UNSOED Conferences, International Conference on Language, Linguistics, and Literature (COLALITE) 2020

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The Manifestation of Persona as Reflected in Qahera the Superhero
Riana Permatasari

Last modified: 2020-10-19

Abstract


Nowadays there are a growing number of muslim woman superheroes in literature; one of them is a web comic entitled Qahera the Superhero. Qahera is portrayed as a veiled Eqyptian woman superhero dealing with Muslim woman stereotypes throughout the story. This study is a qualitative study aimed at finding the manifestation of persona as reflected in Qahera. In collecting the data, there were three steps taken including reading the web comic, identifying the data, and classifying the data in a table consisting of the data, the page/part of the comics, the references supported the data, and the analysis. The collected data were analyzed using the theory about persona by Carl Jung as the underlying theory in this study. Based on the analysis, there are two points concluded. First, the outward manifestation of persona in Qahera is a woman wearing veil and dress as a typical Muslim woman but has a sword as the representation of strong side inside her. This outward manifestation is the physical display of the character that challenges the stereotype of woman superheroes as sexually depicted in a story such as in the character of Wonder Woman. Second, Qahera’s persona is also built above the society’s expectation of on how a Muslim woman should dress. However, at the same time, surprisingly her public face frequently challenges the patriarchal perspective about Muslim women in which she publicly shows her disagreement by hitting the men saying that women should just stay at home. In short, Qahera shows the persona manifestation on how a woman superhero can challenge the negative stereotypes of Muslim women without neglecting Islamic values inside her.


Keywords


Literature