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@article{210826,
        author = {ABINAYA S},
        title = {Colonial Stereotypes and Gendered Representation: A Postcolonial Feminist Study of Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {6},
        pages = {2334-2340},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=210826},
        abstract = {The representation of Asian women in colonial and postcolonial literature has frequently been shaped by racial stereotypes, patriarchal ideologies and unequal structures of cultural power. Asian femininity has often been associated with submissiveness, sexual availability, silence and cultural inferiority, positioning women as objects of colonial representation rather than independent subjects. Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman (1997) challenges these constructions through the experiences of Akiko, a Korean survivor of Japanese military sexual slavery, and her daughter Beccah, who struggles to understand her mother's traumatic past. This paper examines the relationship between colonial stereotypes and gendered representation in the novel through a postcolonial feminist perspective. Drawing on Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, Homi K. Bhabha's concepts of cultural hybridity and ambivalence, Lisa Lowe's discussions of Asian American cultural politics, and Marianne Hirsch's theory of postmemory, the study investigates the representation of the female body, sexual exploitation, patriarchal authority, cultural silence and intergenerational trauma. Through qualitative textual analysis and close reading, it explores how colonial power transforms the Asian female body into a site of racialised domination and how gendered violence continues to influence identity beyond the historical period of colonial occupation. Particular attention is given to Akiko's fragmented memories, spiritual experiences and relationship with Beccah as significant narrative strategies through which historical suffering is remembered and communicated. The paper argues that Keller challenges the stereotypical representation of Asian women as passive and submissive by presenting female identity as complex, historically situated and resistant to fixed cultural definitions. It concludes that storytelling, memory and intergenerational recognition become important means of challenging colonial erasure and reclaiming Asian female subjectivity.},
        keywords = {Asian American Literature, Colonial Stereotypes, Gendered Representation, Postcolonial Feminism, Orientalism, Female Body, Sexual Violence, Cultural Identity, Intergenerational Trauma, Female Resistance.},
        month = {November},
        }