The Female Body as a Contested Terrain: Identity, Trauma, and Resistance in Gitanjali Kolanad’s Girl Made of Gold

Abstract

The Gitanjali Kolanad’s Girl Made of Gold through the framework of Contemporary Embodiment Theory. While existing scholarship has approached the novel primarily from feminist and socio-cultural perspectives, limited attention has been given to the embodied dimensions of female subjectivity within the text. Drawing upon Maurice Merleau Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, Michel Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power, and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, this study argues that the female body in the novel operates as a contested terrain where identity, trauma, and resistance intersect. Trauma is shown to be embedded within bodily memory, while resistance emerges through embodied negotiation of social norms. By foregrounding the body as both regulated and agentive, Kolanad’s text contributes significantly to contemporary discussions in feminist embodiment studies. The paper situates the novel within broader theoretical debates, demonstrating how embodied experience shapes female identity and narrative meaning.