Unveiling the Veil: Gender, Power, and Women’s Selfhood in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

Abstract

Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell (2014) presents an insight into the relationships between gender, patriarchy, and the perception of women’s selfhood in Afghan society. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the protagonist Rahima and her great-great-grandmother Shekiba experience the restrictions of patriarchal power over their education, interactions with the opposite sex, privileges, and self-empowerment. In particular, the paper will address the theme of bacha posh, that is, the tradition of passing as a male to gain certain rights, freedoms, and privileges unavailable to women. The paper explores how Hashimi resorts to the notion of gender performativity to depict the suppression of women in patriarchal society and their ability to circumvent it. Drawing upon postcolonial feminism, the paper will also demonstrate Hashimi’s attempt to depict the voice of an oppressed woman, with particular attention paid to the theoretical perspectives of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Judith Butler’s performative theory of gender. The paper argues that Hashimi’s depiction of Rahima and Shekiba shifts the paradigm of women’s voice from the suppression to the ability to overcome patriarchy. By doing so, the paper contends, Hashimi’s novel provides a new look at Afghan women’s literature and voice in general by demonstrating their path to female self-liberation.