Abstract

Current Study analyzes the reconstruction strategies of identity adopted by the protagonist in City of spies by keeping the idea of self-fashioning by Greenblatt. The qualitative methodology has been used for analysis in the present research. The primary source of data is Sorayya Khan's novel City of Spies. Data analysis includes the self-fashioning of the protagonist according to the dominant culture of her surroundings. The researcher has analyzed the data related to self-fashioning and factors that promote the protagonist's self-fashioning and identity crisis, drawing upon Greenblatt's theory of self-fashioning. Greenblatt sees authority preserve identity and self-fashioning in society. Greenblatt believes in the powerful consequence of identity formation and self-fashioning. This current examination endeavors to see identity through the viewpoint of self-fashioning and its ensuing impact on awareness, prompting an identity formation of the protagonist.

Key Words

Self-Fashioning, Self-Identity, Cultural Identity, Postmodernism

Introduction

The phenomenon of personality has been a key issue for humanity through the centuries. Lewis (1990) believes that a person means to be aware of the existence of the ' I 'out of the wild, ‘I’ am the center of what it means to be a person to be with. Identity because of its relativistic nature highlights the strength of an individual's relationships within society. Self is captured in the sense of its own identity, while the identity is taken in the sense of differentiation and in parallel the banality of the Self (Burk, 2009). Giroux (2009) stated that the new political movement, projects and views new challenges and dimensions of the identity as the means of identification. Post colonialism serves as the construction of the individual as a whole of colonialism. Its states are both, the product and the motion of the expected national and religious identities across national borders. 

The study of the protagonist's self-fashioning and rebuilding of identity and personality in multiple cultures and regions is the key focus of this study. City of Spies has been reviewed by various critics, who accept that the story is happening to an aged tale about a young girl's expedition. Some of them perceive the effects of government and history on the little youngster's discernment yet don't fight that the otherworldly power components shape the insight of the essential characters of the story. The tale is brimmed with family mysteries and how worldwide authorities contrive a significant task in obliterating people's lives. The protagonist of the novel, Aliya shah, is a half-half, which implies an American and a Dutch, and she generally attempts to know her character.

Self-fashioning is the product of conscious or unconscious moral freedom, not only societal or structural causes. Taken together, there is a case for a more dynamic understanding of personality, in which personal action impacts and is driven by political, religious, social, and cultural realities.




Objectives of the Study

The following are the objectives of the study:

? To analyze the reconstructing strategies of identity adopted by Protagonist Aliya Shah in the novel City of Spies.

? To analyze the Self-Fashioning of Protagonist Aliya Shah in the novel City of Spies.

? To trace the different factors which lead the protagonist to adopt self-fashioning.




Research Questions

The following are the research questions:

1. How does the Text City of Spies present instances of self-fashioning?

2. What are the major factors which compel the protagonist of Sorayya khan’s novel City of Spies to self-fashion her identity?

3. What are the reconstructing strategies 

adopted by the Protagonist for self fashioning City of Spies?




Concept of Self-Fashioning

Foucault, M. (1972), in his work 'the prologue to displaying whiteness in the USA,' expresses that our undertaking 'as far as an instructional method, political mindfulness and militarization is to advise ourselves and instruct our scholars that characters are verifiably given. We need to perceive that subjects are delivered employing different identities. As long as searching for the rise of a 'worldwide town' personality to supplant the 'national at the beginning of the research, we erect that the people we met held themselves and local identities at chance through the well-known idea of a 'worldwide town' identity. Silence stayed muddled about how we could archive 'that subjects are delivered through different personalities.' One interpretative focal point centers on self-fashioning cycles utilization of the action word 'fashion' following Greenblatt's (1980) work of Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Greenblatt says that 'for the activity or interaction of making, for specific highlights or pretense, for a particular design or form, the discourse has been long being used, yet during the sixteenth century that "fashion" appears to enter into extensive money as a method of assigning the framing of self .'Greenblatt has examined messages from More to Shakespeare, representing how the active community and noble guys in the sixteenth century started to distinguish that they had forming control over their lives. Though nation, country, and strict foundations (religious institutions) forced a more inflexible and extensive order upon their controls around then as compared today. Still, his point is valuable for this investigation since it calls attention to the hallucination of 'opportunity' to style self instead of obliging, commanding components. The inconsistency between being allowed to fashion oneself (from the back to front, as psychological theories would guarantee) and the commanding instruments at work in some random social framework to fashion identities is the thing that this contextual investigation desires to enlighten. The research involved a detailed examination of the writings for interpretive cues regarding the lives and identities featured. In his discourse investigation, Gottlieb (1989) followed Foucault's concept of actually digressive rehearses intently. According to Foucault's point of view, discourse is the premise of social praxis. Information about culture is built desultorily. Information, for Foucault, is developed inside the verbose acts of a field at a specific duration. Lengthy activities are characterized as a bunch of 'consistencies,' which can be established in unique content; however frequently serve to bunch countless writings (Foucault, 1972). For Foucault, the investigation of discourse is not worried about the hypothetical compatibility of a particular field; instead, it includes the portrayal of a specific assortment of expressions with the end goal of building up their normality. A discourse examination does not look to catch reality regarding that discourse article. Instead, it invokes how the discourse delineates (or for sure comprises) its article (Arias, 2001).

Theoretical Framework

Self-fashioning is used as a consequence of the research, not simply social or structural influences, but also human agency and conscious or unconscious. Overall, there is a case for a more dynamic definition of identity, one in which human activity impacts and is impacted by political, religious, social, and cultural realities. A reactionary to New Criticism, New Historicism sees literature and history as an advanced interaction. Any piece of art is constrained by time, space, and context. New Historicism's theoretical formulations are diverse, encompassing structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and Postmodernist, Marxist, and Post-Marxist perspectives. It sees society as accumulating works that correspond to other readers but have no literary merit. The many ways the network of power relations works via the text are power-centred.

The self develops its authority, while the other recognizes distinctions and seeks out nodes to reclaim control. As a result, the text becomes a historical venue for the powerful surveillance of the disadvantaged, assuring the work's multiple layers and structures. New Historicism stresses literary history while questioning standard ways of producing records and literary criticism. According to its proponents, New Historicists "point to the status of certain texts in particular as products of the times and mysterious formations, while looking at reality - history - as the very essence of language codification that is impossible for the critic/historian beyond the recovery of past cultures," (Spiegel, 1990). The historical record is a trustworthy mirror of the past, "a palpable life guided by the guidelines of the existing public record whose survival we cannot take for granted but must be understood to have minimal influence on complex and delicate social processes of preservation and effective use" (Montrose,1989).

Self-expression is circumferential, including power and cultural systems. The past lives in the present through language, meaning, and interpretation of texts, underlying a nuanced power relationship between text and context in and through a selfish mode. Greenblatt's analysis of Shakespeare's plays focused on the Elizabethan cultural underpinnings' style. Shakespeare "appears to be great in all his works" compassionate author of the sequence, a master coach (Greenblatt, 1980). Shakespeare's works become "an unlimited talent for penetrating another's consciousness, to see its very complex patterns as a controlled myth, and re-introducing it into its storytelling state" (Greenblatt, 1980). Shakespearean heroes are intrigued by the contextual settings in their cultural strategies, allowing the texts to engender realities as self-fashioners. Greenblatt (1980) stated that outside of God, the bible, a church-like organization, a judicial, colonial or military authority, Self-Fashion is about surrendering to the power or control of a lower one. The functionalists accept such a notion. Greenblatt is excluded from the Foucauldian view of discursive power. To the extent that I said, there are no periods of pure, boundless humility; in fact, the personal study began to look startlingly unjustified due to the notion of power relations in a particular culture. I discovered not free-standing patent enlightenment but a cultural art whenever I focused too much on the moment of seeming independence. With only a few people remaining with free will, the option was one of the possible situations in which the list could be carefully filtered by the successful social and ideological system (Greenblatt, 1980).

Greenblatt sees culture as a text in which textual representations are used to discuss "postmodern skepticism." He allows historicity and textually as a point of the investigation into the colonist discourse while emphasizing the themes of astonishment and resonance. However, by remaining apolitical, the agency's insidious character draws closer to Foucauldian structural closure, reflecting humanity's fragility. As a result, New Historicism seeks to discover constraints or impediments to individual participation rather than portraying historical processes as unpredictable and memorable. Unique intelligence's apparently dividing influence appears to be paired with collective, societal power: disagreement can be part of a broader authorisation process, while measures to reinforce order may intervene (Greenblatt, 2015).

Textual Analysis

Identity Formation as Self-fashioning

The short stories of an individual's personal mongrel history from the South Asian diaspora are depicted in City of Spies (2015). Khan's novel City Of Spies engages in the ambiguity of ambiguous personality, acting, the manner of life as a circle, and the re-production of the self in the domain of movement, much like Bhabha's (1994) explanation of the self-area at the border crossing of hybridity and postcolonialism. This postcolonial region serves as a bridge between contemporary Pakistan and British colonial eras. Where does reality become multiplied? Aliya vaults and looks out over Lahore's mosques with her servant Sadiq. Sorayya Khan wonders if she has misplaced her sense of place. From her story's contemporary sequel, where she renounced the arrangement, she recalls the split quality time she won in her adolescence. Sorayya Khan writes about her past existence, which she discovers has turned into a novel, her nation, which has become strange, and her memories are currently chronicled from this indecisive geological and transitory place. In light of Bhabha's (1994) definition of a modernist mongrel, the current study examines the presentation of categorization in Khan's content. Following Sorayya Khan's textual self-portraiture and records, it is claimed that her modernist self-fashioning is best understood as a tentative postcolonial shift. According to Gusdorf (2014), the personality does not perceive herself to be able to exist outside of a dependable presence that attests to its cadences anywhere in a society where life is so thoroughly caught that everyone has his centre all over and outlines no place. As a result, the disengaged being is never the significant unit.' This discernment enables an evaluation of a sensation of imparted character to others, a component of an identity that persists despite the logic of uniqueness. 

Despite being varied and frail, the self emerges through the body's representation in geographical and international resemblances in City of Spies. While these similarities have a certain phenomenological depth, they strain the relationship between the personal and the country in a different situation, such as Foucault's archaic investigation. In City of Spies, self-talk is inextricably linked to the public or metro conversation. The accepted history is challenged in the City of Spies. The aggregate mythos of target history - reform, homogenous, and natural - is refuted in City of Spies. She is the archaeologist of her memories, who does not attempt to resurrect or recollect the past but is horrified by the conflict between its stubbornness and its fading. Sorayya Khan's look is badly balanced between the discomfort of remembering and the desire to forget. Quick disengagement exacerbates the challenge of dealing with uprooted geology and alienated society. Pastiness is not a trustworthy indicator of actual memory. Hence new approaches to management should be devised. The superior calm of incident comparison is imprinted in the story's recurrent transient methodology to use Anne Simon's dangerous plan. City of Spies is not an exhibition of public events, an inventory, or an order, but rather a construction enabling. Sorayya Khan's feminine counter-account of the nation suffers from a troublesome fleeting articulation compared to the Western male-centric country's regimented, sequential season of creation. According to Bhabha, the mind and the social create interstitial proximity at various points in such documents. It is proximity that questions the parallel divides that often divide such spheres of social activity geographically. These life circles are intertwined throughout and in the centre; impermanence takes the percentage of remaining at home while painting a picture of the historical cosmos.

Lahore and Islamabad are the settings for Khan's City of Spies. From mid-1977 to late-1979, the most intense activity occurs. Due to the downfall of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's public power, followed by his death by Zia ul Haq, this time in Pakistan's history is of great significance. These political difficulties directly affect the novel's main character, Aliya. Although Bhutto and Gen Zia are only mentioned in passing throughout the tale, their names form an intriguing link between the authentic and anecdotal accounts. It also examines the profound imprints of the American influence on Pakistan's political fate during and after the Cold War. The family returns to Islamabad during the military regime from Lahore. The death of their worker's children, Hanif, is revealed, leaving the young high scholar with a new perspective and an identity crisis.

Sorayya Khan has firsthand knowledge of the period of military overthrow in Pakistan during the 1970s; as a result, her setting catalyzes separating the actual image of that period, when foreign powers meddled in Pakistan's domestic projects and governmental issues by enlisting local revolutionaries, including strict and political leaders, to achieve their political and strategic objectives. Sorayya Khan examines the impact of power from a small perspective. Sorayya explores the imagined notions of Power components and their ramifications for identity crises in her work. "There's been a coup," my father remarked after a bit of pause. "The executive branch is under control, and military law has been declared" (Khan, 2015, p. 07). As eleven-year-old Aliya describes and guides the events in City of Spies. Greenblatt's conviction is evident and synergistic with the following remark. PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was declared a murderer and imposed military rule. A shift in the Power components stirred up the pot in which most Pakistanis' existence was fixed, resulting in widespread disaster. Khan portrays these emotions from Aliya's perspective throughout the film. After offering a prayer at the mosque, Aliya's grandfather returned home and sat on the front chair of the dining room.

“My father asked my grandfather. Have you checked the newspaper lately? My grandfather fashioned a bite-sized package of halwa and poori on his plate and placed it in his mouth, his teeth clicking like my grandfather's eating method, and I wished I could eat my halwa as deftly as he did. Younis was my grandfather's servant who brought a cold glass of water to breakfast every day at the same time” (Khan, 2015, p.7).

Breakfast with halva and poori is fashionable among Pakistan's social elite. Three different radio stations played various newscasts in Alia's home: VOA, BBC, and Deutsche. These radios were equally impressive in delivering current events in American English, British English, and German. Different radio stations heard in the same house show the Pakistani elite's self-fashioning. My grandfather said God to the two men who were conjuring God in an amusing intro to the entire plan to bring him into every aspect of our life and the country. 'God saves your job,' my grandfather murmured to my father as he shovelled more halwa into his lips. My father had laid out his forks, intending to listen. "You're not very good at it." My father sought to explain what had occurred. The military has had the upper hand. "The constitution has vanished, public gatherings have been disrupted, and the governor and top ministers have been consumed by fire." (Khan, S. 2015, p.8). The quote represents the army's authority, which has taken control of the entire country. The seats of all ministers have been eliminated.

The first question of my study also deals with instances of self-fashioning in City of Spies. Aliya's mother's name was Irene, and she was a Dutch woman. In Pakistan, her father used Yasmin's Muslim name. "Yasmin intends to remain in Pakistan. Instead of Irene, my father used my mother's Muslim name "(Khan, 2015, p.9). Yasmin's call to her mother in Pakistan demonstrates self-fashioning. In American society, whiskey and other narcotics were widely used. Valium and whisky were popular among American visitors to Pakistan. According to Alia, "Before his next meeting with the general, my mother suggested to my father that he try Valium. My father looked at me, puzzled. You are advising me in front of my daughter." (Khan, 2015, p.12).  

This explains Greenblatt's self-concocted concept that valium was a narcotic given to Americans in stressful situations when they were hesitant. Suggestions of drugs in front of the daughter reflect Pakistani Americans' cultural norms and self-fashioning. In Pakistani culture, drugs are forbidden, but Aliya's mother was providing the drug to her father. Motorcycles were uncommon in Pakistan at the time. Cycling was once the preferred mode of transportation. Motorcycles were used exclusively by intelligence agencies at the time. Aliya said, "The motorcyclist was appointed to keep watch on our house by Pakistan's intelligence agency" (Khan, 2015, p. 14).

In Pakistan, the motorcycle used by intelligence agencies is fashionable. Because the protagonist spoke English first and Urdu second, Alia listened to English music. She hesitated to speak Urdu. "I was barely awake when Eddie Carpet, Pakistan's only English music radio show, came on" (Khan, 2015, p.15). Although Urdu was Pakistan's official language at the time, Alia preferred to listen to English music on the radio. This helps to explain the protagonist's in-text self-fashioning. Pakistan's power is reflected in its English language. Pakistan's influence is reflected in the English language.

Khan portrays Power through Aliya's father, who says, "Little men, chosen men, stand little chance without the hand of a greater authority" (Khan, 2015, p. 17). She also chastised General Zia-ul-Haq for his ties to American power and conspiracy. If the general is mentioned, Javed becomes agitated because he believes he is "a manipulator who had overthrown power and made definite things to destroy the nation" (Khan, 2015, p. 17). He is, however, shown to be hesitant to communicate his points of view openly. Self-fashioning is also reflected in power. The text by Sorayya Khan depicts the concentration of self-fashioning. She describes VIPs, a well-decorated dental clinic, and many Americans seeking dental treatment. 

Aliya said, "The dentist waiting room in Islamabad was well known for being one of the few locations where Pakistani and American children ran into each other" (Khan,2015, p.21).

The dental clinic was well-known in Islamabad; youngsters from both Pakistan and the United States visited it and made friends in the waiting area. The self-fashioning example in this chapter is reflected in this quotation. Lizzy's father, Mr Simon, was the one who wore the shorts at home. Shorts were frowned upon in Pakistani society. "At home, Mr Simon, a huge man, dressed in shorts" (Khan, 2015, p.22). This supports Greenblatt's self-fashioning idea. Self-fashioning has elements of culture, identity, and power.

According to Greenblatt, the recognition of selfhood beyond the domestic area is the culmination of self-fashioning among lower-middle-class American females in the nineteenth century. They must become experts in their field of change. Before they begin the cycle of self-moulding, they must see that their submission to the whole authority of the dominating society of control stifles their progress as individuals by denying them office and their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, once women have mastered the art of self-fashioning, they must overcome the true risk of distancing posed by the disaster that may accompany a public display of their newly made selves. As Stephen Greenblatt puts it, "increased hesitance regarding the moulding of human way of life as a manipulable, clever cycle" may be the reason for these women's self-fashioning. Greenblatt observes that the action term style has distinct connotations and that it appears to have gained widespread use as a means of attributing self-shaping. This framing might be viewed as the physical structure's load on a person. In her piece City of Spies, Sorayya Khan explores similar self-fashioning in the twenty-first century. In her paintings, Khan also depicts women's self-fashioning. Alia and Lizzy's characters both exhibit self-fashioning.

Khan describes Lizzy's house. "Lizzy's house could have been confused for a hotel. They were bare and impersonal, with heavy furniture, thick velvet drapes on the windows, stray photographs or finger-paintings” (Khan, 2015, p.23).

In the above quote, Khan depicts American self-fashioning and highlights the lifestyle differences between Pakistanis and Americans. Americans adorn their homes like hotels with new paintings every several months. Pakistan's upper crust decorates their homes, although not as much as Americans. Americans have a distinct way of life from Pakistanis. For an automobile, an American utilized a yellow C64 number plate. A vehicle's yellow C64 number plate revealed an American ambassador's identity. In Islamabad, the Americans have greater power than the Pakistanis. 

The second study question concerns the primary causes that lead the protagonist of Sorayya Khan's novel City of Spies to create her own identity. Greenblatt's self-fashioning idea heavily relies on social anthropologist Clifford Geertz's cultural hypothesis and interpretations of frameworks. According to Geertz, there is no such thing as a human instinct free of civilization. Greenblatt's interpretation of Geertz's remark argues that culture is a collection of control components, concepts, ideas, norms, and instructions for administering manners rather than a collection of substantive personal behaviour standards, usages, conventions, and social tendencies. At that moment, self-fashioning is predicated on the colonial notion that humans are social objects. According to Greenblatt, self-designing is essentially a variant of industrial applications, a social arrangement of implying that makes people explicit by administrating their section from unique to estimated cement genuine encapsulation, or from undetectable to recognizable, or from a lack of organization to one's own acknowledgement power as an influencer. House servants in America are thought to be trained animals.

Aliya's mother explains, "We don't summon servants by saying they're trained animals" (Khan, 2015, p. 32).

People in American and Dutch cultures treat their servants like animals. They mistake our house employees for animals. This is a clash of civilisations. Pakistanis treat their servants with respect. Pakistanis treat their slaves equally because our faith guarantees equal rights to all people. Aliya's mother was baptized, but her father was Muslim; Aliya's mother tried to persuade her father to convert to Christianity. Because cultural theory is also an element of self-fashioning, Sorayya Khan depicts the cultural clash in her story. Amir, Aliya's younger brother, was studying Islam in Cairo. He was an Al-Azhar student in Cairo. Aliya's mother made her children Dutch chocolate and cocoa powder. The Dutch culture and self-fashioning are represented by hot chocolate and Dutch cocoa powder. Power factors have an impact on people regardless of their age. "My mom thought that Hanif was eight," Greenblatt writes in Sorayya's memoir, "and the influence on the shift in supremacy materials provided is evident." "Whatever it is, the youngster is far too young to be concerned with the country's politics," my father declared (Khan, 2015, p. 37).

Alia was half-American and half-Pakistani because she attends an American school and enjoys English music. She was perplexed about her identity. Alia is torn between her two identities as a Pakistani and an American. She recalls Urdu phrases like pani, which meant "water." Darwaza was a door, among other things. Alia's self-fashioning is seen in her usage of Urdu terms in English and English words in her Urdu language. Even upper-class people like Aliya and her relatives, despite the privileged socioeconomic condition that allowed them to associate with Americans, are understandably concerned when they perceive the dictatorial and overconfident leadership and viewpoint of United States citizens against Pakistani people:

“I was not one of them. I was not American. I did not seem as though them, and attempt as I may; the subtleties of attempting to pass for one were depleting" (Khan, 2015, p. 53). 

Sorayya Khan shows the disparagement and even exploitation of local Pakistanis through the character Aliya. She notices a few rowdy American young guys throwing spitballs at Pakistanis on her way home from school. In response to the transport driver's subordinate condition, these acts might be seen as an instance of American arrogance and dominance over the Pakistani state, notably the tremendous military and joint administration that Americans overran. For example, when Aliya receives a greeting from Lizzy inviting her to a party at the American government office, she finds it difficult to go without informing her family because the welcome comes from an American companion who is not seen as trustworthy by her family. Alia wishes to spend a lot of time with Lizzy, but not in the American embassy, which she has shunned since the PM was hanged. Alia thanked Lizzy and accepted her invitation to lunch, a movie, and a tennis competition on Thursday. Alia had begun to respond to all of Lizzy's requests. Alia welcomed Lizzy to her house, but she could also take her to the Islamabad Club, the city's lone elite-class Pakistani club; if nothing else, the vastness of other Olympic-sized pools was impressive; even the Americans talked about it. Lizzy, who dreamed of being an Olympic driver, wanted to bounce around on the high driving board before making flawless swan leaps. Alia skipped school the following Friday and stayed in the kitchen. She sat with a honey jar, boiled egg, opened jam, and empty jars of dried fragment orange juice on the dining table. She was chowing down on paratha. On a hot day, she wore pants and an old sweater from her brother that was too big for her and way too loose on her body. 

"I was wearing jeans and one of Amir's old sweatshirts that were far big to me" (Khan,2015, p.104).

The quotation lines above explain the protagonist's self-fashioning and offer the solution to the second research question. Culture and power are two significant aspects that influence the protagonist's self-fashioning and identity. According to Greenblatt (1980), culture and power are two main aspects that foster self-fashioning. During Lizzy's visits, I kept a close eye on my mother, hoping to see whether she had any trouble disguising what we knew. She was charming in every way, eager to join the bread store before Lizzy arrived to examine Pakistani croissants and doughnuts and ensure that there was 7-up in the cooler. "Please let me know if there is anything you liked recently." Do you think you'd tell Lizzy? Then, after dragging out details from Lizzy about her grandparents' hamlet in Upstate New York, she'd acquire some knowledge about the twins and Anne Simon. 'Cazenovia.' I was more willing to spend time with Lizzy at her house.

“She encouraged men to make Rice Krispy Treats. We purged a container of marshmallow crème and a few cups of rice Krispy into a dish with liquefied spread and alternated blending the combination" (Khan, 2015, p.106).

Lizzy's mother returned from her stroll drenched in sweat and offered herself a big glass of cold water while holding out the sweets to set. Lizzy replied, "I adore your nation, Liya, I truly do"(Khan, 2015, p.107). The mountains, the people, the food, and the city are all things I enjoy. The protagonist's self-fashioning is reflected in Krispy Rice and caramel crème since she wants both. Pakistan is defined by its mountains, cuisine, and people. Pakistan is a place where people are clean. Lizzy admires Pakistani culture and people. Pakistan's national drink is 7-up. Alia stated, "We went through the day washing baby oil on our skin wearing indiscernible Thai batik two-pieces Simon had purchased for us,". Thursday was a completely free day in the week when Mushtaq brought us to the Islamabad club (Khan, 2015, p.122). Alia forced Lizzy to apply sunscreen on her sunburned body. While my complexion faded to a similar hue as my father's, Lizzy's hair became lighter until my mother painted it beach blonde, a look most women achieve with hair colour. Lizzy was pleased to give me lemon juice, but it did little to assist Alia's earthy brown hair except turn it into a tacky mess. The above quotation lines depict the protagonist's self-fashioning and corroborate Greenblatt's self-fashioning thesis. Mr Simon had gone home early from the workplace, so Anne Simon invited Alia's family to dine at her house. He'd switched from his office attire to jeans and a white polo shirt. He looked younger than his years with that clothing. Alia admires the contrast between his pants and shirt and wishes that his father wore the same outfit at home. Mr Simon's self-fashioning is reflected in his jeans and polo top.

The third question in my study is about rebuilding the protagonist's self-fashioning tactics. Aliya's pride in herself is misguided. The preceding lines honestly describe how being a Pakistani led Aliya to experience not being comfortable in her skin throughout her daily school transport excursions and the swearing that happened there constantly. Aliya is stumped when asked where she is from; she alternates between Austria (her first encounter with the world), Holland, and Pakistan. Every day, her identity is put to the test because her schooling, for the most part, is welcome to the good people, people with the last name Bhutto, or people who can pass, such as Aliya. She assumes control of her two realities, her house where she is Aliya and keeps them separate. It makes no difference to her who she is; she wants to know who she is, whether she is a cream or a Pakistani impersonating an American. The second is her fantasy realm, in which she will go about her daily life as if she were her closest pal, eating store-bought food, watching TV programs that do not begin with an Islamic prelude, wearing pants, and so on. Aliya eventually finds herself accepting and rejecting herself. She even loved being called monikers local to Lizzy's beginning location, satisfying her need to acclimatize to her dearest buddies' way of life. “Leyla. I loved the way her nickname for me rolled off her tongue. The two syllables instead of three. It made me less myself" (Khan, 2015, p. 203).

Conclusion

To sum up, this story illustrates the characters' self-fashioning, which symbolizes the lifestyle of upper-class Pakistani people. Because Air Conditioner was a vogue of the top class in the 1970s and was a prestige symbol of the high class, Ac depicts the protagonist's self-fashioning. Aliya's self-fashioning is shown when she goes to bed late at night and places earplugs in her ears. Khan describes the power of Americans in Pakistan. In Pakistan, Americans are granted diplomatic immunity. Sorayya Khan compared the American lifestyle to that of upper-class Pakistani citizens who must pay a fine if they commit an offence. On the other side, she raises concerns about American rules, namely whether Pakistani women who commit crimes in America will be fined or imprisoned. In her book, Khan backs Greenblatt's self-fashioning idea.  

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