Cultural threads, ghostly bonds: An intersectional feminist study of Hanna Alkaf’s the girl and the ghost

• Main Author: Soong, Ke Min
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General); PE English; PR English literature
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6508/1/2002107_FYP.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6508/

This intersectional feminist study delves into Hanna Alkaf's The Girl and The Ghost, exploring gender dynamics and cultural influences within the story. By adopting an intersectional feminist lens, the research emphasizes the importance of analyzing the interconnected influences of gender and cultural dimensions such as religion and class to unravel the nuanced dynamics shaping characters, particularly Suraya. The study sheds light on how characters navigate societal expectations and express femininity, focusing on Suraya's evolving journey challenging conventional representations. Through a comprehensive analysis, as pointed out in the conceptual framework of this research, it evaluates the effectiveness of the intersectional feminist framework in shedding light on gender, cultural influences particularly in religion and class portrayed in the narrative. The conclusion draws from this research is that Suraya’s experiences are influenced and shaped by the interplay of gender and cultural dimensions such as religion and class. At the same time, the forms of oppression faced by Suraya as well as her empowerment in a marginalized society as the result of the interplay of gender, cultural dimensions such as religion and class are discussed in the research paper. All these discussions are integral parts of intersectional feminist framework proposed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory.