Women's Representation in Hamidullah's and Chughtai's Selected Short Stories: A Psycho-feminist Study

Abstract

Even though staunch feminist writers take up responsibilities to represent them, the question of identity remains unresolved because of insufficient understanding of women’s psyche and sensitivity. This study focuses on the psychoanalytical behavior of women in phallocentric society to investigate how gender discrimination depends on the social identities of interacting parties. This study examines women’s identities in the selected short stories by Ismat Chughtai and Zaib-Un-Nisa Hamidullah to explore how women’s gender and their inhibitions create difficulties in self-representations for them. This research takes into account the South Asian socio-cultural settings in which Chughtai and Hamidullah's works are placed. Both writers have addressed the core issues related to women’s life going deep into their psychology. Employing the theoretical underpinnings of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, this research would engage with the lived experiences of the women of the sub-continent and highlight the debates and remedies to resolve their issues. The study seeks to clarify how patriarchal systems, power dynamics, and psychoanalytic processes affect women's sense of self and agency through an analysis of the women’s experiences. The findings shed light on more general concerns of gender, identity, and empowerment as well as feminist literary criticism.