GENDER REPRESENTATION IN MONI MOSHIN’S NOVEL DUTY FREE: A FEMININE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY

Abstract

This study explores Moni Mohsin’s novel Duty Free (2011) by employing Psychoanalytic feminism as a theoretical framework. Psychoanalysis explains how gender identity or the role is constructed out of societal, cultural and family influences. This research aims at critically assessing the portrayal of gender roles and the journey of the central female character (unnamed narrator) in depicting internal and external determinants in self-construction by utilizing the framework of psychoanalytic feminism theory, whereby it has assess the implications of the norms of a society on women's lives, the implications of consumerism on their lives, and how the influences of parents on them play in building their identities. This study uses a qualitative method and textual analysis to look at the narrative and character depiction in Duty Free. Thus, the female characters in Duty Free are, in reality, highly prone to patriarchal norms and social expectations that make them appear to be more conventional but, simultaneously, struggle to find their own freedom. This study reflects how the heroine is produced by her society, though all of her deeds are performed under the lines of a conflict between the conformity with rules and subversive practices. Thus, societal rules, as well as those established by families, which shape the femininity outline in the context of external factors, show how pressure for conformity clashes with one's desire to be approved of and secured. Thus, the criticism of social conventions about femininity suggests an even greater critique - about how those traditional, 'conservative' gender conceptions are perpetuated.