Subverting Patriarchal Paradigms: Cleopatra and Maneka’s Reconfiguration of Feminine Authority

Abstract

Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra around 1607, whereas Lakshmi Raj Sharma’s The Tailor’s Needle was first published in 2009. It becomes abundantly challenging as well as exciting to bring these two characters, Cleopatra of Antony and Cleopatra and Maneka of The Tailor’s Needle, together to make a comparative analysis of their roles in standing against patriarchal authority in their own times and spaces. What makes their comparison rather difficult is that these two characters are separated by more than four centuries in terms of temporal expansion and are from two completely different continents considering their spatial bounds. Nonetheless, it is interesting to notice that there are glaring similarities in their attitudes, actions, and strategic romantic alliances that challenge patriarchal constraints of their times. This paper seeks to explore the parallels in these characters along with their journey through similar life circumstances. There are some unmissable resemblances in the happenings of their lives that are worth exploring. Their cross-cultural alliances make a point of comparison between these characters. Cleopatra is an Egyptian who falls in love with Antony, a Roman emperor. Similarly, Maneka is an Indian who has sexual encounters with a British magistrate, Larry Stephens.

This paper also examines how Cleopatra and Maneka utilize their intimate relationships as means of political and personal agency while simultaneously defying strict restrictive gender norms and dominant colonial narratives imposed by their respective social contexts. For the purpose of a comparative analysis, this study engages feminist literary theory and postcolonial theory to explore how these two characters function as agents of subversion within their patriarchal system and colonial power dynamics. This paper delves deeper upon these lines to probe how Cleopatra and Maneka subvert the patriarchal and colonial models in an overwhelmingly male-dominated society.