BODIES IN REVOLT: CONSTRUCTION OF CONFINEMENT AND THE UNHOMELY SELF IN ELIF SHAFAK’S HONOR AND 10 MINUTES 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE WORLD

Abstract

This article examines how Elif Shafak constructs the female body as a site of confinement, resistance, and self-reclamation in Honor (2011) and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019). Drawing on postcolonial feminist theory and Homi Bhabha’s concept of the “unhomely,” the study explores how Shafak’s women navigate intersecting structures of patriarchy, displacement, and identity. Through close textual analysis, the paper demonstrates that Shafak redefines womanhood not as passive victimhood but as embodied agency, transforming the female body from a symbol of silence into a medium of revolt. Honor exposes the internalized forms of othering and moral confinement imposed upon women within familial and diasporic spaces, while 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World reimagines the post-mortem female body as a locus of narrative and spiritual liberation. Together, the novels articulate a transnational feminist consciousness that challenges binary notions of purity and sin, home and exile, life and death. Shafak’s fiction ultimately envisions the “unhomely self” as a dynamic, resistant identity that subverts patriarchal control through memory, storytelling, and embodied resilience.