Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction
This article attempts to evince the political, cultural and affective consequences of Jhumpa Lahiri’s diasporic writings and their particular enunciations of the literary gaze. To do so, it details the manner in which the stories’ exercise of visual operations rigidly corresponds with those of the...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Australian International Academic Centre (AIAC)
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.usm.my/37106/ http://eprints.usm.my/37106/1/%28Patriarchal_Regime_of_the_Spectacle%29_2945-6471-1-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848878098622185472 |
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| author | Moussa, Pourya Asl Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low |
| author_facet | Moussa, Pourya Asl Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low |
| author_sort | Moussa, Pourya Asl |
| building | USM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article attempts to evince the political, cultural and affective consequences of Jhumpa Lahiri’s diasporic writings
and their particular enunciations of the literary gaze. To do so, it details the manner in which the stories’ exercise of
visual operations rigidly corresponds with those of the Panopticon. The essay argues that Lahiri’s narrative produces a
kind of panoptic machine that underpins the ‘modes of social regulation and control’ that Foucault has explained as
disciplinary technologies. By situating Lahiri’s stories, “A Real Durwan” and “Only Goodness,” within a historicalpolitical
context, this essay aims at identifying the way in which panopticism defines her fiction as both a record of and
a participant in the social, sexual and political ‘paranoia’ behind the propaganda of America’s self-image as the land of
freedom. We maintain that Lahiri’s fiction situates itself in complex relation to the postcolonial concerns of the late
twentieth century, suggesting that through their fascination with a visual literalization of the panoptic machine, and by
privileging the masculine gaze, the stories legitimate the perpetuation of socially prescribed notion of sexual difference. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T17:25:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | usm-37106 |
| institution | Universiti Sains Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T17:25:56Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Australian International Academic Centre (AIAC) |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | usm-371062017-10-13T07:31:56Z http://eprints.usm.my/37106/ Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction Moussa, Pourya Asl Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) This article attempts to evince the political, cultural and affective consequences of Jhumpa Lahiri’s diasporic writings and their particular enunciations of the literary gaze. To do so, it details the manner in which the stories’ exercise of visual operations rigidly corresponds with those of the Panopticon. The essay argues that Lahiri’s narrative produces a kind of panoptic machine that underpins the ‘modes of social regulation and control’ that Foucault has explained as disciplinary technologies. By situating Lahiri’s stories, “A Real Durwan” and “Only Goodness,” within a historicalpolitical context, this essay aims at identifying the way in which panopticism defines her fiction as both a record of and a participant in the social, sexual and political ‘paranoia’ behind the propaganda of America’s self-image as the land of freedom. We maintain that Lahiri’s fiction situates itself in complex relation to the postcolonial concerns of the late twentieth century, suggesting that through their fascination with a visual literalization of the panoptic machine, and by privileging the masculine gaze, the stories legitimate the perpetuation of socially prescribed notion of sexual difference. Australian International Academic Centre (AIAC) 2017-03 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.usm.my/37106/1/%28Patriarchal_Regime_of_the_Spectacle%29_2945-6471-1-PB.pdf Moussa, Pourya Asl and Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low (2017) Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6 (2). pp. 221-229. ISSN 2200-3452 http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.2p.221 |
| spellingShingle | P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) Moussa, Pourya Asl Abdullah, Nurul Farhana Low Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title | Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered
Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title_full | Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered
Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title_fullStr | Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered
Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered
Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title_short | Patriarchal Regime of the Spectacle: Racial and Gendered
Gaze in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction |
| title_sort | patriarchal regime of the spectacle: racial and gendered
gaze in jhumpa lahiri’s fiction |
| topic | P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) |
| url | http://eprints.usm.my/37106/ http://eprints.usm.my/37106/ http://eprints.usm.my/37106/1/%28Patriarchal_Regime_of_the_Spectacle%29_2945-6471-1-PB.pdf |