Abstract

Queer individuality challenges the power dynamics of hegemonic patriarchal power structures and threatens to expose the manipulative agenda of cis-conditioning. Misogynistic social institutions and discourses employ biopower to ideologically control individuals and their bodies in order to train them to function in their favor. This study investigates the work of biopower in the lesbian narrative A Married Woman by Manju Kapur. It deconstructs the novel to bring out the inconsistencies and internal contradictions in the protagonist’s life choices and actions. This work examines the perpetual tension between queer individuality and cis-conditioning, analyzing the feasibility of the former within the existing social framework. It elucidates State-sponsored biopolitics and their imperceptible influence on all individuals. Furthermore, it investigates the mechanisms through which individual sexual consciousness is interpellated and manifested as social reality, and subsequently compares the radical stances of two significant female characters in the novel, who exemplify divergent approaches to patriarchal dominance.