Postkolonyal Feminizm Bağlamında Kabuğunu Kıran İnci Romanında Üçüncü Dünya Kadınının Temsili

Abstract

Bu çalışma, Nadia Hashimi’nin Kabuğunu Kıran İnci adlı romanını postkolonyal feminizm ve Üçüncü Dünya feminizmi perspektifinden incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Roman, Afganistan’da kadınların patriyarkal yapı içerisinde maruz kaldığı baskı biçimlerini Rahima ve Shekiba karakterlerinin kuşaklar arası kesişen hikâyeleri üzerinden görünür kılmaktadır. Bununla birlikte Afgan kadın figürünün Batı merkezli söylemlerde sıklıkla “kurtarılması gereken Doğulu kadın” imgesiyle temsil edilmesi, romanın ideolojik dolaşımını sorgulamayı gerekli kılmaktadır. Çalışmada Mohanty’nin Batı feminizmine yönelik eleştirileri, Spivak’ın “madun” tartışması ve Abu-Lughod’un kurtarıcı söylem eleştirisi temel kuramsal dayanaklar olarak kullanılmıştır. İnceleme sonucunda romanın kadın deneyimini görünür kılarken aynı zamanda Batılı okur için egzotikleştirilmiş bir acı estetiği üretme riskini taşıdığı; dolayısıyla hem direniş anlatısı hem de temsil politikaları açısından ikili bir yapı sergilediği ortaya konulmuştur. Bu çalışma, romanın Afgan kadınlarına yönelik Batılı söylemlere hem nasıl meydan okuduğunu hem de bu söylemleri potansiyel olarak nasıl pekiştirdiğini inceleyerek, postkolonyal feminist teoriye dayalı yakın metin analizi yöntemini kullanmaktadır. Bu bağlamda Kabuğunu Kıran İnci, Afgan kadın anlatılarının yalnızca patriyarkal baskı çerçevesinde değil, postkolonyal temsil ilişkileri içerisinde de değerlendirilmesi gerektiğini göstermektedir.

Keywords

• Nadia Hashimi
• Postkolonyal Feminizm
• Üçüncü Dünya Feminizmi
• Afgan Kadını
• Kurtarıcı Anlatı

Representation of Third World Women in The Pearl That Broke Its Shell within the Context of Postcolonial Feminism

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Nadia Hashimi’s novel The Pearl That Broke Its Shell from the perspectives of postcolonial feminism and Third World feminism. The novel portrays the patriarchal oppression experienced by Afghan women through the intergenerational narratives of Rahima and Shekiba. However, since Afghan women have often been represented within Western discourse as “Third World women in need of rescue,” the ideological circulation of such narratives requires critical reconsideration. Drawing on Mohanty’s critique of Western feminism, Spivak’s concept of the subaltern, and Abu-Lughod’s analysis of the “rescue narrative,” this study argues that while the novel makes women’s experiences visible, it also risks reproducing an exoticized aesthetics of suffering for Western readership. The study employs close textual analysis grounded in postcolonial feminist theory, examining how the novel both challenges and potentially reinforces Western discourses about Afghan women. Therefore, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell reveals a dual structure: it functions both as a feminist narrative of resistance and as a text embedded within postcolonial politics of representation.

Keywords

• Nadia Hashimi
• Postcolonial feminism
• Third World Feminism
• Afghan Women
• Savior Narrative

References

1. Abu-Lughod, L. (2013). Do Muslim women need saving? Harvard University Press.
2. Ahmed, L. (1992). Women and gender in Islam: Historical roots of a modern debate. Yale University Press.
3. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
4. Brydon, D. (1989). Commonwealth or common poverty? Kunapipi: Special Issue on Post-Colonial Criticism, 11(1), 1-16.
5. Cixous, H. (1981). “Castration or decapitation?” Signs, 7 (1), ss. 41–55.
6. Cixous, H. (1976). The laugh of the Medusa (K. Cohen & P. Cohen, Trans.). Signs, 1(4), 875–893.
7. Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.
8. Beauvoir, S. de. (2010). The second sex (C. Borde & S. Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.). Vintage Classics.

9. Febrianingrum, A., & Suryani, S. (2022). Redefinition of power by Rahima in Nadia Hashimi: “The Pearl That Broke Its Shell”. Parafrase: Jurnal Kajian Kebahasaan dan Kesusastraan, 22(2), 213-220. https://doi.org/10.30996/parafrase.v22i2.7244
10. Hanun, F. Z., & Wulandari, R. S. (2025). Bacha posh: Perpetuation of women’s oppression in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl that Broke Its Shell. FRASA: English Education and Literature Journal, 6 (2), 357-373. https://doi.org/10.47701/frasa.v6i2.5046
11. Herr, R. S. (2014). Reclaiming Third World feminism: Or why transnational feminism needs Third World feminism. Meridians, 12(1), 1-30.
12. Hashimi, N. (2014). The pearl that broke its shell. HarperCollins.
13. Hashimi, N. (2025). Kabuğunu Kıran İnci. Arkadya
14. hooks, b. (1986). Sisterhood: Political solidarity between women. Feminist Review, 23, 125-138.
15. Imran, M., Afridi, A. K., & Shakoor, T. (2025). Feminine sex role and gender masculine role in The Pearl That Broke Its Shell: A critical discourse analysis. Annual Methodological Archive Research Review, 3(5), 364–370. https://doi.org/10.63075/5ty21f39
16. Imran, M., Sahrish, & Hussain, M. (2024). Ideological construction of gender representation in The Pearl That Broke: A critical discourse analysis. Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review, 8(1), 346-353. https://doi.org/10.47205/plhr.2024(8-I)31
17. Jayawardena, K. (2016). Feminism and nationalism in the Third World. Verso Books.
18. Johnson-Odim, C. (1991). Common themes, different contexts: Third World women and feminism. In C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third World women and the politics of feminism (ss. 314-327). Indiana University Press.
19. Kala, S. J., & Smiruthi, A. (2021). Identity metamorphosis in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. Shodh Sarita, 8(29), 164-169.
20. Koçak, K., & Kabiri, H. (2025). A subaltern reading of Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell and Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Uluslararası İdil-Ural Ve Türkistan Araştırmaları Dergisi, 7(1), 36-69. https://doi.org/10.59305/ijvuts.1311467
21. Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge.
22. Maksudyan, N. (2015, 21 Aralık). Tebdil ve ferahlık. SabitFikir. https://www.sabitfikir.com/elestiri/tebdil-ve-ferahlik
23. McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial leather: Race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. Routledge.
24. Mohanty, C. T. (1984). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary 2, 12(3), 333–358.
25. Mohanty, C. T. (1991). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. In C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third World women and the politics of feminism (ss. 51-80). Indiana University Press.
26. Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism without borders. Duke University Press.
27. Mohanty, P. (1991). Literary theory and the claims of history. Cornell University Press.
28. Morgan, R. (Ed.). (1984). Sisterhood is global: The international women’s movement anthology. The Feminist Press.
29. Naflath, K. (2025). The gendered dimensions of trauma: Women’s oppression and resistance in A House Without Windows and The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities, 5(3), 14–20. https://doi.org/10.55544/ijrah.5.3.4
30. Narayan, U. (2009). Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. Hypatia, 24, 86-106.
31. Oumeddour, S., & Belekbir, S. (2022). Afghan women through generations: A feminist analysis of Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell (2014) [MA Thesis, University Guelma].
32. Rashid, A. (2000). Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia. I.B. Tauris.
33. Said, E. W. (1978). Oryantalizm: Şarkiyatçılık (B. Ülner, Trans.). Metis Yayınları.
34. Sangari, K. (1990). The politics of the possible. In A. JanMohamed & D. Lloyd (Eds.), The nature and context of minority discourse (ss. 216-245). Oxford University Press.
35. Sivri, M., & Özdemir, H. (2021). Zana Muhsen’in Nadia’ya Sözüm Var eserinde postkolonyal feminizm ve Üçüncü Dünya feminist eleştirisi. A. Er & Y. Çelik (Ed.) içinde, Edebiyatta kadın ve evlilik (ss. 90–109). Bilgin Kültür Sanat Yayınları.
36. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (ss. 271–313). Macmillan.
37. Spivak, G. C. (1996). The Spivak reader (D. Landry & G. MacLean, Eds.). Routledge.
38. Spivak, G. C. (1999). A critique of postcolonial reason: Toward a history of the vanishing present. Harvard University Press.
39. Stromquist, N. P. (1998). Introduction. N. P. Stromquist (Haz.), Women in the Third World: An encyclopedia of contemporary issues içinde (ss. xxv–xxxv). Routledge.
40. Sumra, S., & Taseer, M. (2019). Subalternity in The Pearl that Broke Its Shell: An Alternative Feminist Analysis. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies, 7(4), 160-173.
41. Suleri, S. (1992). Woman skin deep: Feminism and the postcolonial condition. Critical Inquiry, 18(4), 756-769. Doi: 10.1086/448656
42. Trinh, T. M. (1989). Woman, native, other: Writing postcoloniality and feminism (Expanded ed.). Indiana University Press.
43. United Nations Security Council. (2023). Excluded from education, public life: Afghan women and girls facing gender apartheid. United Nations. https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15330.doc.htm
44. United States Institute of Peace. (2025). Tracking the Taliban’s treatment of women. https://www.usip.org/
45. UN Women. (2025, 14 Haziran). Afghanistan’s women are still fighting: Inside the fight for rights under Taliban. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2025/06/afghanistans-women-are-still-fighting-inside-the-fight-for-rights-under-taliban
46. Vincily, R. A., & Grace, A. (2019). Veils away for a while: A cultural scrutiny of Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl that Broke its Shell. Thematics Journal of Geography, 8(10), 151-156.
47. Wahedi, M. S. (2022). Women’s identity and the practice of bacha posh in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. International Journal of Research (IJR), 9(2), 57-72.
48. Zahirana Hanun, F., & Susanti Wulandari, R. (2025). Bacha posh: Perpetuation of women’s oppression in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. FRASA: English Education and Literature Journal, 6(2), 357-373. https://doi.org/10.47701/bptdpd19