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Re: you girlslove

Posted by abdulhafeez on July 28, 2003 at 17:32:15:

In Reply to: you girlslove posted by kenan baydar on March 28, 2003 at 15:10:29:

: : The portrayal of the Arab woman has always been through several different perceptions. Some believe that these women are weak, dependant and victims of a hyper patriarchal tradition and culture. They live their lives as if caged from one man to another. First it is their father and brothers and then their husbands and sons. It is true that Arab women do live within patriarchal traditions and cultures but the same can be said for majority of the women around the globe. A much more accurate perception can come only through the realization that what popular Western concepts conceive as women liberation and independence does not necessarily apply to every women around the world. One must understand the culture, religion and traditions and history of a people to know what their ideas regarding concepts such as liberation and independence are. In the west for example women were allowed to vote relatively recently compared to Muslim women who were allowed to vote over fourteen hundred years ago, the same could be said for owning businesses and property and the right to a career. One of the most popular beliefs in the Western world today regarding oppression is that women in Arabia are sexually controlled by their men. This has been brought about especially by the concept of the Hijab as being one of the channels to control women’s sexuality and freedom. It can be argued that in various cases this is true but one cannot commit such a grave injustice and put all Arab women under one umbrella and stamp them as sexually oppressed. The fact is that the Middle East is a region where many states, cultures and identities exist. The novels that we have read are a reflection of this and proof to the fact that different women face different lifestyles, circumstances depending on where and in what social class they reside. Maha a Bedouin woman in Jordan has completely different experiences from Um Saad a city dweller in Amman. Nadia the Palestinian woman living in the rich state of Baraquis, does not face the same circumstances as Yusra fleeing Al – Zataar during the civil war. But what is common to these women is their courage and their triumphs at the different challenges they face. Their stories mockingly contradict that very stereo –typical image of Arab women and question how ‘sexually controlled, oppressed’ women could achieve the victories that they did. This paper shall provide a close study of two characters Maha and Nadia. It shall attempt to give the reader an understanding of the circumstances surrounding these two women and how they respectively challenged social structures, traditions, and different types of oppression.
: : Maha, the beloved wife of Harb was the only daughter of her father Sheikh Nimer. In the very beginning of Pillars of Salt when we are first introduced to her through the storyteller Sami al – Adjnabi, Maha is romanticized as something mystic. . "Maha was her name. A deer that had been roaming the desserts of Arabia since Eve, made out of our father Adam’s crooked rib was cast out of heaven. Maha. A charming woman who challenged and surrendered" . Through this we can already tell that Maha is someone who challenges norms and is thus not portrayed as ‘normal’ by the storyteller instead she is something extra-ordinary. We see Maha challenging the norms repeatedly throughout the novel. In the beginning when she finds out Nasra has been raped by her brother she is ready to take his life for what she believes is the right thing to do. It is not only out of love for her friend Nasra that she does this, but also as an attempt to protect the other young women in the village. "No never. I would kill that mule and save the women of Hamia" . In a society where men protect women Maha rushes to kill her brother in order to protect the women against a man. This image of a woman as a protector is perpetuated further when it is Nasra who protects Daffash, Maha’s brother, from being shot. Even though this encounter revolves around the rape of Nasra who because of the loss of her virginity, something out of her control will have to face humiliation none the less, it is the woman who lost agency in that particular sexual encounter who has the ability to save Daffash’s life. Maha too can be seen as a powerful individual when she holds the gun to Daffash and tells him "wake up you Dog and see how I am going to kill you" . If Maha was afraid of what she was about to do she would take advantage of the fact that Daffash was asleep but she chose to wake him up and tell him why and how he was going to die.
: : In Pillars of Salt Maha is the only person in the household who works the fields, takes care of the house and her father. She is not only carrying out her own duties as a daughter but also those of her incompetent brother who is seen to be heavily involved with the British who at that time were present in Jordan as a colonizing force. Maha is seen to be one with her land and her people. She is shown to have Arab nationalism and loyalty to her country, people and land. Daffash on the other hand is blinded by the power of the English and is constantly trying to get their approval. The father is put in misery due to his son " my son is lured by the city lights, he navigates by false stars. Look at Sheikh Talib’s sons how they have kept their plough in the soil from sunrise to sunset" . In the Bedouin culture these are the duties of a son, however we see Maha consoling her father and vowing, " By my mother’s soul I will compensate you father" . As the novel unfolds we see that Maha is true to her word. When she returns from her husbands home, we find the house in shambles, all the orange trees in the orchard are diseased and Sheikh Nimer has aged significantly. We see Maha taking control once again and going about in the reconstruction of her surroundings. " I will work on this farm, clean the house and prepare bright happy surroundings for the birth of my son. I will start with you lovely old man" . Maha now the re-constructor, goes about setting things right and filling the gaping void her brother has created. Before he dies Sheikh Nimer tells Maha " My daughter you are better than that scoundrel brother of yours. I wish you were a man because the land must go to its ploughman" . Despite this tradition however, Sheikh Nimer leaves his land to his daughter, as Daffash did not deserve to inherit it. " The land must go to its ploughman. No ploughwoman. The land is yours Maha. This is my will I have said it in front of the Imaam and Raai" . Once again Maha can be seen going beyond the boundaries of tradition.
: : Maha then takes up the image of Arab resistance to the British when she is invited to cook a meal for a party at Samir Pasha’s house. Samir is a rich Jordanian who is involved heavily in business with the British and is acquainted with Daffash. Maha is asked to come and prepare " true Bedouin’ mansaf. Here Maha is seen to be the agent through which the guests at the party would experience an authentic Arab dish made from the hands of an Arab woman. When Maha finds out that the dish she prepared is intended on being served to the British, who are the enemy of her people, the guests instead of experiencing the Mansaf get a taste of Arab resistance. " I did not know I was cooking for the English. I kicked the hot meal pot with my foot and went to the front of the garden where clean fragrant guests were conversing with each other. I held my head up high and asked the Pasha in a loud voice ‘Why didn’t you tell me I was cooking for foreigners" . We can see that Maha has crossed a line with the Pasha, which even her brother Daffash would never dare to do. Then Maha goes a step further when she directly addresses the English and tells them how they killed her husband Harb when she has everyone’s attention,

: : "Tears running in cheeks head held high, I stepped forward, wrenched
: : the eagle of an elderly man’s chest (British army officer), threw it on the
: : ground and stamped on it. I collected as much saliva as I could and spat
: : on the surprised face of the English officer. Total silence except the tune of
: : Nasra’s reed pipe and the cackling of burning kindling. The hoarse sound
: : urged me to leave the mansion, to leave the den of foxes who had eaten
: : my husbands flesh. Daffash barked ‘I will kill you Maha’. ‘Foreign killers
: : all of you’ I cried and marched past…"

: :
: : Maha, whose husband died resisting the British, can be seen avenging his death as well as incorporating resistance against the British. She then becomes a symbol of Arab resistance. Even though the English had killed Harb, Daffash chooses to be blind to facts and tells Maha earlier "these people are not capable of killing a fly" . Maha represents truth and resistance whereas Daffash can be seen to represent false conceptions and submission to the practices of the British. This is not the only form of resistance from Maha that night. On the way home Maha runs into Sheikh Talib who tries to seduce her telling her how he thinks of her often since his wife is ill and blind. Maha unlike Nasra escapes this situation by fighting back. Further into the novel Sheikh Talib proposes to Maha and Daffash tries to force her into marrying him. At this point Maha’s father is dead and all the men in the village try to persuade her to marry Sheikh Talib. However at the time of the ceremony Maha runs away from home. Once again she is fighting back and resisting this time it is not the British but oppression through her brother and the other men in the village. When she reaches the Dead Sea Maha realizes that she has left her son and her home behind, "what was I, Maha, daughter of Maliha, daughter of Sabha, doing there? How could I leave my son and house? I must fight Daffash. Slowly, slowly, I turned round and said in a determined voice, ‘ I am going back to the village’ " . The final showdown between Maha and Daffash ends up with Maha being sent away to a mental institution, but not before Maha lets everyone in the village know that she will "get married to nobody, I will not sign any deeds, and will never cook for the English" . Here Maha had control over her sexuality, her inheritance and her identity as an Arab woman. The fact that she has to be physically removed from the village is an indication of her victory over the men who supported her getting married to Sheikh Talib and Daffash. Due to the fact that they could not make her do what they expected her to do they had to send her away. And any gain that they might have from their actions would mean nothing because they could not make Maha give them what they wanted, they had no control over her instead like cowards they had to snatch it from her.
: : In the novel A Woman of Five Seasons Leila Al – Atrash explores the evolution of her character Nadia from a young unsure woman into an independent, confident and successful businesswoman. Nadia is married to Ihsan a young ambitious Palestinian man who takes her to Baraquis to seek his fortune. In the beginning of the novel we find Ihsan trying to get any kind of reaction or attention from Nadia. She, however, remains aloof and unresponsive to him, and remains this way more or less throughout the novel. One can feel very sorry for Ihsan’s situation with his wife in the beginning as he seems completely in love with her and she remains distant. However as the story unwraps and we get to know the characters better we understand why Nadia behaves the way she does. We learn that the marriage between Ihsan and Nadia stems from a sibling rivalry that Ihsan has conjured up between himself and his elder brother Jamal. Ihsan knows that Jamal is in love with Nadia and this becomes one of the main reasons for his infatuation and his need to marry her. Nadia thinks of Jamal even after her marriage to Ihsan and somehow Ihsan senses this and repeatedly throughout the novel passes comments to make her flinch. Ihsan also ties to create a certain image of Nadia which goes against who she is as a person. Nadia loves to read books about the arts and culture Ihsan on the other had does not understand how one could have such patience for things like reading. He would rather that she read magazines and knew gossip about stars and trivial things so she could make light conversation with other women at the parties that he insisted she attend. Nadia hated the image of being that ‘empty’ socialite. " When we first came to Baraquis he planted me amongst the family of his friends, amongst people who thought of nothing but money and getting money. The emptiness began hemming me in. I felt it when I was with him and when I was with other people, until I began to feel stifled" . Using the example of the books Nadia reveals to us how Ihsan tries to control her and create an identity for his wife. " This book in my hand irritates him from the first day of our marriage he’d make it a point of pulling it from my hands until at last Id set it aside" He not only tells her what to read, but also makes her give up her favorite color of clothing rose red. " I don’t like rose-red he said I don’t want you to wear it. But it’s my favorite color. Well I hate it don’t you want to wear things to please me" . Nadia provides us with an insight to the traditional roles expected of Arab wives and the rebellion which boils inside her countering such roles. She peaks of the Bedouin women who defined traditionally what it means to be a wife. " Do whatever he tells you. Keep all his secrets. Let him find only the purest fragrance in you" . Nadia then tells us how she wanted to be that woman.
: :
: : I wanted to be that skillful woman who warps her husband around
: : in love and tenderness. He took that good book from my hands and
: : put stupid magazines in their place and I read them. He asked me
: : what was in them and I told him. In the ten years since we’ve been
: : married Vie done what he’s wanted"

: : Nadia speaks of how confused the concept of marriage is for a woman. She speaks of how when she was younger marriage would fill her mind ‘pushing her to the tunnels of the unknown gripped by wonder’, It was a concept they were not allowed to discover until they were a within the bounds of marriage. " Once we are flung in these tunnels can we come to know the experience that law allows. Marriage was the aim – a strange confused feeling somewhere between getting a husband and finding love . Nadia unfortunately did not find love. Ihsan succeeds in stirring up a rebellious side of hers. She speaks of how she wanted to break away from all his demands and needs.

: : " Does he have any idea when he sees me as his ‘woman’ a great
: : snake bites at me? A rebellious snake but helpless too it coils \
: : around deep inside me. There is another person there sexless a
: : person who feels and thinks and suffers and makes me suffer. A
: : person who doesn’t know the meaning of female and male, who
: : rises above anything Ihsan ever thinks about. It burns me with its
: : whip whenever Ihsan enjoys arousing the female in me. But it’s a
: : suffering too weak and suppressed, powerless to rise to resistance
: : and refusal, when Ihsan treats me as his toy and happily goes to sleep"

: : This other person within Nadia is sexless it is therefore not restricted to the traditional roles that are intended for women. This allows this person to separate from Ihsan and think and feel for itself. The fact that it is sexless allows it to exist outside the bounds of marriage, therefore it does not have to do whatever Ihsan says, does not have to keep his secrets and appear appealing to him always. This is the opposite of what is expected as Nadia the wife. This person is not a daughter, sister, wife or mother it is the individual Nadia. It represents Nadia outside tradition and outside her marriage. However due to the fact that this person is within Nadia the traditional wife it rebels every time she gives in to Ihsan against her wish, this is the essence of the battle within Nadia. It is the battle of tradition and the individual. As the novel progresses we notice that the individual within Nadia is getting stronger and stronger. A small example is when she gets Ihsan to buy a red-rose blouse. Ihsan had asked her before not to wear that color and anymore, ‘he gazed unbelievingly into my face; then he smiled and bought it…. my inner being slept as I gave myself to him in those rosy clothes; and then my closet was filled with the color I loved best" . This small victory over Ihsan represents a new dynamic in their relationship. Nadia’s inner being slept as she gave herself to her husband. This is because the sexual encounter took place on her convenience and not his. She was not Ihsan’s toy that night she was a woman making a conscious decision to seep with her husband. After this we see a new pattern, Nadia is only intimate with Ihsan when he pleases her on her terms. For example when Ihsan puts gold worth two hundred thousand dollars in Nadia’s bank account she has no reaction, instead she casually asks him ‘ who said I wanted gold’. This tells Ihsan that he does not know what Nadia wants, and what he thinks she wants is not necessarily what she will agree to. Nadia then goes on to tell Ihsan that instead of gold she would rather have land. When Ihsan offers to see the gold Nadia tells him that she will keep the gold but from his next profit he has to buy her land. When Ihsan asks her to make a choice between the two she tells him "both Ihsan. The two together wont come to ten percent. That still leaves you nine tenths of the total. As of now, and until you’ve done it for me, we sleep in separate bedrooms’ . This is an important example of Nadia now not only in control of her sexuality but also is using it to get what she wants. This is Nadia the wife slowly becoming one with Nadia the individual choosing how she wants to conduct her life. It is also critical to note that Nadia is not just a pretty doll on a pedestal, as Ihsan would have her be instead she is a sharp and intelligent woman. Her quick calculations of the percentages regarding the profits that Ihsan makes is an indication of this. This is highlighted once again when she takes a decision in Ihsan’s absence and saves the company three million pounds. ‘ Mr. Black explained to Ihsan how I’d acted wisely saved our share price, in one transaction, all our shares – his, our children’s and mine – for a hundred pounds a share, before, just a week later the price fell to ten pounds" . Nadia proves that she has the ability to make decisions in what is considered to be her husband’s job, Ihsan admits to this when he instructs Mr. Black "when I am away Mr. Black refer in the future to Mrs. Natour. Not soon after that Nadia tells him that she had registered in the American college of London to study business administration. This is a bold step, as she does this without taking any advice or permission from Ihsan. When Nadia starts her real estate agency Ihsan is against it. But Nadia remained firm and she and the children left for London while Ihsan remained with his work in Baraquis. We see the individual in Nadia breaking free from what was expected of her as a wife. A conversation between Nadia and a neighbor in Damascus highlights how far Nadia has come in finding herself, " I tell you Nadia of I couldn’t find anything to decorate my hair, to welcome my husband at night, I would put a sprig of parsley in it! I used to deck myself out, put the children to bed, and then wait no matter how tired I was. Yes God be praised. Like honey and butter we’ve been together for twenty years" . The importance given to keeping your husband sexually satisfied, and "falling in with everything he commands" , was now a thing of the past for Nadia. Instead of ‘decking out’ and waiting for her husband every night Nadia now moves to London and educates herself and lives separated from her husband to achieve what can be seen as her empowerment. She is extremely successful and becomes a prominent part of the Arabic community in London. Angela, Ihsan’s mistress also admits " your wife is someone special… in her office I asked her to buy me an apartment on fictional pretext and would you believe it she and her partner found just what I asked for. I had to back out before I got any deeper" . Nadia’s success however is juxtaposed with Ihsan’s ruin. While Nadia’s career blossoms Ihsan is being blackmailed into making deals, which will ultimately bring about his downfall and expulsion from Baraquis. When Ihsan arrives in London after being expelled from Baraquis he finds that Nadia had been in Switzerland for two days without his knowing. She does not offer any explanations upon seeing him nor does she apologize instead Ihsan observes she "looked elegant and haughty despite the sadness in her eyes" . The confrontation regarding where she had been with leaves Ihsan panic-stricken when he repeatedly asks her where she had been she replies "whets the matter Ihsan Natour did you buy me once long ago, and then forget about me? Here Nadia questions Ihsan’s authority over her. She makes it very clear that she is not a piece of property that he can pay attention to whenever he chooses and ignore whenever he feels the need to be with Angela. When Ihsan accuses her of being with someone else, Nadia lashes out at him
: :
: : How dare you imagine such a thing, Ibn Natour is that how sick your mind is?
: : I wont act the way you have Ihsan. It’s not for your sake I keep myself clean;
: : it’s out of respect for my own humanity, because I refuse to be anyone’s object
: : of enjoyment. I’m doing it for my sake not yours. How dare you imagine you can
: : drop me wherever you like, and expect me just to stand there, waiting for you to
: : come and pick me up again when you happen to feel like it! To get myself ready
: : for your arrival, when I don’t even know where you are? You thought you were the
: : axis and I would keep on revolving around you. Even the heavenly bodies break from
: : their spheres sometimes. Didn’t you know that? They burn maybe but they’re free".

: : From what she states to Ihsan here we can see that Nadia has liberated herself from being just an object of desire, something that all women struggle with. She refuses to be there for anyone’s enjoyment, that is why she unlike Ihsan did not have an affair with another man. This can be seen as a reference to Jalal who was Ihsan’s brother and the man that Nadia wanted to marry. Throughout the novel we find Nadia thinking about him. She fantasizes about him rescuing her from her circumstances and seeing her as a person and not just a woman. However, finally when Jalal makes his feelings towards Nadia clear, his actions reveal that he is no different from Ihsan. Jalal speaks of Nadia belonging to him, when Jalal proceeds to touch and kiss Nadia she slaps him and pushes him away. " You’re vile! Vile! Do you think I’d spend my whole life waiting for you? That I’d kneel down in front of you when you came back? You’re vile and worthless I opened the door and stood there ‘Out get out of here!’" . It is due to the fact that Jalal made the fatal mistake of presuming that he owned Nadia, that he had some sort of control over her as a woman that enraged her.

: : " I’m not their woman. Not anyone’s woman! I’d always suppose that Jalal
: : was what he seemed, that he had real power to touch my inner being, to
: : see it in a sexless way and communicate with it. But to him I’m just a female –
: : and he’s a man. I Nadia al-Faqih – no one will be able to know or possess her.
: : From this moment on I possess myself. They’ll see a face unknown to them"

: :
: : After Jalal left Nadia never saw him again, she remembered that day as the day she took possession of herself. This is precisely why she points out to Ihsan that she is not there for him whenever he feels like going to her, she was never bought he married her. The heavenly bodies that break away from their spheres represent Nadia breaking away from the path set out before her by tradition. These bodies may burn if not on their allotted path but at least they are free, similarly Nadia may have given up some things but her freedom is more valuable to her. She then proceeds to spell out how his mistress Angela and Rashid Salman had sold him out telling her of his affair and making her buy their silence. " In Geneva. He asked to see me there. I’ve sorted things out with him and Angela – yes. With Angela, who sold you for a quarter of a million dollars. We haggled over you!" . It is interesting to not that throughout the whole novel Nadia struggles with the feeling that she is just a toy to Ihsan, she feels as if he treats her like his property as if she had been bought. In the end it is she who ends up buying him and she stresses this point to Ihsan when she states ‘we haggled over you’. Ihsan knows that he has lost and is speechless " The situation was bigger than any cunning he was capable of. The decision, he knew, was hers alone now"
: : Nadia at the end of the novel is free from the social restraints that were suffocating her. She like Maha takes up different roles through out the novel; first it is the wife, then the professional woman, and finally the savior. When Ihsan falls it is Nadia who saves him. It is she who buys Angela and Rashid’s silence to protect their family. Therefore we see Nadia taking control and very much like Maha become the protector. The liberation, independence, possession of self that Nadia achieves becomes her victory over the suppression that social structures have over women.
: : These two characters provide us with examples of how Arab women in their own ways challenge and question their environment and become agents of change. After reading about Maha, or Nadia one cannot sit back and believe that Arab women are helpless beings locked away in some other world. The oppression faced by Maha is not only restricted to social structures within Arabic society, she also recognizes and fights the oppression of the British who have colonized her people. Similarly we find Nadia being obsessed with the oppression of her homeland, and the revolution. These two women are from different environments, Maha a Bedouin, and Nadia a rich Palestinian living away from her homeland, first in Baraquis and then in London. However common to both is their strength and their fight towards liberty and freedom. For Maha her victory can be seen over the British when she refuses to let them touch the food she cooks, over the men in the village, when she refuses to marry a man not of her choice. She becomes a threat and therefore has to be removed. The fact that she has come to a point where her removal is necessary, like a revolutionary’s removal to the government, is where her victory lies. Whereas the relationship between Maha and Harb is one of passion and love, Ihsan and Nadia are the complete opposite. Nadia hates how Ihsan looks at her as a woman always and never a person. She struggles to prove her capability of being an individual and forming an identity of her own that is separate and goes beyond Mrs. Natour. She proves that she can ‘think and feel’ for herself and by herself. In the West where we have women out on the streets rallying for equality between men and women, fighting in the armies, present in the workforce, these victories may seem minute. However if one pays close attention to social structures and social norms in different cultures one can realize that this challenging and questioning is as important and holds as much weight as getting equal wages for women in America.

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: : : The portrayal of the Arab woman has always been through several different perceptions. Some believe that these women are weak, dependant and victims of a hyper patriarchal tradition and culture. They live their lives as if caged from one man to another. First it is their father and brothers and then their husbands and sons. It is true that Arab women do live within patriarchal traditions and cultures but the same can be said for majority of the women around the globe. A much more accurate perception can come only through the realization that what popular Western concepts conceive as women liberation and independence does not necessarily apply to every women around the world. One must understand the culture, religion and traditions and history of a people to know what their ideas regarding concepts such as liberation and independence are. In the west for example women were allowed to vote relatively recently compared to Muslim women who were allowed to vote over fourteen hundred years ago, the same could be said for owning businesses and property and the right to a career. One of the most popular beliefs in the Western world today regarding oppression is that women in Arabia are sexually controlled by their men. This has been brought about especially by the concept of the Hijab as being one of the channels to control women’s sexuality and freedom. It can be argued that in various cases this is true but one cannot commit such a grave injustice and put all Arab women under one umbrella and stamp them as sexually oppressed. The fact is that the Middle East is a region where many states, cultures and identities exist. The novels that we have read are a reflection of this and proof to the fact that different women face different lifestyles, circumstances depending on where and in what social class they reside. Maha a Bedouin woman in Jordan has completely different experiences from Um Saad a city dweller in Amman. Nadia the Palestinian woman living in the rich state of Baraquis, does not face the same circumstances as Yusra fleeing Al – Zataar during the civil war. But what is common to these women is their courage and their triumphs at the different challenges they face. Their stories mockingly contradict that very stereo –typical image of Arab women and question how ‘sexually controlled, oppressed’ women could achieve the victories that they did. This paper shall provide a close study of two characters Maha and Nadia. It shall attempt to give the reader an understanding of the circumstances surrounding these two women and how they respectively challenged social structures, traditions, and different types of oppression. : : : Maha, the beloved wife of Harb was the only daughter of her father Sheikh Nimer. In the very beginning of Pillars of Salt when we are first introduced to her through the storyteller Sami al – Adjnabi, Maha is romanticized as something mystic. . "Maha was her name. A deer that had been roaming the desserts of Arabia since Eve, made out of our father Adam’s crooked rib was cast out of heaven. Maha. A charming woman who challenged and surrendered" . Through this we can already tell that Maha is someone who challenges norms and is thus not portrayed as ‘normal’ by the storyteller instead she is something extra-ordinary. We see Maha challenging the norms repeatedly throughout the novel. In the beginning when she finds out Nasra has been raped by her brother she is ready to take his life for what she believes is the right thing to do. It is not only out of love for her friend Nasra that she does this, but also as an attempt to protect the other young women in the village. "No never. I would kill that mule and save the women of Hamia" . In a society where men protect women Maha rushes to kill her brother in order to protect the women against a man. This image of a woman as a protector is perpetuated further when it is Nasra who protects Daffash, Maha’s brother, from being shot. Even though this encounter revolves around the rape of Nasra who because of the loss of her virginity, something out of her control will have to face humiliation none the less, it is the woman who lost agency in that particular sexual encounter who has the ability to save Daffash’s life. Maha too can be seen as a powerful individual when she holds the gun to Daffash and tells him "wake up you Dog and see how I am going to kill you" . If Maha was afraid of what she was about to do she would take advantage of the fact that Daffash was asleep but she chose to wake him up and tell him why and how he was going to die. : : : In Pillars of Salt Maha is the only person in the household who works the fields, takes care of the house and her father. She is not only carrying out her own duties as a daughter but also those of her incompetent brother who is seen to be heavily involved with the British who at that time were present in Jordan as a colonizing force. Maha is seen to be one with her land and her people. She is shown to have Arab nationalism and loyalty to her country, people and land. Daffash on the other hand is blinded by the power of the English and is constantly trying to get their approval. The father is put in misery due to his son " my son is lured by the city lights, he navigates by false stars. Look at Sheikh Talib’s sons how they have kept their plough in the soil from sunrise to sunset" . In the Bedouin culture these are the duties of a son, however we see Maha consoling her father and vowing, " By my mother’s soul I will compensate you father" . As the novel unfolds we see that Maha is true to her word. When she returns from her husbands home, we find the house in shambles, all the orange trees in the orchard are diseased and Sheikh Nimer has aged significantly. We see Maha taking control once again and going about in the reconstruction of her surroundings. " I will work on this farm, clean the house and prepare bright happy surroundings for the birth of my son. I will start with you lovely old man" . Maha now the re-constructor, goes about setting things right and filling the gaping void her brother has created. Before he dies Sheikh Nimer tells Maha " My daughter you are better than that scoundrel brother of yours. I wish you were a man because the land must go to its ploughman" . Despite this tradition however, Sheikh Nimer leaves his land to his daughter, as Daffash did not deserve to inherit it. " The land must go to its ploughman. No ploughwoman. The land is yours Maha. This is my will I have said it in front of the Imaam and Raai" . Once again Maha can be seen going beyond the boundaries of tradition. : : : Maha then takes up the image of Arab resistance to the British when she is invited to cook a meal for a party at Samir Pasha’s house. Samir is a rich Jordanian who is involved heavily in business with the British and is acquainted with Daffash. Maha is asked to come and prepare " true Bedouin’ mansaf. Here Maha is seen to be the agent through which the guests at the party would experience an authentic Arab dish made from the hands of an Arab woman. When Maha finds out that the dish she prepared is intended on being served to the British, who are the enemy of her people, the guests instead of experiencing the Mansaf get a taste of Arab resistance. " I did not know I was cooking for the English. I kicked the hot meal pot with my foot and went to the front of the garden where clean fragrant guests were conversing with each other. I held my head up high and asked the Pasha in a loud voice ‘Why didn’t you tell me I was cooking for foreigners" . We can see that Maha has crossed a line with the Pasha, which even her brother Daffash would never dare to do. Then Maha goes a step further when she directly addresses the English and tells them how they killed her husband Harb when she has everyone’s attention, : : : "Tears running in cheeks head held high, I stepped forward, wrenched : : : the eagle of an elderly man’s chest (British army officer), threw it on the : : : ground and stamped on it. I collected as much saliva as I could and spat : : : on the surprised face of the English officer. Total silence except the tune of : : : Nasra’s reed pipe and the cackling of burning kindling. The hoarse sound : : : urged me to leave the mansion, to leave the den of foxes who had eaten : : : my husbands flesh. Daffash barked ‘I will kill you Maha’. ‘Foreign killers : : : all of you’ I cried and marched past…" : : : : : : Maha, whose husband died resisting the British, can be seen avenging his death as well as incorporating resistance against the British. She then becomes a symbol of Arab resistance. Even though the English had killed Harb, Daffash chooses to be blind to facts and tells Maha earlier "these people are not capable of killing a fly" . Maha represents truth and resistance whereas Daffash can be seen to represent false conceptions and submission to the practices of the British. This is not the only form of resistance from Maha that night. On the way home Maha runs into Sheikh Talib who tries to seduce her telling her how he thinks of her often since his wife is ill and blind. Maha unlike Nasra escapes this situation by fighting back. Further into the novel Sheikh Talib proposes to Maha and Daffash tries to force her into marrying him. At this point Maha’s father is dead and all the men in the village try to persuade her to marry Sheikh Talib. However at the time of the ceremony Maha runs away from home. Once again she is fighting back and resisting this time it is not the British but oppression through her brother and the other men in the village. When she reaches the Dead Sea Maha realizes that she has left her son and her home behind, "what was I, Maha, daughter of Maliha, daughter of Sabha, doing there? How could I leave my son and house? I must fight Daffash. Slowly, slowly, I turned round and said in a determined voice, ‘ I am going back to the village’ " . The final showdown between Maha and Daffash ends up with Maha being sent away to a mental institution, but not before Maha lets everyone in the village know that she will "get married to nobody, I will not sign any deeds, and will never cook for the English" . Here Maha had control over her sexuality, her inheritance and her identity as an Arab woman. The fact that she has to be physically removed from the village is an indication of her victory over the men who supported her getting married to Sheikh Talib and Daffash. Due to the fact that they could not make her do what they expected her to do they had to send her away. And any gain that they might have from their actions would mean nothing because they could not make Maha give them what they wanted, they had no control over her instead like cowards they had to snatch it from her. : : : In the novel A Woman of Five Seasons Leila Al – Atrash explores the evolution of her character Nadia from a young unsure woman into an independent, confident and successful businesswoman. Nadia is married to Ihsan a young ambitious Palestinian man who takes her to Baraquis to seek his fortune. In the beginning of the novel we find Ihsan trying to get any kind of reaction or attention from Nadia. She, however, remains aloof and unresponsive to him, and remains this way more or less throughout the novel. One can feel very sorry for Ihsan’s situation with his wife in the beginning as he seems completely in love with her and she remains distant. However as the story unwraps and we get to know the characters better we understand why Nadia behaves the way she does. We learn that the marriage between Ihsan and Nadia stems from a sibling rivalry that Ihsan has conjured up between himself and his elder brother Jamal. Ihsan knows that Jamal is in love with Nadia and this becomes one of the main reasons for his infatuation and his need to marry her. Nadia thinks of Jamal even after her marriage to Ihsan and somehow Ihsan senses this and repeatedly throughout the novel passes comments to make her flinch. Ihsan also ties to create a certain image of Nadia which goes against who she is as a person. Nadia loves to read books about the arts and culture Ihsan on the other had does not understand how one could have such patience for things like reading. He would rather that she read magazines and knew gossip about stars and trivial things so she could make light conversation with other women at the parties that he insisted she attend. Nadia hated the image of being that ‘empty’ socialite. " When we first came to Baraquis he planted me amongst the family of his friends, amongst people who thought of nothing but money and getting money. The emptiness began hemming me in. I felt it when I was with him and when I was with other people, until I began to feel stifled" . Using the example of the books Nadia reveals to us how Ihsan tries to control her and create an identity for his wife. " This book in my hand irritates him from the first day of our marriage he’d make it a point of pulling it from my hands until at last Id set it aside" He not only tells her what to read, but also makes her give up her favorite color of clothing rose red. " I don’t like rose-red he said I don’t want you to wear it. But it’s my favorite color. Well I hate it don’t you want to wear things to please me" . Nadia provides us with an insight to the traditional roles expected of Arab wives and the rebellion which boils inside her countering such roles. She peaks of the Bedouin women who defined traditionally what it means to be a wife. " Do whatever he tells you. Keep all his secrets. Let him find only the purest fragrance in you" . Nadia then tells us how she wanted to be that woman. : : : : : : I wanted to be that skillful woman who warps her husband around : : : in love and tenderness. He took that good book from my hands and : : : put stupid magazines in their place and I read them. He asked me : : : what was in them and I told him. In the ten years since we’ve been : : : married Vie done what he’s wanted" : : : Nadia speaks of how confused the concept of marriage is for a woman. She speaks of how when she was younger marriage would fill her mind ‘pushing her to the tunnels of the unknown gripped by wonder’, It was a concept they were not allowed to discover until they were a within the bounds of marriage. " Once we are flung in these tunnels can we come to know the experience that law allows. Marriage was the aim – a strange confused feeling somewhere between getting a husband and finding love . Nadia unfortunately did not find love. Ihsan succeeds in stirring up a rebellious side of hers. She speaks of how she wanted to break away from all his demands and needs. : : : " Does he have any idea when he sees me as his ‘woman’ a great : : : snake bites at me? A rebellious snake but helpless too it coils \ : : : around deep inside me. There is another person there sexless a : : : person who feels and thinks and suffers and makes me suffer. A : : : person who doesn’t know the meaning of female and male, who : : : rises above anything Ihsan ever thinks about. It burns me with its : : : whip whenever Ihsan enjoys arousing the female in me. But it’s a : : : suffering too weak and suppressed, powerless to rise to resistance : : : and refusal, when Ihsan treats me as his toy and happily goes to sleep" : : : This other person within Nadia is sexless it is therefore not restricted to the traditional roles that are intended for women. This allows this person to separate from Ihsan and think and feel for itself. The fact that it is sexless allows it to exist outside the bounds of marriage, therefore it does not have to do whatever Ihsan says, does not have to keep his secrets and appear appealing to him always. This is the opposite of what is expected as Nadia the wife. This person is not a daughter, sister, wife or mother it is the individual Nadia. It represents Nadia outside tradition and outside her marriage. However due to the fact that this person is within Nadia the traditional wife it rebels every time she gives in to Ihsan against her wish, this is the essence of the battle within Nadia. It is the battle of tradition and the individual. As the novel progresses we notice that the individual within Nadia is getting stronger and stronger. A small example is when she gets Ihsan to buy a red-rose blouse. Ihsan had asked her before not to wear that color and anymore, ‘he gazed unbelievingly into my face; then he smiled and bought it…. my inner being slept as I gave myself to him in those rosy clothes; and then my closet was filled with the color I loved best" . This small victory over Ihsan represents a new dynamic in their relationship. Nadia’s inner being slept as she gave herself to her husband. This is because the sexual encounter took place on her convenience and not his. She was not Ihsan’s toy that night she was a woman making a conscious decision to seep with her husband. After this we see a new pattern, Nadia is only intimate with Ihsan when he pleases her on her terms. For example when Ihsan puts gold worth two hundred thousand dollars in Nadia’s bank account she has no reaction, instead she casually asks him ‘ who said I wanted gold’. This tells Ihsan that he does not know what Nadia wants, and what he thinks she wants is not necessarily what she will agree to. Nadia then goes on to tell Ihsan that instead of gold she would rather have land. When Ihsan offers to see the gold Nadia tells him that she will keep the gold but from his next profit he has to buy her land. When Ihsan asks her to make a choice between the two she tells him "both Ihsan. The two together wont come to ten percent. That still leaves you nine tenths of the total. As of now, and until you’ve done it for me, we sleep in separate bedrooms’ . This is an important example of Nadia now not only in control of her sexuality but also is using it to get what she wants. This is Nadia the wife slowly becoming one with Nadia the individual choosing how she wants to conduct her life. It is also critical to note that Nadia is not just a pretty doll on a pedestal, as Ihsan would have her be instead she is a sharp and intelligent woman. Her quick calculations of the percentages regarding the profits that Ihsan makes is an indication of this. This is highlighted once again when she takes a decision in Ihsan’s absence and saves the company three million pounds. ‘ Mr. Black explained to Ihsan how I’d acted wisely saved our share price, in one transaction, all our shares – his, our children’s and mine – for a hundred pounds a share, before, just a week later the price fell to ten pounds" . Nadia proves that she has the ability to make decisions in what is considered to be her husband’s job, Ihsan admits to this when he instructs Mr. Black "when I am away Mr. Black refer in the future to Mrs. Natour. Not soon after that Nadia tells him that she had registered in the American college of London to study business administration. This is a bold step, as she does this without taking any advice or permission from Ihsan. When Nadia starts her real estate agency Ihsan is against it. But Nadia remained firm and she and the children left for London while Ihsan remained with his work in Baraquis. We see the individual in Nadia breaking free from what was expected of her as a wife. A conversation between Nadia and a neighbor in Damascus highlights how far Nadia has come in finding herself, " I tell you Nadia of I couldn’t find anything to decorate my hair, to welcome my husband at night, I would put a sprig of parsley in it! I used to deck myself out, put the children to bed, and then wait no matter how tired I was. Yes God be praised. Like honey and butter we’ve been together for twenty years" . The importance given to keeping your husband sexually satisfied, and "falling in with everything he commands" , was now a thing of the past for Nadia. Instead of ‘decking out’ and waiting for her husband every night Nadia now moves to London and educates herself and lives separated from her husband to achieve what can be seen as her empowerment. She is extremely successful and becomes a prominent part of the Arabic community in London. Angela, Ihsan’s mistress also admits " your wife is someone special… in her office I asked her to buy me an apartment on fictional pretext and would you believe it she and her partner found just what I asked for. I had to back out before I got any deeper" . Nadia’s success however is juxtaposed with Ihsan’s ruin. While Nadia’s career blossoms Ihsan is being blackmailed into making deals, which will ultimately bring about his downfall and expulsion from Baraquis. When Ihsan arrives in London after being expelled from Baraquis he finds that Nadia had been in Switzerland for two days without his knowing. She does not offer any explanations upon seeing him nor does she apologize instead Ihsan observes she "looked elegant and haughty despite the sadness in her eyes" . The confrontation regarding where she had been with leaves Ihsan panic-stricken when he repeatedly asks her where she had been she replies "whets the matter Ihsan Natour did you buy me once long ago, and then forget about me? Here Nadia questions Ihsan’s authority over her. She makes it very clear that she is not a piece of property that he can pay attention to whenever he chooses and ignore whenever he feels the need to be with Angela. When Ihsan accuses her of being with someone else, Nadia lashes out at him : : : : : : How dare you imagine such a thing, Ibn Natour is that how sick your mind is? : : : I wont act the way you have Ihsan. It’s not for your sake I keep myself clean; : : : it’s out of respect for my own humanity, because I refuse to be anyone’s object : : : of enjoyment. I’m doing it for my sake not yours. How dare you imagine you can : : : drop me wherever you like, and expect me just to stand there, waiting for you to : : : come and pick me up again when you happen to feel like it! To get myself ready : : : for your arrival, when I don’t even know where you are? You thought you were the : : : axis and I would keep on revolving around you. Even the heavenly bodies break from : : : their spheres sometimes. Didn’t you know that? They burn maybe but they’re free". : : : From what she states to Ihsan here we can see that Nadia has liberated herself from being just an object of desire, something that all women struggle with. She refuses to be there for anyone’s enjoyment, that is why she unlike Ihsan did not have an affair with another man. This can be seen as a reference to Jalal who was Ihsan’s brother and the man that Nadia wanted to marry. Throughout the novel we find Nadia thinking about him. She fantasizes about him rescuing her from her circumstances and seeing her as a person and not just a woman. However, finally when Jalal makes his feelings towards Nadia clear, his actions reveal that he is no different from Ihsan. Jalal speaks of Nadia belonging to him, when Jalal proceeds to touch and kiss Nadia she slaps him and pushes him away. " You’re vile! Vile! Do you think I’d spend my whole life waiting for you? That I’d kneel down in front of you when you came back? You’re vile and worthless I opened the door and stood there ‘Out get out of here!’" . It is due to the fact that Jalal made the fatal mistake of presuming that he owned Nadia, that he had some sort of control over her as a woman that enraged her. : : : " I’m not their woman. Not anyone’s woman! I’d always suppose that Jalal : : : was what he seemed, that he had real power to touch my inner being, to : : : see it in a sexless way and communicate with it. But to him I’m just a female – : : : and he’s a man. I Nadia al-Faqih – no one will be able to know or possess her. : : : From this moment on I possess myself. They’ll see a face unknown to them" : : : : : : After Jalal left Nadia never saw him again, she remembered that day as the day she took possession of herself. This is precisely why she points out to Ihsan that she is not there for him whenever he feels like going to her, she was never bought he married her. The heavenly bodies that break away from their spheres represent Nadia breaking away from the path set out before her by tradition. These bodies may burn if not on their allotted path but at least they are free, similarly Nadia may have given up some things but her freedom is more valuable to her. She then proceeds to spell out how his mistress Angela and Rashid Salman had sold him out telling her of his affair and making her buy their silence. " In Geneva. He asked to see me there. I’ve sorted things out with him and Angela – yes. With Angela, who sold you for a quarter of a million dollars. We haggled over you!" . It is interesting to not that throughout the whole novel Nadia struggles with the feeling that she is just a toy to Ihsan, she feels as if he treats her like his property as if she had been bought. In the end it is she who ends up buying him and she stresses this point to Ihsan when she states ‘we haggled over you’. Ihsan knows that he has lost and is speechless " The situation was bigger than any cunning he was capable of. The decision, he knew, was hers alone now" : : : Nadia at the end of the novel is free from the social restraints that were suffocating her. She like Maha takes up different roles through out the novel; first it is the wife, then the professional woman, and finally the savior. When Ihsan falls it is Nadia who saves him. It is she who buys Angela and Rashid’s silence to protect their family. Therefore we see Nadia taking control and very much like Maha become the protector. The liberation, independence, possession of self that Nadia achieves becomes her victory over the suppression that social structures have over women. : : : These two characters provide us with examples of how Arab women in their own ways challenge and question their environment and become agents of change. After reading about Maha, or Nadia one cannot sit back and believe that Arab women are helpless beings locked away in some other world. The oppression faced by Maha is not only restricted to social structures within Arabic society, she also recognizes and fights the oppression of the British who have colonized her people. Similarly we find Nadia being obsessed with the oppression of her homeland, and the revolution. These two women are from different environments, Maha a Bedouin, and Nadia a rich Palestinian living away from her homeland, first in Baraquis and then in London. However common to both is their strength and their fight towards liberty and freedom. For Maha her victory can be seen over the British when she refuses to let them touch the food she cooks, over the men in the village, when she refuses to marry a man not of her choice. She becomes a threat and therefore has to be removed. The fact that she has come to a point where her removal is necessary, like a revolutionary’s removal to the government, is where her victory lies. Whereas the relationship between Maha and Harb is one of passion and love, Ihsan and Nadia are the complete opposite. Nadia hates how Ihsan looks at her as a woman always and never a person. She struggles to prove her capability of being an individual and forming an identity of her own that is separate and goes beyond Mrs. Natour. She proves that she can ‘think and feel’ for herself and by herself. In the West where we have women out on the streets rallying for equality between men and women, fighting in the armies, present in the workforce, these victories may seem minute. However if one pays close attention to social structures and social norms in different cultures one can realize that this challenging and questioning is as important and holds as much weight as getting equal wages for women in America.

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