From Resilience to Resistance: A Feminist Dystopian Analysis of Bina Shah’s Before She Sleeps

Abstract

This study examines Bina Shah’s dystopian novel, Before She Sleeps (2018), which envisages a male-dominated society in an imaginary Green city where the government controls the women’s bodies through its precise reproductive policies. By employing the feminist dystopian concepts by Elisabetta Di Minico (2019) the study elucidates how Shah’s novel criticizes the objectification of women, their ability to resilient and resist under the dictatorial structures by investigating the lives of women in a concealed shelter, Panah.  The analysis demonstrates how Shah depicts the women’s resistance at the personal and collective level by subverting their traditional gender roles. They show resilience by living in “Panah” (the safe place) where they endure anxiety and trauma yet support each other. Their survival outside of the oppressive structures enables them to refuse in participating the state’s program for reproduction. The protagonist Sabeen and the group of women living in Panah exhibit quiet defiance rejecting women’s polygamy. They refuse to be solely defined as wombs for the government to reproduce numerous children. Shah portrays the women who challenge the systematic patriarchal oppression by reclaiming their autonomy outside the government’s obligations. Finally, the novel supports the women’s resilience through their endurance, secrecy and hidden defiance which lead to the creation of “Panah”, the subversive feminine space for them.