THE REPRESENTATION OF FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE IN AYAD AKHTAR’S AMERICAN DERVISH

Abstract

This research analyzes the representation of feminist perspective in American Dervish novel. It is portrayed in Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish by its female characterization. In literary work, character can be used as an equipment to deliver the idea of the author through the story to the readers. Through American Dervish, Ayad Akhtar tells an interesting story about Pakistani-American culture. There are three problems to discuss in this research. The first is the women’s oppression in the novel, then, the representation of feminist perspective in the novel, and the last is the author’s ideology that constructed behind the novel. This research is significant because it discusses about gender inequality that often happens in Pakistani-American society. This research aims to gain understanding about the representation of feminism in the midst of Pakistani American Muslim societies that is considered as strong patriarchal culture. To support the analysis, I use the Stuart Hall’s theory of representation and Chandra Mohanty’s feminism approach. Theory of representation is used to analyze the feminist perspective in the novel that supported by Mohanty’s feminism approach. Then, from the results of analysis, finally I found the author’s ideology from connecting previous analysis results with the social context of the novel, and the social background of the author. Specifically, the social context and social background that I discuss is about Pakistani American Muslim life in 1980’s, even until nowadays. This research is qualitative research. This research is divided into two kinds of data, primary data and secondary data. The primary data are taken from the narrative and descriptive dialogues in Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish. I use literature journals, essays, articles, relevant books and e-sources as the secondary data. As the result of the discussion, it can be inferred that the author delivers his feminist perspective through the female characterization in his American Dervish novel. Mina and Muneer are two female characters who have feminist perspective in the novel. The feminist perspective in the novel mostly emerge in merely the way of thinking or mindset like criticizing, complaining, etc, but female characters cannot escape from this oppression that is resulted by the patriarchal culture that have been practiced for a long time ago. Basically, the author criticizes the fundamentalism in Islam that also affects to gender issues. Above all, the author tries to advocate gender equality. By this research, we can know that Islam actually holds woman in high esteem, and woman has some equal rights with men. The patriarchal culture that occurs in most Muslim societies is resulted by many factors, such as misinterpretation, misconception, etc.