Gender Roles and Ideas
The Male Character in Arab Women’s Novels:
Often in literature authors, particularly men, are criticized for falsely or inaccurately portraying or "writing" women. This debate has been historically confined to male authors, but is on occasion reversed and female authors are criticized for inaccurately writing men. Although it may sound like a fair trade—or at least the beginnings of one in the world of critics—these situations are limited to primarily European and predominately North American literature. Examining the portrayal of men and the male sex as a whole, by women, is an important if not essential undertaking in this modern world, but where is comes to a point of being absolutely crucial is when it is the women authors of a world where they are second class citizens only because of their gender. If the writing of men in Arab women’s novels can be understood at even the most basic level it may allow some insight into what these women think and assume consciously and subconsciously, about themselves and their position in society and about the inherent oppression that they deal with and resign themselves to—no matter how weak or extreme the degree of the oppression, ranging from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of this discourse is to first, examine and delineate the manner in which Arab women novelists portray or ‘write’ men; and second, to discuss the most relevant reasons why the women write them as they do. This will be accomplished by focusing mainly on three novels written by women from Jordan and Palestine with settings form Beirut to London.
The first of these three novels is Fadia Faqir’s, Pillars of Salt. This story is set in Jordan before and during the British occupation and Mandate. The book itself is broken into a number of chapters, each shifting between the voices of "The Storyteller", Maha, and Um Saad, and Faqir’s third-person. For purposes of ease in this discourse these short chapters will be grouped into eight natural sections, as each five or six chapters between Maha and Um Saad is set off by an interlude from The Storyteller, who himself appears nine times altogether. In this book there is a large spectrum men that Faqir writes, but in terms of relevance to the topic above we will focus on the following characters to illustrate how Faqir portrays the male sex: The Storyteller, who could be argued as not being a man, but with very little success, as it is undoubtedly Faqir’s intention to have the story’s told by The Storyteller to be from a male perspective.
Both el Saadawi and Al-Shaykh both show how perception and expression are both affected within the confines of politics, social opportunities, and male privilege depicted in their stories. Whether the reader is a follower of the feminist movement or not, it is very clear and easy to see that these women are not being treated with the respect that any human being deserves. The misogynistic stranglehold on society, especially in this part of the world, is excessive and avoidable in today’s world but it is very likely that the traditional, conservative ways of the past will continue to control and inhibit women from being able to be fully treated as equals for many years to come, perhaps even after this generation has
1) lack of access to justice, 2) the weakness of the criminal investigation, and 3) the low rate of effective sanction against the masterminds and perpetrators.
Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, tells the stories of women in Afghanistan in the late twentieth century. Hosseini shows the women’s strengths, weaknesses, tribulations and accomplishments through their own actions, and how they are treated by other characters in the book, particularly the male characters. Hosseini portrays men in A Thousand Splendid Suns to create themes of justice and injustice within the novel. The justice, or lack thereof, served to the male characters is a result of their treatment and attitudes toward the female characters in the book and towards women in general.
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Inmates in prison know that no matter what their sentence if they behave good or bad they will nearly get out at the same time from 9 years if good to 10 if bad, or a 15% reduction leaving them to not bother trying to rehabilitate themselves due to the little amount it will affect their stay making them more likely to return. It is suggested that if we increase the inmates time from the normal minimum bottom line sentence they would receive normally and gave them a much higher sentence for acting badly they would be forced to attend classes such as anger management and treatments for themselves making them more fit to leave the prisons and join our society. This in return would decrease the amount of needed prison
...e are a mix of colors and features. In all three novels, each one of the male characters is unique in their own way; which allows them to go against the stereotypes that are in place for them. Whether it was part of the author’s goals or not to go against the stereotypes in place for Arab males, it’s refreshing to see that they didn’t confine them to a set characteristic, personality, or feature. Each author allowed these characters to be free from the confinements of the stereotypes set in place; allowing for the readers to understand them in a way that’s different and unique to their own.
James Joyce explores ideas of youth, alienation, adulthood, transformation, and disillusionment within his work, “Araby.” In this narrative, an unnamed narrator anguishes over his infatuation with Mangan’s sister. “Araby” explains how this simple love sends the storyteller into the harsh and real adult world. During the quest for a girl, James Joyce uses the journey of the narrator to explore ideas of sight, revelation, coming of age, and change.
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