study aims at explicating the space for gender with an assumption to mitigate the patriarch aura in prevalent blight of matriarch. The research analyses Faiqa Mansab’s This House Of Clay And Water by considering the Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. The data have been selected in the form of extracts from the different parts of the novel, This House Of Clay And Water and analyzed accordingly. It is neither concerned with feministic nor with misogynistic perspective but to repatriate a balance in genders, deteriorated by the modern feminists. The significance of the study lies in the fact of urgency to redefine the gendered boundaries in the present society in terms of gender identities. The chief objective of the present attempt was to assess the imbalance of space and subversion of identities for all genders. It also considered the pseudo feminists’ portrayal of woman as a vulnerable subject in patriarchal restraints. The research also addresses the issue of space and gender representation in 21st century literature. It also evaluates the imbalance of space and subversion of identities in the present era regarding all genders. The results and discussions rendered the imbalance in gendered boundaries along with identity crises, represented in This House of Clay and Water. The findings also inferred the plight and discrepancy in the lives of genders, based on their societal roles.