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" Postcolonial Novels and Disability Studies: Sorayya Khan's "
Underwood, Rhobie Ann
Rahman, Shazia
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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1051473
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| Doc. No
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TL50590
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| Main Entry
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Underwood, Rhobie Ann
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| Title & Author
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Postcolonial Novels and Disability Studies: Sorayya Khan's \ Underwood, Rhobie AnnRahman, Shazia
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| College
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Western Illinois University
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| Date
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2019
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| Degree
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M.A.
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2019
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| Note
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68 p.
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| Abstract
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Sorraya Khan’s Noor and Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters are two novels that require a disability studies critical framework in addition to a postcolonial lens in order to amplify their central ideas which revolve around a character with a disability in each. In the final analysis, Noor, in Noor, who has an undiagnosed syndrome and Baby, in Dogeaters, who has an unspecified skin condition are not, however, the ones with the disabilities. Using disability theorist Michael Davidson and postcolonial disability theorist Clare Barker, I demonstrate that the traumatized and colonized minds of other characters, who are neither Noor nor Baby, are the ones who have disabling conditions. By applying Tom Shakespeare’s social model of disability, this thesis will prove that Noor’s and Baby’s conditions are not actual disabilities, and that society is responsible for disabling them because trauma and colonial thinking are disabilities. Clare Barker’s theory that colonialism is an infection in postcolonial society and James Berger’s theory which relates trauma and disabilities together show that trauma and colonial thinking are postcolonial disabilities inflicted on society as a result of colonial invasion and war. Chapter 1 titled “Maybe They Have Room There: The Wounded Storyteller in Sorayya Khan’s Noor” focuses on Noor’s paintings and how these paintings bring up her family’s psychological trauma during the Bhola cyclone and the war between East and West Pakistan. Aside from Noor’s gift in arts, she also has an unknown syndrome. This unknown syndrome is perceived by the people around her as a disability or a difference. By using the social model of disability, I show that Noor’s condition is not a disability. Her condition rather represents the barriers or disabling factors in society and emphasizes that postcolonial postwar disabilities are socially constructed. This idea that socially constructed disability exists allows me to explore the different forms of disabilities in postcolonial society using the wounded storyteller trope. I read Noor’s character as a wounded storyteller. Her wounded storytelling, through the powerful images of her paintings, reveals the trauma of her mother Sajida, and, grandfather, Ali. Her paintings visually narrate the trauma of Sajida’s and Ali’s stories of the Bhola cyclone and 1971 war. These postcolonial traumas qualify as disabilities. The social model of disability shows that Sajida and Ali’s traumas are socially-inflicted disabilities caused and designed by a postcolonial postwar Pakistani society. Chapter 2, “Whose Baby Are You? Colonial and Patriarchal Pressures in Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters” discusses the colonized thinking of the Alacran family, most especially Isabel and her relationship to Baby, her daughter, who has an unspecified skin condition. Unlike her colonized mother whose thinking and perceptions are influenced by western standards of beauty, Baby’s body and skin condition resembles an untouched Philippine jungle that has not been colonized. The social model of disability shows that Baby’s skin condition is not a disability. Rather, Baby and her condition do not meet her mother’s colonial standard of beauty which is a socially-inflicted disability in postcolonial Philippines. Therefore, Isabel, who continues to mock her daughter is the one who possesses the actual disability. Colonial thinking is an infection which hinders Isabel’s ability to see and accept the reality of her daughter’s body and beauty. Furthermore, Baby’s father Severo is the patriarchal authority who contributes to the colonial pressures. His suggestions that Baby marry and study in Europe to cure her hopelessness and skin condition doubly colonize her and show that females are forced to undergo not only colonial but also patriarchal pressures to be acceptable in society.
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Disability studies
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Literature
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Rahman, Shazia
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Western Illinois University
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