Womans image in charlotte Perkins Gilmans, “the yellow wallpaper” and Fadia Faqirs, pillars of salt a feminist approach

Other Title(s)

صورة المرأة في قصة تشارلوت بيركنز جلمان "ورق الجدران الأصفر" و رواية فادية فقير "أعمدة الملح" من منظور نقدي نسوي

Dissertant

al-Fadil, Marya R.

Thesis advisor

Yusuf, Tawfiq Ibrahim

Comitee Members

al-Sadun, Sabbar Sultan
Husayn, Riyad Fayiz Isa

University

Middle East University

Faculty

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of English

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2010

English Abstract

This thesis presents a critical study of two literary works by applying a feminist approach.

It examines the image of woman as portrayed in the short story of the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”(1892) and in the novel of the Anglo-Arab writer, Jordanian-born Fadia Faqir, Pillars of Salt (1996).

It shows how, despite the distinctly different cultural setting of both stories, the feminist message remains the same – women are shown as occupying secondary roles in their patriarchal societies.

Both stories demonstrate how women were kept confined to severely traditional female roles constructed and determined by their patriarchal cultural and social systems.

As a result, these main female characters are denied a voice, an identity, and even physical freedom.

This denial leads to the tragic outcome of their lives.

In Gilman‟s short story, the main character presents an uncanny autobiographical resemblance to Gilman‟s own life.

The main protagonist, Jane, tries to break free from the bonds of a domineering male medical profession which subjects her to a debilitating and forced treatment known as the “resting cure” which denies her the freedom to engage in intellectually stimulating activities.

As a result, she spirals into a psychologically damaging state of mind.

Through her story, Gilman had hoped to create an awareness of the erroneous medical conventions imposed on women and to underscore the social injustices that many American women were subjected to during the late nineteenth century.

Faqir‟s Pillars of Salt, likewise, explores the violently damaging effects that patriarchal systems in post-colonial Transjordan in the 1920s had on the main characters.

Faqir weaves a narrative intertwined between the two main characters, Maha and Um Saad, both of whom recount their individual stories of oppression and the physical and sexual violence to which they are subjected by the male figures of their restrictive patriarchal society.

The novel highlights the characters' cultural, social and gender differences and the injustices the female characters suffer in their man-dominated society.

This study concludes that the two stories discussed here present the stereotypical images of women which eventually lead to inflicting some damaging effects, both physically and psychologically, on the female protagonists.

It also demonstrates how the two women writers, American and Anglo-Arab, utilize their writing to portray the image of women with a view to drawing attention to the various problems women face in patriarchal societies.

Main Subjects

Languages & Comparative Literature

No. of Pages

125

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-693163