Representation of the victimized woman in selected works of Nawal Saadawi

Abstract EN

There may be a limited number of Arab women writers but they managed to expose the painful reality Arab women live in.

Among the renowned Arab women writers stands the distinguished Nawal El-Saadawi, a prolific feminist writer whose literary product passed genre limitations while keeping to her main theme of exposing the unfair patriarchal power in the Arab society.

Nevertheless, El- Saadawi may have reached extremes in her victimization of women characters in her writings.

Her abhorrence of the male dominance in the Arab society is so obvious in works such as the play of El Elah Yuqaddim Estiqaleteh fi Egtema’ El-Qimmah (God Resigns at the Summit Meeting), the novel of Imra’a Endeh Noqtat El-Sifr (Woman at Point Zero), and Al Ruwaya (The Novel).

The critical analysis of the selected texts focuses on El-Saadawi’s representation of gender and gender role from the perspective of Judith Butler’s theory of gender.

The Female protagonists in El-Saadawi’s works seem to undergo a prolonged suffering due to their surrender to the gender roles imposed on them as women while avoiding living in an abject world.

Yet, El-Saadawi seems to suggest a solution to the women dilemma under the patriarchal dominance which is through undoing gender by resisting the gender roles imposed and maintained by the patriarchal dominance.