Assia Djebar believed that the process of Western acculturation excluded her from most if not all aspects of the traditional women’s world. This resulted in her mastery of the French language and access to public space. This view of exclusion led Djebar to her Algerian Quartet, which is a writing project to reestablish links with the maternal world, which she felt distanced from, but in fact never lost. They are all polyphonic texts that combine personal and collective memory. In these texts Djebar adds her own voice to those of her maternal ancestors, both historical and legendary. Fantasia, is the first part of the quartet. In Fantasia, she interweaves autobiographical fragments with other strands of narrative like history and oral narrative. She widens the scope of autobiography to embrace the collective voice, inserting her discourse within the community of Algerian women. Autobiography becomes Djebar’s way back to the cherished maternal world of her past, where she seeks healing and reconciliation from a self fragmented by the colonial experience. At the same time, it allows Algerian women’s muted voices and veiled presences to emerge into public space.
Before beginning the quartet, Djebar, trained as a historian, undertook an oral history project that involved probing Algerian women’s collective memory. In the mid 1970’s she interviewed women in her native region of Cherchell which participated in the independence struggle. The majority that she had interviewed was young women during the war, facing danger and hardship with the male soldiers. Djebar then selected pieces of women’s narratives and inserted them into Fantasia, bringing together the oral history of Algeria.
In part III of Fantasia, titled “Voices From the Past,” Djebar uses different narrative voices, which are women who share their traumatic life stories, as women and as prisoners. For instance, the first movement starts out with the narrator, whom we assume is the author. She titles it The Two Strangers. It is a story about the two men that she fell in love with. Both of them gave her life meaning because they gave her the power to be visible. They implored her and cared about how she felt and she loved them for that. The first voice in that movement is the voice of a woman named Cherifa. She talks about her traumatic experiences with the French burning down their houses and how they killed her brother.
In “Monique and the Mango Rains”, Holloway describes her encounters with the difficulties of the women in the village of Nampossela and childbirth practices of midwifes in Mali. As a young white woman from Ohio, Holloway uses her unique perspective to write a description of her experiences of the rural midwifery practices of Monique and the hardships of the women she meets in Mali. Holloway uses her knowledge of the later events to enhance her description of her time as a Peace Corp volunteer and her observations of the village she lived in.
It is 1957 and the Algerian war is at its prime as the FLN fight against an elite troop of ruthless French paratroopers. The Battle of Algiers is a portion of the Algerian war which was fought in order for Algeria to gain independence from France. The film starts off with the torturing of an old man to gain information on where the last of the freedom fighters, Ali Pointe is hiding. A large segment of the film is shot in flashbacks focusing on the past of Ali Pointe. Pointe was a ruffian with theft and drugs on his record; he joined the militants to assist in getting rid of the problems in Algeria associated with the French. With the flashbacks the film tells the struggles of the insurgents and the persistence of the French to end the war. It shows the transformation of the insurgency into a full out revolution. When the flashbacks ends and it is now present time Ali Pointe, along with the rest of the FLN leaders captured are beheaded. Through this, the FLN reciprocate and the insurgency becomes a full on national revolution with growth in numbers and support. The film ends with Algeria gaining the independence it strived for in 1962. The film is important in understanding asymmetric conflicts because despite being the weaker side, Algeria had proved itself to be much stronger than the French and had its newfound independence to show for it.
Although “It’s a Night Job” by Joanita Male and “Mother’s Inheritance” by Fawziyya Abu-Khalid occur in different cultural contexts- Male’s writing in Africa and Abu-Khalid’s in the Middle East- both literary works regard the formative nature of mother-daughter relationships. In addition to this, they explore the dignity and attitudes of young women in societies where they are forced to relinquish personal autonomy in order to succeed or be safe from potential physical or mental harm.
The first part of the book gives an account of Immaculée’s family background. The love she experienced from her parents and her three brothers is illustrated. Her parents cared for everybody, particularly the poor. Because of the love with which she grew up, she never realised that she was living in a country where hatred against the Tutsi, her tribe, was rampant. It was not until she was asked to stand up in class by her teacher during an ethnic roll call that she realised that her neighbours were not what she thought them to be – good and friendly. After struggling to get into high school and university, not because she was not qualified but because of discrimination against her ethnic background, she worked hard to prove that if women are given opportunities to...
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” female heroine Louise Mallard’s judgment is questioned after her inability to show emotion following her husband’s death. Instead of feeling desperate and hopeless, Louise feels a sense of freedom and liberation. This depiction of an independent woman prevails in The Awakening as Chopin discusses a woman who battles to fulfill traditional Victorian female ethics in the midst of undergoing a physical and emotional awakening. Edna and Louise are similar because neither woman is happy with accepting conventional gender roles. In The Awakening, Chopin discusses the different female roles that Edna Pontellier, Adele Ratignolle, and Mademoiselle Reiz’s represent to emphasize the different ideas that women
“Désirée ’s Baby” is a mix feelings story. It is an intriguing, captivating, and sad short story which reflects her experience among the French creoles in Louisiana (Chopin). I used “sad”, because it shows the level of hatred the white has towards black. The story is about two two families in Louisiana: the Valmonde and the L’ Abri. The story focuses on human relationships; the lives and characters of both family members are subtly portrayed in comparison. The story tells about love, slavery, and racism. Hypocrisy of patriarchal society, gender conflicts, and injustice of racial prejudice are depicted in the story. In the story, racism victimizes everybody without equivalent consequence. The story is heaped with ironies. The narrator uses symbolism and irony to convey the themes of half-blood, racial hatred, unequal gender roles, and social ladder. Irony and symbolism are also used to enhance the story, captivating the minds of the reader until the very end.
The book, as described in its' title is a “Memoir in Books” chronicling Azar Nafisi experiences while teaching in the Islamic Republic of Iran during the revolution occurring from 1978 to 1981 and her life there until leaving for America in 1997. Much of the book focuses on Nafisi as a professor at the University of Tehran, and after her expulsion from there, the Allameh Tabatabaii University. The main focus of the text is the formation of a book club with young female students that she had instructed at the universities from 1995 until 1997. The young women meet week...
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
Fatou Diome’s first novel, The Belly of the Atlantic, tells the coming-of-age of a young Senegalese female living in Strasbourg after she emigrated from the island of Niodior. Reflective of the author’s own life, the fictionalized narrative recounts the experiences of Salie. After growing up in a community in which strict traditions require women to submit to men, at a young age Salie decides she will educate herself although not enrolled in school. The schoolteacher Ndétare quickly discovers her academic and motivational abilities and decides to guide her through her education. Later, Salie moves to France and she is progressively shun out by her family, except by her brother Madické who is constantly seeking to go to France to play soccer professionally. Salie is quickly overcome by the lack of identity her immigration has caused her. She is constrained between both Europe and Africa, which she can’t call home. Through this disconnectedness the narrator suffers, and Salie’s identity progressively becomes that of exile. How, then, does the novel illustrate the degrading identity of the narrator trapped between two worlds?
As people age they will often still recall a good childhood story. A well told, meaningful story can go a long way when attempting to argue a point or convey information. In the essays, ''The Myth of The Latin Women: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Gains and Losses" by Richard Rodriquez, and "Piecing It All Together" by bell hooks, the authors connect to the reader and create a better audience through their writing. Through the portrayal of a story the authors help the reader understand their point of view, they transfer information to the reader with better ease, and keep the reader engaged the authors argue a point or convey information more efficiently.
The situation of women in our society has always been a source of debate. The term feminism is required at the end of the 19th century to serve the collective aspiration of women to gender equality in a society hitherto subject to the rule of man. Historically, there are prejudices and acts about women that led to discrimination of these. In legal terms, as in the world of work and family, it is in the second half of the twentieth century that is affirmed and implemented new rights for women. From then on, it is not only in term of legal equality, but also equality of opportunity that raises itself the question of relations between men and women. I will be comparing and contrasting “You Leave Them” written by Mona Simpson with the short story composed by Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour.” Throughout these stories, both authors clearly express a common theme of feminism. By focusing my essay on the theme of feminism, I will first analyze the authors’ past experience and then associate how it contributes in both of their short stories. I will finish my essay by describing how authors respond to the absence of men’s vision.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, women have earned and been granted with many rights that place a backbone in many corporations, businesses, households, and most importantly society today. If Desiree’ was a citizen in today’s society, she would not have to first be ashamed to have a baby of African descent or take anything from her husband if she did not want to. The background knowledge presented in this paper allows you to gain an image of what times were like for women in the 19th century and why Armand would have to be a different man with a different mindset in order to be accepted in today’s society.
Sometimes reading fiction not only makes us pleasure but also brings many knowledge about history and philosophy of life. ‘The Guest’ by the French writer Albert Camus is a short story and reflects the political situation in French North Africa in 1950s. According to this story, we know the issues between the France and the Arab in Algeria, and the protagonist, Daru, refuses to take sides in the colonial conflict in Algeria. This is not a boring story, because Camus uses a suspenseful way to show the character, conflicts and symbol and irony.
“The Harem Within” is a life story that portrays Mernissi’s childhood experiences while growing up in her family house in Fez, Morocco. Fatema Mernissi was a daughter of wealthy landowners and agriculturalists family. Even though she was raised in indulging and a privileged neighborhood, detached from the poverty most Moroccans experienced, her childhood was spent in the limits of her household shape. Mernissi was raised in a “classical domestic harem”, which abides of extended family and was designed to keep the women sheltered from men outside of the family and the public in general. Occasionally, this exceedingly limitation nurtured feelings of frustrating separation and isolation. Mernissi’s upbringing in this habitat influenced her progress as a scholar and writer.
Mariamma Ba’s So Long a Letter and the role women and impact of western culture on Islamic women in post-colonial Senegal: A critical analysis of Aissatou.