Exploring “Failure to Launch” in an Urbanized Society A Psychological Study of Saba Imtiaz’s Karachi, You’re Killing Me (2014)

The post-modern conception of interdisciplinary research has gained much popularity in the contemporary field of literary theory and practice. A number of young adult texts have been analyzed from the perspective of various critical and theoretical approaches related to the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology and gender studies etc. This study is an attempt to explore the socio-cultural reasons, contributing factors and the lasting consequences of a psychological obstruction known as “failure to launch”, a recurrent phenomenon in the contemporary urbanized societies, with reference to Saba Imtiaz’s novel, Karachi, You’re Killing Me (2014). J. Arnett, an American psychologist, has explained that those who find themselves incapable of making any personal, educational or career choices at the stage of their “emerging adulthood” i.e. the phase between their adolescence and adulthood, suffers from the impediment of “failure to launch”. The differences in the socio-cultural set-up of the Western and the Eastern, and the rural and the urban societies may vary the age bracket of “emerging adulthood” of their inhabitants. The study is a qualitative research analysis based on the parameters proposed by Kultar Singh and Glaser and Strauss. Moreover the research has also been conducted following Breth Bruke’s principles of Close Reading. In the light of the theoretical framework proposed by Aaron Jennings related to YAs’ failure to go through a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood, the current study explores the psychological inability of Imtiaz’s protagonist, Ayesha, who despite in her twenties, is unable to find her way in the biggest metropolitan city of Pakistan. Thus the study not only critically analyzes the narrative web of Saba Imtiaz’s Karachi, You’re Killing Me (2014), with special focus on the challenges of a female in the discriminating urbanized society, but also offers an insight to the factors leading to the delay in her self-sufficiency and physical, emotional and financial independence.