A Comparative Study of the Female Character as the ‘Other’ in Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child and Belgheis Soleimani’s Khale Bazi

Abstract

Abstract

This study tries to explore and examine two female characters from different cultural contexts in terms of the women’s issue which is never bound to geography, culture, race, or nationality. This study attempts to compare Belgheis Soleimani’s Khale Bazi and Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child in the light of Butler's concept of “performativity.” Leaning toward the theory of “performativity”, it is revealed how human beings are being shackled by gender binaries, gender norms, and heterosexual hegemony. Each individual is born within such limitations and is raised in a way to reproduce them in a cyclical pattern to guarantee heterosexuality. Similarly, the main female characters in these two novels are accordingly expected to shape and reshape gender binaries and heterosexual norms that emanate from such contexts. There is a discrepancy between what society expects from sheer women and what women, as human beings, expect from themselves in practice. The dichotomy between one's true self and social norms and expectations put too much pressure on the women's psyche. Both main female characters move toward an abstract idea, namely, sanctity in their specific way and attempt to become sacred.

Keywords: Performativity, Feminism, Comparative Studies, Otherness, Motherhood