Shameen from Haseena Moin’s Kohar: A Melancholic Character in Mist

Abstract

This paper analyses Shameen, the lead character of Haseena Moin’s (1991) mini-serial Kohar, in light of Sigmund Freud’s theory of melancholia and argues that as someone who loses an object of love, suffers ambivalence, is haunted by past experiences, disregards her ego and goes through a mania, she proves herself to be a melancholic character as per Freud’s theory. The paper also sheds light on how and why Shameen’s character is shaped by the ‘past’, unlike the writer’s other female protagonists whose efforts are always for a better ‘future’, and what the deeply evocative title ‘Kohar’ (mist) and the setting of the play suggest about Shameen’s bleak future. The paper offers an insight into a post-Zia era dismal regime that changed women in multiple ways, in terms of their character, their participation in practical life and their emotional sensitivity. This research thus lies at the intersection of psychanalysis and feminist studies and tangentially touches upon environmental literature to see why a popular dramatist, at a certain juncture in Pakistan’s history, chose to sketch a character markedly different from her other characters, and what she hoped to achieve by placing her in suburban Karachi rather than in the heart of the bustling metropolis, and why her melancholic female character failed to appeal to the masses unlike her more vivacious female characters residing in Urban Karachi.