Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid
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Renuka Kannan
Renuka Kannan is a research scholar at the Central University of Tamil Nadu. She is currently engaged with theories of space and the pedagogy of English Literature and Language. She is also interested in Environmental Humanities, Critical Pedagogy, Curriculum Studies, and Language Planning and Policy. She graduated from the University of Madras and has three years of experience working and developing content for various international and national competitive exams like the GRE, IELTS, TOEFL, and UGC-NET.
Abstract
Women are confined to spaces guided by the patriarchally shaped society of ours, where women's efforts are ignored, suppressed, or punished. This chapter examines Netflix’s American drama Maid, which narrativizes the struggle of a single mother, Alex, who flees from an abusive relationship with her daughter after years of being confined to a mini-caravan turned into a home. The hold of phallocentric dogmatism has penetrated her so much that she does not understand that she has been physically, psychologically, and financially suppressed after marrying her husband. Alex is trapped in multiple fashions – by her husband, mother, absent father, and daughter. Even after she escapes from the drudgery of housewifery, the government policies, instead of helping her, impede her further.
I argue that her ‘nomadic consciousness’ is the guiding element for Alex to regain control over life, which she does through her passion for writing. Refusing to adhere to an institution of hierarchies, the nomadic space breaks free from the rigid power structures and dismantles the hegemony. Although becoming a nomad was not her conscious choice, the power of voluntary and continuous displacements makes her fight for her nomadic consciousness while working as a maid and dreaming of a future as a writer despite living in abject poverty. Drawing on Braidotti’s notion of ‘nomadic consciousness,’ this chapter examines how women navigate and resist spatial confinements by unpacking the tension between movement, restriction, and embodied spatiality.
Abstract
Women are confined to spaces guided by the patriarchally shaped society of ours, where women's efforts are ignored, suppressed, or punished. This chapter examines Netflix’s American drama Maid, which narrativizes the struggle of a single mother, Alex, who flees from an abusive relationship with her daughter after years of being confined to a mini-caravan turned into a home. The hold of phallocentric dogmatism has penetrated her so much that she does not understand that she has been physically, psychologically, and financially suppressed after marrying her husband. Alex is trapped in multiple fashions – by her husband, mother, absent father, and daughter. Even after she escapes from the drudgery of housewifery, the government policies, instead of helping her, impede her further.
I argue that her ‘nomadic consciousness’ is the guiding element for Alex to regain control over life, which she does through her passion for writing. Refusing to adhere to an institution of hierarchies, the nomadic space breaks free from the rigid power structures and dismantles the hegemony. Although becoming a nomad was not her conscious choice, the power of voluntary and continuous displacements makes her fight for her nomadic consciousness while working as a maid and dreaming of a future as a writer despite living in abject poverty. Drawing on Braidotti’s notion of ‘nomadic consciousness,’ this chapter examines how women navigate and resist spatial confinements by unpacking the tension between movement, restriction, and embodied spatiality.
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
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Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
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Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
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Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
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Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
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Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
