Women’s Struggle for Identity: A Subaltern Study of Qaisra Shahraz’s The Holy Woman

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of women’s subalternity in Qaisra Shahraz’s novel The Holy Woman through the lens of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s postcolonial feminist theory Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988). The analysis focuses on the concepts of subalternity, othering, muting, marginalization, and the denial of agency. Employing a qualitative research design, the study is based on textual analysis and close reading of the novel to identify and evaluate the mechanisms of women’s oppression and their search of identity. Following McKee’s (2003), textual analysis  model. The findings of this study suggest that Shahraz highlights the struggle of women subjected to patriarchal authority, social exclusion, and cultural silencing, thereby foregrounding the relevance of Spivak’s argument that the subaltern cannot speak within dominant structures of power. The study contributes to postcolonial feminist discourse by revealing how literature can serve as a site of resistance, amplifying marginalized voices and questioning entrenched hierarchies.