PATHOLOGY, POWER AND RESISTANCE: A FOUCAULDIAN DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF INFECTION IN SHAH’S BEFORE SHE SLEEPS

Abstract

This research provides a critical interrogation of Bina Shah’s Before She Sleeps (2018) through the theoretical lenses of Foucauldian Biopower and the Medical Gaze. It contends that the novel’s central 'infection' functions not merely as a narrative device, but as a sophisticated dispositif as a pathological pretext that legitimizes the state of Green City’s transition into a totalizing biocracy. By conducting a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of the 'TalkBots' as digitized instruments of panoptic surveillance and examining the 'Agency’s' clinical rhetoric, this study demonstrates how the female anatomy is systematically stripped of political agency and reconfigured as a site of biological emergency. Furthermore, the research utilizes the concept of Heterotopia to reframe the 'Panah.' The current research argues that the Panah functions as a heterotopic site where the reclaiming of non-productive conditions, such as sleep challenges, the state's monopoly over its citizen-subjects' biopolitical power. The research ultimately makes an important contribution to the body of dystopian South Asian literary studies through the revelation of the transition from religion-based to secular medical control of women