The Exiled Body in Imtiaz Dharker's Purdah and Other Poems (1989)

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Abstract

This paper places the postcolonial feminist critic Ketu H. Katrak's theory of "exile"—especially its internal form—in dialogue with Purdah and Other Poems (1989) by the British poet of  Pakistani origin Imtiaz Dharker. It examines Dharker's representation of the female's body as exiled because of indigenous patriarchal and religious traditions, showing how the power of those traditions seeps into the body's very heart, creating oppressive and stifling states of being. It demonstrates how in areas such as dress, belief, marriage, and child upbringing woman is faced with two options, either obey the traditions regulating those areas or step out of the boundaries and face an internal exile, a sense of not belonging to herself and the community around her. Dharker, who was born into a Muslim family, criticizes those traditions as they work to subjugate Muslim women in India (or even in the diaspora). The females, whose experiences she writes about, try to escape the trap of tradition—either in its religious or patriarchal form—that primarily defines them in degrading terms. Sometimes they succeed, but oftentimes they fail and further social exclusion and un-belonging result. And their struggle is well articulated in the mainstream English poetic tradition in terms of words, sounds, images, and stanza patterns.

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