Paper Details

Name: Sweta Kumari & Nilima Jha
Country: India

Year: 2025
Volume: Volume-12, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 42-48
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18786728

ABSTRACT
This paper explores how psychological androgyny has been used in the play of Mahesh
Dattani as a prefiguration of identity as processual and integrative and not as something fixed and gendered. Going beyond the readings on gender discrimination, the paper probes how the characters developed by Dattani represent a merger of what is inhaled as traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics. The paper uses a theory of psychological androgyny suggested by Sandra Bem and a concept of gender performativity by Judith Butler to examine Tara, Dance Like a Man, and Seven Steps Around the Fire and show how Dattani dismantles strict gender dichotomies. The analysis of the textual materials leads to the argument that Dattani recreates the identity on the basis of portraying the ethical selfhood as a psychologically negotiated and relationally situated identity. His main characters experience conflicts between personal will, social norms and ethical duties and attest to dharma as something dynamic and gender-biased instead of a fixed set of moral rules. In masculinizing the collision of the masculine and feminine sensibility on the individual psyche, Dattani imagines androgyny as the transforming state of existence that rebels against patriarchal conditioning. Finally, his theatre also suggests an inclusive image of a self-based on empathy, moral judgment, and psychological integrity.

Keywords: psychological androgyny; gender identity; Indian English drama; masculinity and femininity