Postcolonial writers have made significant literary contributions by addressing pressing issues related to socioeconomic and environmental development, disasters, and discourse in both today's world and many formerly colonised regions. This article presents an analysis of amitav ghosh's novel, the glass palace, exploring the complex themes of imperialism and colonialism's gradual disintegration within the narrative. This critical examination offers insights into the historical context, character development, and the enduring legacy of these systems in southeast asia. It is a narrative tapestry that explores the profound impact of imperialism on individuals, societies, and nations. Through a diverse cast of characters, ghosh offers a multi-faceted examination of imperialism and its eventual decay. His works always highlight women's characters while describing how they perceive themselves. The author used folklore and strong female characters to explore the philosophical core of eco-feminism. It creates a balanced attitude in humanity.

ABSTRACT Nollywood is a rich cultural zone, especially with the rise of epic blockbusters in the 2020s. Some of these include King of Thieves: Ogundabede (2022), Aníkúlápó (2022), Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman (2022), Mami Wata (2023), Jagun Jagun: The Warrior (2023), Orisa (2023), Ageshinkolé (2022), House of Ga’a (2024) and Lísàbí: The Uprising (2024). Using African feminisms as a conceptual lens, I interrogate how female characters are portrayed and note that Nollywood, although maturing and creating more nuanced female characters, is still tethered to patriarchal stereotypes of power distribution privileging men above women. I further argue that, although powerful women assert powerful personalities to a certain extent, thus demonstrating agency, their power is curtailed in the socio-cultural, domestic and political arenas, which ultimately creeps into the production culture of epic films, thus complicating women’s truest emancipation.

This article, titled “Sex-psychological Analysis of Female Characters in Right/ Wrong Story,” is prepared on the basis of psychological theories. It presents the sexual desires and behavioral patterns of female characters. It shows their condition of enjoying sexual freedom according to their wishes and, at times, living separately from male friendship. The main female character, presented in narrative form, remains unmarried due to family prosperity and personal ego, and spends her life recalling past events. Her friends, Sarala and Rashmi, from their student life, live together with their lovers in the same room and complete their studies. Later, with mutual understanding, they enter married life with other young men. While remembering their behavior, the main character feels anxiety due to a lack of mental satisfaction. During her youth, because of excessive ego, she did not find a suitable partner according to her family status and personal expectations, which led her to a psychological disorder. She is portrayed as a representative of individuals affected by mental illness. Although she experiences material comforts, the incompleteness of her sexual desires results in psychological suffering. The story presents the idea that a lack of fulfillment in sexual desire leads to mental.

ABSTRACT This article extends the critical literature on Howard Barker’s historical playwriting (including scholarship by Stephen Weeks, David Ian Rabey, Brean Hammond, and Pawel Schreiber) by exploring Hélène Cixous’s concept of écriture féminine in Barker’s unproduced teleplay Brutopia (1989). Although Brutopia is one of Barker’s lesser-known works, its thematic focus on the self-discovery of Cecilia More, the imaginary daughter of Sir Thomas More, offers a distinctive perspective on how Barker interrogates historical narratives and their perception. By challenging her father’s Utopia with her own counter-text, Brutopia, Cecilia’s defiance of patriarchal authority serves as a gateway to understanding Barker’s complex portrayal of women and history. This article examines Barker’s factional approach, which blends factual and invented characters and events, emphasising the imaginative possibilities within historical narratives. Through the interplay between Cixous’s feminist discourse and Barker’s historical method, the article highlights how Barker’s female characters, including Cecilia, navigate a world of violence and marginalisation while asserting their individuality. In doing so, Barker challenges dominant narratives, foregrounding the personal, often excluded, dimensions of historical events.

This article analyzes the portrayals of Soviet domestic workers in the literary works of Mikhail Bulgakov. The study aims to systematize the typological features of these characters within the context of both the European literary tradition and the social realities of the Soviet Union during the 1920s—1930s. The methodological framework of the article is based on historical-literary and comparative-typological approaches. The article studies such works as "Spiritistic Session", "The White Guard", "Heart of a Dog" and "The Master and Margarita". It is argued that servants in Bulgakov's depiction can be divided into two types: domestic helpers who help protect and harmonize the inner microcosm; and harmful servants, who represent the hostile external space and are directly connected to it through their desire to destroy the harmony of the "true home". Particular attention is paid to such traits as informing, superstition, laziness and theft, which are linked to the social realities of the 1920s–1930s. The writer frequently demonstrates that Soviet domestic servants, who were predominantly peasant women, inherited rural rudeness, laziness and superstition. Furthermore, under the conditions of increasingly severe state despotism, it was the servants who were responsible for informing. The study not only systematizes Bulgakov's maidservants as an independent character type but also traces their connection to the European literary tradition. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, the images of domestic workers in Bulgakov's works are examined as an independent character type requiring systematic analysis. In contrast to previous studies, where servants were examined among secondary characters in general, this article draws a clear distinction between two functional varieties: "domestic helpers" who contribute to the harmony of the inner space, and "harmful servants" associated with the external hostile world. It is shown that many negative traits of Soviet domestic servants (rudeness, laziness, superstition, informing, theft) were inherited from the rural environment and exacerbated by state despotism. It is demonstrated that through the figure of the maidservant, the author with a satirical undertone exposes the general moral decline that followed the Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The study also establishes the continuity of Bulgakov's images in relation to the European literary tradition (from Molière's Dorine to Chekhov's Firs). The findings of this study can be used in literature classes devoted to the works of M. A. Bulgakov, as well as in further research on the archetypes of "little people" and female characters in Russian literature.

Changing trends in female character portrayals: representation and stereotypes across popular video games (2011–2022)

Although efforts have been made to reduce gender bias in textbooks, Indonesian English textbooks still tend to reproduce gender-biased oppositions that support patriarchal values. This study aims to analyze how patriarchal values are deconstructed in conversational texts. The research subject was the Indonesian English textbook for the eleventh grade published by the Ministry of Education in 2017, which contains eight chapters and twenty-one conversations. Through McKee's model of textual analysis, this study reveals that the textbook shows a balanced frequency between male and female characters in giving opinions and asking for decisions, with females slightly dominating decision-making. Female characters asked for suggestions more frequently, while males slightly dominated in giving suggestions and more significantly in giving answers. Agreement was more common among females, while males dominated disagreement. While female characters were positioned as decision-makers, this was undermined by the high frequency of male disagreement. The study reveals ambivalence in the deconstruction of male dominance, indicating that stronger efforts are needed to promote gender equality through textbook content.

ABSTRACT This study examines how emotional content in picture storybooks shapes the social-emotional environment for young children. Analyzing 191 picture storybooks from a rural Turkish public library, a content analysis identified 27 distinct emotions. Negative emotions such as fear, sadness, and anger dominated, comprising half of all emotional expressions. Nearly half of textual emotions lacked visual representation, potentially limiting children’s emotional recognition. Emotions were also disproportionately attributed to female and child characters, reinforcing gendered scripts. These findings highlight the need for intentional curation to create a balanced, visually supported emotional environment that promotes inclusive social-emotional learning.

This study investigates Kazuo Ishiguro’s creative individuality in character development, with particular focus on his novel A Pale View of Hills. The research aims to explore how Ishiguro constructs female characters through a balance of universality and individuality, and how narrative techniques contribute to the representation of memory, identity, and emotional complexity. A qualitative research approach was employed, and data were collected through library-based research, including close reading of the primary text and analysis of secondary scholarly sources such as journal articles, dissertations, and literary studies. The findings reveal that Ishiguro’s characters are deeply rooted in shared social and historical contexts, particularly post-war Japanese and British societies, while simultaneously distinguished by unique psychological depth and personal memory. The study also demonstrates that Ishiguro’s narrative style—characterized by elliptical structure, restrained language, and unreliable memory—plays a crucial role in shaping character individuality. In addition, the repeated use of symbolic language, such as the word “pale,” reinforces themes of emotional distance, fragmented identity, and the uncertainty of recollection. The analysis of Etsuko, the central female character, shows how personal memory and emotional experience function as key elements in constructing individuality within broader cultural frameworks. Those are explained in this article. Keywords

The paper explores the subtle nature of marginality that the women go through in the plays of choice of Mahesh Dattani, in which the intersections of gender, identity, and socio-cultural constraints in modern Indian society have been prefigured. The dramaturgy by Dattani challenges the micro-level, but widespread forms of exclusion that exist within family and social systems and that especially impact women who must deal with multiple identities in their personalities formed by patriarchy, tradition, and modernity. The study examines the placement of female characters in the peripheral space that can be visible and invisible, and the voice of the female characters as resistance, negotiation, and sometimes silence through a close text analysis of select plays. Although the current literature has already discussed the role that Dattani played in drawing attention to the gender and social issues, this paper will elaborate on that by grounding female marginality on a wider critical paradigm that includes the issues of agency, performativity, and cultural conditioning. Reconsidering the experienced realities of women characters in the plays of Dattani, the paper will argue that marginality is not just an external condition but also internalised and reproduced in the relationships within or among family members. The paper, therefore, adds to the current debates concerning the Indian English drama by providing a fine interpretation of the gendered marginalisation in the theatrical world of Dattani.

Reading the written and film versions of Isak Dinesen’s ‘Babette’s Feast’ together, as texts in dialogue, offers deeper insight into this religious refugee parable and the spiritually rooted friendship, or sisterhood-philia, between its three central female characters. This is a relationship that is often overlooked by critics. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s thoughts about friendship, particularly his observation that there has been a ‘double exclusion of the feminine’ from the historical and philosophical canon, in this article I argue that, through comparative close reading of the 1950 short story and the 1987 film of the Babette story, both Dinesen and film director Gabriel Axel contribute narratives that challenge the male centred tradition which has historically silenced the possibility of friendship between women.

abstract Spanning multiple generations and different geographies, Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing (2016) explores the lingering effects of colonialism, slavery, and dislocation, unfolding the complexities of the black diasporic experience. Mapping the family branches of Esi’s and Effia’s descendants – one in Ghana and the other in America – the novel unfolds the tensions surrounding the African diaspora, throwing light on the fractures, estrangements, and shifting identities that complicate notions of return and belonging. While Ghana’s Year of Return initiative in 2019 encourages descendants of the African diaspora to reconnect with their long-lost roots and ancestral belonging, Homegoing complicates this idea of diasporic return, portraying it as a fraught, incomplete negotiation rather than a resolution to historical displacement. Under the colonial rule in Ghana, Effia’s descendants grapple with the contradictions of postcolonial identity and cultural hybridity, indicating how Africa is not an unchanged and unproblematic homeland. On the other hand, through the experiences of Esi’s descendants in the US, Gyasi highlights how the African diaspora survives the violent legacies of the Middle Passage, Jim Crow segregation, and systemic racism, and also how diasporic Black women withstand the general trauma induced by racial division. By foregrounding these parallel narratives of displacements and mutual estrangements between Africa and the Black diaspora, Homegoing not only interrogates narratives of seamless returns and reconnections but also reinforces that diasporic returns are mediated by history, memory, and the limitations of belonging. Analyzing the female characters’ experience of displacement and return, this paper examines Homegoing as a diasporic narrative that resists the fixity of “homeland” and instead presents return as an uncertain, often illusory process shaped by historical trauma and generational rupture. Drawing on Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic and Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, this paper aims to situate Homegoing within critical discussions of Black diasporic identity and the afterlives of slavery and argue that Gyasi's novel ultimately reframes return not as a physical journey back to the continent, but as an ongoing, contested and gendered process of diasporic self-making across time and space.

Abstract This article examines the representation of the forests as ideological spaces in The Jeaste of Sir Gawain (c. 1450) and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (c. 1450) through an analysis of female characters’ actions within these settings. By exploring the adventures, challenges, combats, and encounters experienced by Arthurian knights and women in the forests, this article argues that the romance forest is constructed in alignment with the principles of medieval chivalric ideology. Thus, it functions as a crucial site for the knight’s quest and moral development. However, despite the forest’s association with the knight’s chivalric pursuit, it is also inhabited by women whose roles are often subordinated to the knight’s narrative. These female figures are usually positioned as ancillary characters whose presence reinforces the chivalric ethos by facilitating the knight’s journey towards self-realization and perfection. Consequently, it is argued that the forests of these romances operate as gendered and ideological spaces that privilege the knight’s chivalric identity and self-aggrandisement while they marginalize and trivialize women’s actions.

This paper offers a feminist reading of English drama, tracing the construction of gender and power from Shakespeare to Restoration and New Drama. Drawing on feminist existentialism, the male gaze, gender performativity, and theories of patriarchy, it examines how gender roles are constructed and sustained within dramatic texts. Through close readings of Hamlet, The Tragedie of Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the Shrew, the study argues that while female characters display moments of resistance, their agency remains constrained by patriarchal structures. It further demonstrates that subsequent dramatic traditions, despite more visible female representation, continue to reproduce gendered power hierarchies through male-authored frameworks. The paper concludes that these dynamics remain central to understanding the persistence of gender inequality in both literary and social contexts.

Realism occupied an important place in Tamil cinema, especially as a counter-movement to dramatic and commercial film traditions. Among its leading practitioners, Balu Mahendra was widely recognized for his naturalistic cinematography, intimate storytelling, and emotionally nuanced female characters. His films were often celebrated for their aesthetic minimalism and psychological depth. However, while their realism was critically acclaimed, limited research examined how contemporary youth audiences interpreted their gender politics through a feminist framework. In particular, a gap existed in reception-based studies exploring how Generation Z audiences re-evaluated these narratives in the context of modern gender discourses. The study adopted a qualitative, interview-based research design involving 40 Gen Z participants aged 18-27. Following the selected film screenings, semi-structured interviews were conducted, and responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed a significant generational reinterpretation of realism. While participants appreciated the emotional authenticity and visual subtlety of the films, they also identified examples of patriarchal undertones, sacrificial femininity, and the male gaze embedded within the narratives. The study revealed that realism was not ideologically neutral but was open to critical feminist rereading. By integrating audience reception theory with feminist film studies, this research contributed to expanding contemporary discourse in film and gender studies.

The representation of women in literature is closely related to the construction of gender ideology and power relations in society. In the context of Madurese culture, the values of family honour and social hierarchy play a significant role in shaping gender relations that tend to be patriarchal. This study examines the representation of patriarchal discourse and the negotiation of Madurese women’s agency in contemporary Indonesian novels. This research employs a qualitative approach using Norman Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis. The data consist of three contemporary Indonesian novels featuring Madurese female characters: Damar Kambang by Muna Masyari, Paraban Tuah by Elok Teja Suminar, and Silsilah Duka by Dwi Ratih Ramadhany. The findings indicate that patriarchal discourse is constructed through linguistic choices, cultural symbolism, and social narratives that position women as guardians of family honour and objects of social control within family structures, cultural norms, and broader social relations. However, the novels also depict various forms of women’s agency through self-reflection, symbolic resistance to social stigma, and personal decision-making in response to patriarchal pressures. These findings suggest that contemporary Indonesian novels not only reproduce patriarchal discourse but also create discursive spaces for articulating women’s agency within local cultural contexts.

Abstract Ecofeminist literary criticism, as an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, addresses the intertwined oppression of women and nature, seeking to deconstruct the underlying social, cultural, and economic structures that perpetuate this dual marginalization. This study aims to fill a significant knowledge gap by examining the integration of ecofeminist principles within the literary works of Geling Yan, a Chinese-American author who writes in Chinese and navigates multicultural narratives. Against the backdrop of ecofeminist discourse in China, which has developed unique characteristics through its fusion with Chinese culture, this research explores Yan’s portrayal of female characters and their relationship with the natural world, offering an ecofeminist perspective. Through close textual analysis, the study investigates how Yan’s narratives contribute to the ecofeminist literary tradition and the broader cultural conversation on gender and environmental justice. The research explores how Geling Yan’s literature reflect and challenge the intersections of gender and environmental oppression through an ecofeminist lens. The methodology employed involves a detailed textual analysis of Yan’s works, focusing on the representation of female characters, the depiction of nature, and the interplay between ecological and feminist themes. Key findings reveal that Yan’s literature not only breathes life into complex female characters but also fosters a nuanced understanding of ecological and feminist ideologies. Her writing advocates for an ecological society characterized by harmony between humans and nature, as well as between genders, challenging traditional power structures and advocating for a more equitable world. In conclusion, this study underscores Geling Yan’s significant contributions to ecofeminist literature and her potential to inspire ecological and gender consciousness. The implications of this work suggest that Geling Yan’s literary works provide textual foundations for reshaping ecofeminist discourse while advancing a vision of a balanced, equitable, and sustainable world.

The research entitled The Image of the Female Character Nisa in the Novel Ipar Adalah Maut by Elizasifaa (Content Analysis Study) is motivated by a social phenomenon that illustrates that the image of women has recently begun to shift towards the negative. Today's women sometimes go beyond the limits of life's nature to the point of distorting their image. Therefore, this study aims to describe the form of the female image in the novel Ipar Adalah Maut. This study uses a qualitative descriptive research type. The descriptive method is used to describe the image of the female character Nisa in terms of its form. While the qualitative approach is used to analyze the form of the female image of Nisa in this novel. The data collection technique is carried out by repeatedly reading and marking the form of the female image of Nisa in this novel. The collected data are then analyzed based on the theory used as a reference. The results of this study found 52 quotations related to the image of the female character Nisa in Ipar Adalah Maut by Elizasifaa. Quotes on the image of the female aspect of steadfastness were found in 14 quotations. The aspect of devotion to parents was found in 29 quotations. The aspect of not giving up easily was found in 9 quotations. Thus, the most dominant aspect of Nisa's female image is her devotion to her parents. This illustrates Nisa's high level of devotion to her parents.

ABSTRACT Sketch comedy, or xiaopin, first gained popularity in China through the Chinese Spring Festival Gala, aired by China Central Television, showcasing a variety of female comic personas, from rural wives to urban career women. Considering the long-standing gender barriers against female comedy performers, the Chinese Spring Festival Gala served as an unprecedented platform for comediennes to experiment with new possibilities of comic expression, bringing to the stage a wide range of female comic personas, from rustic country wives to metropolitan career women. However, as China’s economic and social reforms accelerated, the comic representation of women became increasingly homogenized and limiting. This paper explores the evolution of Chinese women’s representation in comedy sketches on the Spring Festival Gala from 1993 to 2020, paying particular attention to the shifting portrayals of female imagery. As xiaopin’s comedic formulas shifted from diverse rural narratives to narrower urban-centred themes, its portrayal of women also regressed – from varied rural female characters to more homogenized urban female personas. While early rural wife comedy roles may have been liberating, contemporary representations of women in sketches are more stereotyped and constrained by patriarchal norms, struggling to find their voice in an increasingly commercialized and urbanized patriarchal culture.

Film as a cultural product functions not only as entertainment but also as a representational practice that constructs and reproduces social meanings. Women from Rote Island (2023) portrays women's experiences within an indigenous cultural context, particularly in relation to power relations, the female body, and gender-based violence. This study aims to analyze the representation of women in the film and the meanings constructed through its system of signs. This research adopts a constructivist paradigm with a qualitative descriptive approach. The method used was Roland Barthes' semiotic analysis, focusing on denotative, connotative, cultural–affective meanings, and myth. The research data consist of twelve film scenes selected purposively based on their relevance to issues of women's representation and gender relations. The analysis examines visual and narrative signifiers presented in these scenes. The findings reveal that at the denotative level, the film represents women's everyday life in an indigenous community as ordinary and natural. However, at the connotative level, women are constructed as vulnerable and subordinate subjects, while men are represented as socially authoritative actors. Cultural and affective dimensions reinforce this construction through the depiction of shame, fear, and resignation attached to female characters. At the level of myth, patriarchy and customary law are naturalized as legitimate social orders, positioning the objectification and violence against women as acceptable social consequences. This study concludes that Women from Rote Island not only reflects social reality but also actively reproduces patriarchal ideology through symbolic and affective representational practices.