scholarly journals Feminist Literary Criticism Meets Feminist Theology: Yashodhara and the Rise of Hagiographical Fiction in Modern Feminist Re-visioning

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824402110615
Author(s):  
Soni Wadhwa

Feminist re-visioning has led to heterogenous retellings of mythological heroines in fiction. Sita and Draupadi, two of the well-known Indian mythological characters, have been explored in various capacities in mythological fiction. Yashodhara, Buddha’s wife, is a recent addition to this re-visioning project. This article seeks to engage with three retellings of Yashodhara’s story—each of which is radically different from the others. The result is the rise of hagiographical fiction around the character—responsive to the Buddhist ethos of love and spirituality. This article argues that the most intriguing representations of Yashodhara found in this fiction are rooted in the nonoppositional agency given to her character.

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Samina Akhtar ◽  
Muhammad Rauf ◽  
Saima Ikram ◽  
Gulrukh Raees

This paper is an attempt to portray the plight of Mariam that she undergoes due to her illegitimate social status. The study focuses on the critical societal attitude towards the illegitimate unfortunate women. Mariam begins her life with a “harami” status; continues her struggle for personal identity, suffer and endures as a battered woman and leave this world as a woman of consequences by digging herself out of the lower social status that society attached to her. The study analyzes Mariam’s endurance, struggles and resistance in her strenuous journey to attain legitimate ending. The researcher used feminist literary criticism to interpret the text as a research methodology and adopted close textual analysis of the text by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns.


Literator ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
J. W. Du Plessis ◽  
D. H. Steenberg

Feminists feel that in literary criticism not enough consideration is given to feminism as an ideology in the production of texts. According to them, existing literary criticism is strongly man-centred. This is especially true of the practice of South African literary criticism. Although feminism does not have at its disposal a formulated feminist literary criticism, a great deal of research has been done in this direction abroad. This is especially the case in Europe and America. Feminist literary critics apply themselves to the representation of the woman in works by male authors and an analysis of feminine experience in the production of texts by women. This article is an exploration of the Anglo-American and French approaches in feminist literary criticism. An attempt is made to formulate the aims of a possible South African feminist literary criticism in order that not only the general norms, but also the feminist codes in the production of a text, speak towards the final interpretation of a work.


LITERA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-436
Author(s):  
Robiatul Adawiyah ◽  
Muakibatul Hasanah

Seiring berkembangnya zaman, tradisi yang mengengkang kebebasan kaum perempuan mulai diperjuangkan untuk dihapuskan melalui gerakan feminisme. Penyuaraan hak-hak perempuan tidak hanya dilakukan melalui gerakan-gerakan secara nyata, namun juga dilakukan secara halus dengan memasukkan ideologi-ideologi feminsime melalui karya sastra. Penelitian ini bertujuan mendeskripsikan bentuk ketidakadilan gender dan bentuk perlawanan perempuan terhadap stigma inferioritas yang selama ini melekat pada diri perempuan. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kritik sastra feminis. Sumber data penelitian adalah novel Midah (Si Manis Bergigi Emas) karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer dan novel Di Balik Kerling Saatirah karya Ninik M. Kuntarto. Teknik yang digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data-data bentuk feminisme yang ada di dalam kedua novel tersebut adalah dengan membaca kritis dan membaca berkesinambungan. Analisis dilakukan dengan cara (1) kodifikasi data, (2) pengelompokan data, (3) interpretasi makna teks, (4) deskripsi bentuk ketidakadilan gender dan bentuk perlawanan gender, serta (5) penyimpulan hasil analsisis. Hasil penelitian sebagai berikut. Pertama, ketidakadilan gender dialami oleh dua sosok perempuan dalam dua novel berbeda, yaitu Midah dan Saatirah. Midah mendapatkan perlakuan tidak adil dari perjodohan yang dilakukan oleh orangtuanya dan dia juga mendapatkan ketidakadilan dari sosok pria yang menjadikannya budak pemuas nafsu. Saatirah mendapatkan perlakuan tidak adil dalam hubungan rumah tangganya. Kedua, bentuk perlawanan yang dilakukan oleh Midah dan Saatirah adalah dengan berusaha bangkit dari keterpurukan untuk membuktikan eksistensinya dan berusaha memperoleh kebahagian dengan cara yang mereka kehendaki tanpa ada campur tangan dari orang lain. Kata Kunci: stigma, inferioritas, marginal, feminismAGAINST THE STIGMA OF WOMEN’S INFERIORITY IN MIDAH (SI MANIS BERGIGI EMAS) A NOVEL BY PRAMOEDYA ANANTA TOER  AND DI BALIK KERLING SAATIRAH A NOVEL BY NINIK M. KUNTARTO AbstractAlong with the development of the times, struggles for traditions that curb the freedom of women began to be eliminated through the feminism movement. Voicing women's rights is not only done through real movements, but also subtly by incorporating feminine ideologies through literary works. This study aims to describe the form of gender injustice and the form of women's resistance to the inferiority stigma that has been attached to women. This study uses a feminist literary criticism approach. Sources of research data are the novel Midah (Si Manis Bergigi Emas) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and the novel Di Balik Kerling Saatirah by Ninik M. Kuntarto. The technique used to collect data on the forms of feminism in both novels is critical reading and continuous reading. The analysis was carried out by (1) data codification, (2) data grouping, (3) interpretation of the meaning of the text, (4) descriptions of forms of gender injustice and forms of gender resistance, and (5) concluding the results of the analysis. The research results are as follows. First, gender injustice is experienced by two female figures in two different novels, namely Midah and Saatirah. Midah received unfair treatment from an arranged marriage by her parents and he also received injustice from a male figure who made her a slave to the satisfaction of lust. Saatirah received unfair treatment in her household relationship. Second, the form of resistance carried out by Midah and Saatirah is to try to rise from adversity to prove their existence and try to get happiness in the way they want without interference from others. Keywords: stigma, inferiority, marginal, feminine


2019 ◽  
pp. 123-136
Author(s):  
Milica Nenezić

History is usually written by the winners; those who lose retain their own. The extent to which these differ and whether the differences affect the fate of mankind are all issues that require constant rendering and re-examination. The future confidently retains the answers, but do these answers change the circumstances? Can philosophy, feminist literary criticism or post-structural theories obscure the meaning of fiction? We are composed of strange particles that create our being and identity, which does not likely pave the way to our becoming true by solely ‘static’ existence, but by one that unites the past, present and the future. Such particles placed on the platform of literary expression sometimes have the character of a more permanent testimony to history, either written, or tobe-written. One figure, who struggled to raise our awareness and to remind us that the essay can represent a dialogue, that the reader carries special importance and a role in both the creation and reception of artistic skills, yet that language and meaning do not have a stable structure, was Virginia Adeline Stephen Woolf, who was rewriting and reclaiming both individual and common histories. Reflecting on the dilemmas and perplexities of both historical and fictional structural norms in literature, Mrs. Woolf unobtrusively portrayed an androgynous and ever-living creature in her novel Orlando, who seeks, among other feats, to re-evaluate the importance of witnessing and re-examining history


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