Representation of Gender in Social Norms: A Textual Analysis of Rehana Alam’s The Tea Trolley

Abstract

The present study discusses Rehana Alam’s novel The Tea Trolley (2017). The novel depicts, on a lighter tone, the story of Amna- a teen-aged girl of upper middle class, whose family is in search of a suitable husband for her. Thus, reinforcing her to qualify certain norms which are societal for the major part and gender based at times, her family and people around her expect her to meet the standards set by her parents or society. The story is set in Karachi (the capital city of Sindh, one of the provinces of Pakistan) in the years 1979 to 1980, the time when arrange marriage was a trend and tradition. The single story mingles other twelve tales narrated by relatives and friends, providing readers a supplementary viewpoint on this Middle Eastern tradition. The paper analyzes the novel with perspective of how social norms and gender norms exist and how they promote human action strongly in any society. Hence, under theoretical framework of Social Norm approach and Gender specific norms in it, this paper attempts to analyze the text of the novel with the questions as to how social norms and gender specific norms are represented in the novel and how far they effect human behaviors and actions. Social Norm approach has been presented at different levels in different disciplines like sociology, psychology, Social sciences, etc. The details of the theory is given in the section of the theoretical framework in the paper. The endeavor made in the paper through textual analysis concludes that every society has set certain norms which are informal, based on their values, customs and practices. And that these norms very much operate in the novel The Tea Trolley, for, the actions, behaviors and practices of the characters in the novel are strongly influenced by these norms. The study is qualitative in nature hence the technique of textual analysis is used to interpret the research questions.