The Significance of Firdaus’s Life and Downfall in Woman at Point Zero

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The Significance of Firdaus’s Life and Downfall in Woman at Point Zero

Throughout the novel Woman at Point Zero, written by Nawal El Saadawi, the theme of value and ranking is commonly talked about. The reputation that the main character, Firdaus, builds for herself is a reputation that holds a lot of power. That reputation was broken after Firdaus’ meeting with a prince, after she confessed that she had killed a man earlier that night. The author uses imagery and word choice to show the significance of events that take place throughout the novel and relate them to how Firdaus’s career as a prostitute impacted her reputation positively up until the moment she confessed to killing someone.
Firdaus is a character that started off with nothing, and eventually would die with nothing. After being orphaned at a young age, Firdaus had to build a life for herself, and keep on a sustainable path. Before becoming a prostitute, Firdaus has a somewhat traumatic life experience when she was molested and abused by the men in her life. One was a boy, older than her, and the other was her uncle, her own relative. Because of her innocence, she was able to describe the feeling as “a sensation of sharp pleasure” (12). Being a young child, Firdaus was unable to understand the extent of what had just happened to her. Because of all of this, Firdaus lacked a sense of normality, which could be interpreted as a reason she went off path, and didn’t have an average upbringing like a lot of children would have. In a culture such as this book was set in, being around the 1960’s in Egypt, the role of women was completely different from how women are treated in this century and time period. For Firdaus, living in a time where a woman’s voice was unapprec...

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...ourney that Firdaus was on and how she worked her way up to the top to only realize that she did not really like it. The career of a prostitute is generally one that has higher positions, for some the more qualities someone has the more valuable the prostitute is, in the case of Firdaus, all of her qualities that the author incorporated into her personality involved qualities that might not be particularly beautiful on the outside, but inside of Firdaus is what counts, her speech is strong and intellectual which makes her a more desirable person to many people. The stylistic choice that the author weaved into the story by not involving the physical features of Firdaus shows that looks aren’t necessarily everything; it shows that a woman can be desirable without having the physical features, but rather she can be desirable by using her voice, and her way of living.

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