Positioning self in the society: An analysis of Ismat Chughtai's Lihaaf (The Quilt)

Abstract

Over the decades, the concept of homosexualityhas amassed abundant debate but itfailed to establish itself as a rigid identity. Thevoices ofthe homosexuals remained unheard until recent times. Thesocietyhesitated to embrace them and strategicallycamouflaged their identityby torturing them with customs or emotions. Adhering to the theme of representing the subaltern, this paper is an attempt to read in between the lines of the short storyLihaaf (The Quilt) byIsmatChughtai and sense the bloomingsame sex relationship of a woman.Through the protagonist BegumJaan , Chughtai directs towards the crucial components of lifei.e the society and the self. As the story progresses, she discovers two important facets of her life -her husband’s interest in men and her in women. Often it is the society’s pressure which keeps the person away from embracing his or her sexuality. Its hostility towards them and their perpetual practice ofsubordinating the self to please the society later influencesthem to trespass the social periphery.Drawing primarily onBakhtin's“Carnivalesque” which depicts the reversal of power structure, Begum Jaan rises from the position of a mere showpiece to a powerful dominant entity. She annihilates the societal norms and satisfies her palette of  trapped desires. Moreover the paperstrives to substantiate Butler'stheory of performativity and subversion of identity, Foucault's“ Heterotopia” andSedgwick'sforwardings in her book Epistemology of Closetto further explore the variousstigmas related to homosexuality.The paper offers to address the conceptof theself in terms of a wifeand a lesbianwho glorifies her identitydespite of living in a conventionalpatriarchal society. It eventually mediates theidea of reconstructing self  and condemning the stereotypical identity imposed by the society. The study raises questions on the society which plays vital role in subjugating women and homosexuals by denying them basic rights.