Women as Bangles, Bangles as Women: Migration, Gender, and Female Agency in Bangladeshi Writer Nashid Kamal’s The Glass Bangles

Abstract

Migration, women, and agency are central research topics in the world literature in English. These topics have fascinated literary researchers since the late twentieth century and enabled debate on how and to what extent migration from post-colonial countries to the West shapes women’s sense of selfhood and identity. The article joins that debate, engaging with Nashid Kamal’s The Glass Bangles, a lesser-known Bangladeshi novel in English. It focuses on the rural, middle-class, and disadvantaged heroine Sheila. It examines how the novel represents the cultural dynamics of diaspora and what images of gendered migration the heroine’s translocal and transnational mobility reflect. The article frames the discussion with Judith Butler’s “gender and precarity” and Elora Shehabuddin’s “subaltern rationality.” It works on the textual metaphor of the glass bangles and their implications, as metaphors are powerful rhetorical devices to reflect migrants’ struggles, pains, and hopes. Accordingly, the article contends that, although romantic and, thus, debatable, Kamal’s novel deserves appreciation for presenting a robust vision of precarious women’s resilience and empowerment.