For a Diwan of the Water Carrier: Cinematic Deconstructing
Orientalist Myths of Algerian Women
“I am—am I—I am the Excluded one. . .”
A swarming of words from the abysses, surging up once more in the horizontal body moving forward, and the ambulance cuts its path: twisting streets that curve and bend between balconies on which the eyes of chiseled children grow wider... Watercolor ships, the sea as an eternal barrier, right now the heights of the city are mauves stretched out in silence: is the hospital still far away, is the surgeon getting prepped, alone at last, covering up her mouth with white fabric?
Assia Djebar, in her novel, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment experiments with multiple, fragmented voices in creating a polyphonic background for the cinematic imagery in her explosive, unapologetic deconstruction of Orientalist images of Algerian women as passive, exotic, sexualized ‘others.’ The above section of “For a diwan of the water carrier,” begins on page 38 at line 30 and continuing on page 39 on lines 1 and 2. I contend that, in the water carrier’s feverish dream, the author employs the oral tradition of Algerian women, symbolic female body imagery, and a cinematic de-centering of post-colonial Algerian women’s identities in deconstructing Orientalist myths of the objectified female ‘other.’ In order to prove this thesis, I begin with a brief expositional segment pertaining to the water carrier’s dream.
The scene just prior to this section of the water carrier’s dream, takes place at the hamman, the women’s public baths. One of the hamman’s employees, the water carrier, is an elderly woman, in a dying trade. She slips on the wet stone surface, and falls, seriously injuring her hand. The seve...
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...women in forging its new identity, moving forward.
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In the novel Woman at Point Zero the author, Nawal El Saadawi, retells the life story of Firdaus, the main character, a tragic hero who rebels against the social norms within her oppressive culture seeking the same respect and prestige that is bestowed upon her male oppressors, only to be executed for her attempt to obtain the same privileges as men. This essay will demonstrate how the aspects and expectations of Egyptian culture influence Firdaus’s decisions as she struggles to be her own woman in a society controlled by dictatorial political and patriarchal structures all while exposing the evident discontentment she has with the way Egyptian society views women, and the glorification of things that go against ideal societal structures.
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