Abstract
The present study analyses gender powers in Tehmina Durrani’s autobiographical novel My Feudal Lord in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) notion of “habitus” which is a part of his Theory of Practice. Habitus as a critical approach is used to understand the behavior and habits of individuals. According to Bourdieu (1977) structuring of individual’s habitus starts from the very childhood and is strengthened throughout the life. Keeping in view this approach, the present study aims to analyse and interpret the habitus of a feudal man (Mustafa Khar) and a woman (Tehmina Durrani) in a feudal and patriarchal Pakistani society. In close reading analysis method, the qualitative study focuses on function of habitus in making gender roles in different ways viz. how habitus of an individual is developed and re/structured in a feudal society. The study examines the struggle of the two main characters i.e. Tehmina and Mustafa to maintain or break their socially made habitus. Finally, the paper achieves that although habitus of individuals is continuously structured into their minds, yet it is broken in certain circumstances and situations
Ume Kulsoom Rind, , Muhammad Khan Sang. (2016) Mapping out Gender Power: A Bourdieuan Approach to Tehmina Durrani's My Feudal Lord, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 18, Issue 1.
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