Reconfiguring Development in the Postcolonial Female Bildungsroman: Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar and the Limits of Teleology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1607.01Keywords:
postcolonial female bildungsroman, development theory, epistemic instability, maternal ambivalence, unreliable narrationAbstract
This study re-examines the concept of development through the lens of the classical genre of bildungsroman, while interrogating its teleology, coherence, and integration, which have historically been rooted in European modernity and colonial epistemology. While postcolonial and feminist studies have highlighted the exclusions inherent in this genre, there is a dearth of conceptual terms to think through alternative forms of development. In this context, this article seeks to address this gap by using Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar (2020) as a text that actively theorizes development in situations of epistemic instability, relational ambivalence, and postcolonial constraint. This study uses a theoretical close reading method, engaging with Spivak’s concept of epistemic exclusion, Bhabha’s concept of third space, and Boehmer’s concept of narrative resistance. Burnt Sugar uses fragmented temporality, unreliable narration, and resistance to closure to reconfigure development as a non-teleological, recursive process that is shaped by memory, trauma, and unresolved relational dynamics. This study makes three contributions: one, rethinking development as survival-in-relation; two, using unreliable narration to think through subjectivity in situations of epistemic instability; and, three, rethinking the postcolonial female bildungsroman as a counter-genre that challenges the colonial logic of development. Thus, this article contributes to a rethinking of development as a non-teleological, recursive, and relational process rather than one that is rooted in coherence, integration, or closure.
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