Transgressing the Border of Gender in Sheeba Shah’s The Other Queen

The Other Queen documents the actions and activities of King Rajendra Bir Bikram Shah (1816-1847 BS) and his queens Samrajya Laxmi and Rajya Laxmi, which resulted in the unbalanced power sharing of the nation. Shah stresses that the main cause behind this is the crossing of the gender boundary between the King and the Queen. In the selected text, the king disobeys to stick to the image of an authoritative valor, so he appears as a subservient coward. Queens are self-confident and powermongers; they deny performing the roles of submissive and self-sacrificing women. Thus, this article analyzes the motives behind the disobedience of conventional gender image by the major characters. It also showcases the results caused by trespassing and the gender confinement by the characters. To address this objective, Butler's concept of gender performativity has been used as she claims that the 'performances of gender' are not natural; they are imposed on an individual through the script prepared by society. She views that an individual creates one's gender by performing the scripted gender roles continually; nevertheless, s/he finds the space to repeat the acts differently. Hence, one gets options within those constraints to break them. Moreover, gender is constantly reconstructed in response to socio-political changes. The implication of this article is to observe how the Queens seize power from the king, and dismantle the role of submissive women. It concludes that in The Other Queen, the characters contest the stereotyped gender roles, and they recurrently cross the gender confinement.