THE GAZE OF THE OTHER: SARTRE'S “LE REGARD,” DE BEAUVOIR, AND RELATIONAL SELFHOOD IN THE WEARY GENERATIONS

Abstract

The present study reads relational selfhood in Abdullah Hussein’s The Weary Generations (Udaas Naslein) through Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of “the Look” (le regard) and Simone de Beauvoir’s extension of that concept to the situation of women. Naim, the novel’s protagonist, is so confused about his own being that his attempts to define himself remain incomplete; he does not commit to one particular mode of living but prefers instead a continuous unfolding of the self, and it is this restlessness that earlier scholarship, including the authors’ own prior study, has read largely as a solitary confrontation with freedom. This paper argues that such a reading leaves out something structurally important: Naim is never free in isolation. He is constantly looked at, judged, and placed by family, community, and colonial authority, and it is against this gaze, not apart from it, that his freedom has to be measured. The paper then turns to the novel’s female characters, Azra and Bano (earlier known as Champa), who are looked at and judged in much the same manner as Naim but are rarely permitted his freedom to leave, to withdraw, or to redefine the terms on which they are seen. Using hermeneutical close reading of the novel alongside Sartre and de Beauvoir, the study suggests that The Weary Generations does not merely trace one man’s burden of freedom; it also registers, almost in spite of itself, how unevenly that freedom is distributed between men and women in a colonial and postcolonial world.