Critique of Patriarchal Discourse on Beauty Myth: A Study of Roxane Gay's Hunger

Abstract

his research paper analyzes Roxane Gay's Hunger as a feminist text that critiques patriarchal discourse on beauty myth. It shows how women have been evaluated by men since ages on the basis of their physical appearances. The life experiences of Gay in Hunger expose the way women are looked upon and judged just like that because of their bodies.The research paper revealsthe way over-sized women are stigmatized in the name of socialization and rigid beauty standards under patriarchal discourses. The paper shows how beauty myths are created against women through their stereotypical images created by men, ignoring the inner beauty, skills, competence and other abilities in order to control and restrict them.It presents the idea that women become the victim of low self-esteem, self-hatred, and depression because of the compulsion to appear attractive and pleasing to men. It further clarifies that Gay gains excessive weight to resist the patriarchal discourse on beauty myth as it considers fat body of a woman unattractive. She believes that slender body type is desirable to men. Gay knows that women are expected to look attractive and pleas ant for men. So,she deliberately becomes fat by eating uncontrollably and begins to dress like men to destabilize the patriarchal discourse on females.Theoretical concepts from revisionist feminists such as Elaine Show alter, Helene Cixous, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar,and Naomi Wolf are used to prove the major argument of this thesis.