A foucauldian reading of Fathia al-Assal’s: the women’s prison

Abstract EN

This study examines how the theoretical insights and ideologies of the French sociologist Michel Foucault are contextualized in the Egyptian playwright Fathia al-Assal’s play the women’s prison (1993) in which institutions prove to be containers of power structures, punitive forms, strict social and political disciplines, and modes of resistance.

significantly, the Foucauldian thought takes an oppositional stance to dismantle the diacritics associated with power and punishment through delving deeply into the disciplines which constitute them.

under such a prism, the study investigates how institutions shape the human psychology of Egyptian women through an oppressive consciousness, thereby generating dissonance in characters and engaging the reader’s empathy with their plight.

the play comprises a plethora of women prisoners who advocate political protests and the restructuring of state institutions being part of the overall power structure under which they exist.

the playwright integrates polyphonic voices from different social categories to give her fragmented characters an opportunity for articulation and self-representation.

being socially outcast, these women are ostracized by the authoritarian state, so they are put in jail, an oppressive institution in which the playwright gives a voice to the marginalized, voiceless women.

thus, the play is an indictment of the burdensome power dynamics and punishments which weigh upon variable slices of Egyptian women.

moreover, the playwright is attentive to power relations under patriarchy and materialism and how these structures force women to fall into the abyss of crime, thereby depicting their non-conformity as a survival and anti-oppression mechanism.