Investigating toxic femininity in umera ahmed’s hollow pursuits:
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Date
2022
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Publisher
UMT Lahore
Abstract
For a long time, women have been considered the subaltern subjects in Pakistani patriarchal
society, the epitomes of submission, naivety and innocence. The feminist research that has been
so far usually treats women as subaltern subjects. However, over the period of time, characters of
women have been modified and one can witness how today most women are playing villainous
roles in contrast to their prescribed roles. This research aims at pointing out that women should
not adopt villainy as an option for their revenge for all the patriarchal issues that they face.
Women should opt for positivity and patience as villainy and evil obliterate everything. The
present study tends to focus on the investigation of toxic femininity in the selected novel Hollow
Pursuits by Umera Ahmed. The primary focal point of this research is to evaluate and scrutinize
the literary text Hollow Pursuits in the light of the theory of toxic femininity presented by
Kramer, Harris and Bade to figure out the characteristics of a female villain in the character of
Umm-e-Maryam, one of the leading characters in the selected novel. The researcher has pointed
out the considerations that added in making Umm-e-Maryam a wretched person. Textual
analysis has been applied to the text in order to identify the elements that reflect toxic femininity
in the selected novel for the present study. The researcher concludes that villainy can lead a
character towards destruction and obliteration, it ruins the lives of people as well as villains
themselves which is depicted in the novel through the portrayal of the female characters, Umm
e-Maryam and Khadija Noor in the novel Hollow Pursuits.