A Study of Mental Illness in Pasho in Krishna Sobti’s Memory’s Daughter

Abstract

Since the second half of the twentieth century, cultural theorists have shown more interest in understanding the interaction between body and culture. This interaction has been studied from the perspective of illness-experience in individuals by Arthur Kleinman and Judith Lorber. Judith Lorber and Lise Jean Moore in Gender and Social construction of Illness advocate illness not merely a bodily event but a social experience –a disturbance in social lives without or without physical dysfunction wherein one feels constraints upon body in pursuing the usual tasks of life. Kleinman in Illness Narrative studies illness as a cultural construct, wherein some bodily conditions are categorized as illness and some are often passed on as normal because what is seen a normal and natural in a culture is based on the shared understanding in that culture.  The present paper aims to explore the role of culture through the lens of illness experience in Pasho in Krishna Sobti’s Memory’s Daughter.