[ Followups | Post Followup | Open Discussion | Help ]

Barriers: Pysical and Psychological

Posted by teresa vazquez-dodero on December 27, 2003 at 15:03:22:

Both novels, Dreams of Trespass and In the Eye of the Sun deal with barriers. In the first one the barrier is a physical one, one that does not allow the women to cross it. While it creates incredible sense of solidarity among the women and a safety net, it also creates despair and a cause to fight for most of the mothers of the Mernissi household. In the second novel, In the Eye of the Sun we also see barriers, but this time they are invisible, more subtle, but equally damaging. Asya’s barrier is of communication at two levels, sexually and emotionally. She is not able to trespass the sexual barrier with her husband and is not able to trespass the communication barrier with neither her husband nor her best friend nor anyone in her family. The women in both of the novels deal with barriers although at completely different levels: one physical and the other psychological.
Fatima Mernissi is a superb writer who introduces the reader into a harem through the mind of a nine-year-old girl. In this autobiographical novel young Mernissi talks uncensored about the contradictions of life in a harem, surrounded by the extraordinary women in her family who are restrained from leaving the family courtyard. These women’s is a struggle of complete lack of freedom. They are not allowed to leave the courtyard except on very few occasions, and escorted by men (Mernissi 39). Their lack of mobility is also accentuated by lack of other freedoms such as education and financial freedom, although they have a voice in the decision making of the crucial changes in the harem life.
Throughout the book the strongest scream of the women is their protest against their incarceration. Their despair is their impossibility of going beyond the walls of their family compound. It is even referred to as a “fortress” ( 39). The word harem however does not necessarily means being restricted to existing within the family compound. Fatima’s grandmother, Yasmina, also lives in a harem but she has the freedom to go wherever she wants. She even climbs trees (30), rides horses, and goes fishing and swimming (39). The Harem in the city does keep the women behind doors. The main difference between the harems is weather they are urban or not. In urban cities harems are considerably more restrictive. Once girls become women they are not allowed to freely walk on the streets (116). The Mernissi women are constantly struggling to overcome their powerlessness and the despair caused by their lack of freedom. Even though they have wonderful moments together, they cannot be completely happy because they are forced to confinment within the area of the household.
Within the house, however, they do have certain privileges that are outside of the realm of men: the terrace (189). Although the men’s living room is more luxurious than the women’s areas, the women share the terrace and there, they give each other strength through story-telling. They represent stories of their heroines and become powerful through their words. They spread the word of other feminist Arabic women who had been also confined to harems but fought with whatever means they had against their powerlessness. Fatima, at an early age is presented with the story of Scheherezade, whose only strength is her intelligence and her ability to defeat death with her words (30). The stories of the princesses of Sheherezade’s tales teach the women and children that they can succeed even with their powerlessness and weakness. They are stories of women like the Mersnissi who have very little power and freedom and a lot of obstacles, but they are able to survive. Their ability to reason with the men around them is their only way to success and they learn that through story telling and theater. It is particularly amazing that the women choose to represent the lives of feminist Arab women. Even if the plays end up loosing excitement because the lives of the heroines were so physically passive, since they were restricted to the harem and to protesting through writing, they still choose to represent the lives of these women, to encourage each other, and teach the little children watching that there is hope.
Fatima is taught how the women in the stories are able to become strong by learning how to read and write in many different languages. She understands that her learning, her education is her way out of the walls. Her mother is her most fierce encourager. She teaches her to fight for herself and to not feel inferior in any way to anyone, even to males. She teaches her about the importance of female solidarity, not only directly through the stories in which the heroine decides to count on female solidarity in order to survive (142), but also in her life when she encourages Fatima to stand for herself instead of expecting her cousin Samir to fight for both of them. Fatima also learns that she is supposed to always be on the side of the women. When the women use the radio in the men’s living room Fatima is interrogated by the men of the family, and punished for telling the truth by being called a traitor by the women. She is not encouraged to tell lies, however she is pushed to keep her alliances clearly with the women (8).
Education is grounds for fierce inequality. The women protest that education used to be the norm in the harems in the past but not any more. In fact, even the slaves were educated in order to entertain the Caliph (154). One of the strongest fighters, Fatima’s mother, is illiterate and depends on her husband for readings of her favorite feminists’ biographies. Even though he does read them to her, it does come with a price. He exchanges the reading for attention from his wife (121). Shielding the women from education serves to keep them ignorant and submissive, although in the case of most of the Mernissi family it does not keep them away from information. On the contrary, it gives them stronger solidarity with each other. The women who can read, read for the ones who can’t (129). The women who are better bargainers and more eloquent describers assist the other ones to get what they want from outside the walls of the harem to be bought by the man in charge of purchasing items, Sidi Allal (213). While in the house aunts and mothers do all they can to open their daughters’ eyes, education outside the house is a different matter. Girls receive a different education, and while it is not limited to the memorization of the Koran, it is not as broad as the education that the boys receive, based on the French system. Fortunately Fatima is able to see the reverse of the differentiation between boys and girls’ education early enough in her childhood (196). As soon as Fatima’s mother hears about the encouragement of the king for girls to receive a westernized education she asks her husband to allow their daughter to switch from Koran school to French system school. Fatima switches school and begins to go to what she calls “real school” where she is able to learn the same subjects as the boys (196).
The decision of the change of schools, however, is too large to be taken solely by Fatima’s father so he calls for a family council. Although the women of the family have limited power, they do have a voice over important matters. The council is composed of all the males in the family as well as the grand mother and Fatima’s mother who is making the petition. In addition, Fatima’s mother is also empowered by her brother who is invited to the council to make sure that his sister’s interests are being protected (197). The council however does not approve Fatima’s mother’s petition to attend literacy school. While the family sees the importance of the girls to receive westernized education, they don’t think it fits in their “tradition” for mothers to assist school (200)
The entire discourse on tradition and respect for tradition creates a dichotomy of opinions in the household. While the minority of the women seem to fully support the tradition of living behind doors in a harem, since they are backed by the grand mother they have the most power. Fatima’s mother abhors the tyranny of the reclusion of the harem but her husband wants to respect his mother’s wishes. Not everything that has to do with living in a harem is detrimental to women, however. In fact, since their freedom is greatly restricted, the harem serves as protection, not necessarily because of the fact that it is an impermeable system that literally does not let any mixing with the outside, but the harem also serves as a refuge. The women of the family are always welcomed into the harem, even if they are married away from the household. If they run into problems with their husbands they are allowed to go back to their family harems, even if the problems result in divorce. The harem becomes a safety net where the women can fall back into after divorce or even just old age, as is the case of the grandmother. The servants are also allowed to stay in the harem after retiring (185). This might not be the case with all the servants or even with all the families, but the Marnissi household seems to have an additional component of humanity because, even though they restrict the movements of all the women in the family, they seem to believe that they are protecting them, that they need that protection in order to survive, while at the same time wanting to preserve tradition.
The women in the harem are also thrown back by the ties of the idea of the inferiority of women and religion. They denounce the disparity between the Koran and its interpretation from men. Both Fatima’s grandmother and mother fiercely believe in the equality between all Muslims regardless of gender (9, 26). Both women are the most verbal about their condemnation of inequality, and act each one in her own harem as an example, and as the one who brings changes into the life in the harem. Yasmina takes the other wives of her husband to fishing expeditions or to have tea on trees, as well as condemns the practice of giving the richer wife less household chores. Fatima’s mother is responsible for changing all the girls’ in the courtyard’s school to the French system school, a huge accomplishment.
Both women are also revolutionaries when it comes to dressing. The women’s clothing in the harem is extremely limiting. Not only does it restrain mobility, but it is also heavy and it makes the women more prone to falling and helplessness since they have to occupy their hands to hold their dress. The men’s dressing however is completely different, allowing them complete freedom of movement. Yasmina is the first one to change her dressing to a shorter one with slit sides to allow her movement. Although she is mocked at the beginning, soon all the other wives follow her (31). The nationalist movement starts to allow women to switch their traditional constraining haik to the men’s dress a more manageable djellaba, and the first woman to follow this permissiveness in the Mernissi household is Fatima’s mother. Not only that but she also changes the veil to a practically transparent one, allowing her to see better but also to be seen which infuriated her father (118). Fatima’s mother is the most ferocious fighter for change and women’s rights in the Mernissi household.
Soueif’s novel, In the Eye of the Sun brings us to the life of an upper middle class family in Egypt through the eyes of Asya. We read her story from her teenage years into her thirties. Asya’s character is given great depth through the lengthy novel. We follow the life of this sophisticated young woman who seems to have all the freedom in the world, compared to the Mernissi women, but we see her tied down to conventions that ultimately restrain her from conducting her life in happiness. After reading Dreams of Trespass it was puzzling to read about a woman who seems to have anything she wants in her reach but is incapable of fully exercising her freedoms. It is difficult as a reader to truly comprehend the origin of Asya’s misery, since she is always surrounded with people who love her, and seem to support her. Asya’s problems do not seem as large as any of the problems of the characters of the other novel, however, her inability to deal with them, and solve them creates a larger and larger problem as she gets older.
Sexual frustration is one of the main reasons for Asya’s unhappiness, in combination with her inability to define what she wants outside of her society, her parents and her husband. She moves, like a puppet, through the strings of the expectations that everyone around her have, never gaining the ability to speak for herself. The combination of these two factors creates immense tension inside of her that never seems to resolve. In her late teens Asya falls in love with Saif, a man a few years older than her. He immediately corresponds to her love. At the beginning of their relationship, the couple has to hide their love to avoid censorship of her family. Nevertheless they enjoy quite a bit of freedom since she is allowed to go anywhere she wants before her seven o’clock curfew. She goes to the cinema, to her friend’s house, even to Saif’s house, unescorted (Soueif 182). But her little taste of freedom does not suffice her. She complains about not being able to be seen with Saif or staying later than seven with him. Above all she complains about her inability to have a sexual relationship with Saif (139). She asks her family permission to marry him but they deny it until she has finished her university studies. She complains in vain, knowing that suppressing her passion is going to have serious consequences, realizing that their lack of intimacy is only drifting them appart (183). She even challenges tradition, and her family by asking Saif not to wait until marriage, years away, but he refuses. When they finally get married, their relationship does not any longer have the component of passion. They are unable to have sex. She becomes tense and uncomfortable and he is not able to ease her out of her absolute frigidity. Although they love each other, they are incapable of communicating sexually throughout their nine-year-long relationship (576). She learns how to suppress her sexuality when it comes to Saif, and later, when it is finally acceptable, she is not able to switch back to the young woman full of desire for him. She complains that she had to wait too many years, which ultimately destroyed her libido (392).
Asya is incapable of talking to her mother, father or even her best friend Chrissie about her problems with Saif. They know she has problems but not the root of her unhappiness with her husband. The only one she attempts to talk to is her nanny Dada Zeina. When it comes to talking with Dada Zeina, Asya does not restrain herself. She tells her openly how he refused to have sex with her when she invited him to. She speaks to Dada Zeina without tribulations or cover-ups. Her nanny questions Saif’s sexuality, and tells her that his behavior is “not normal” (136). Unfortunately her nanny leaves the home once all the children are grown, and Asya is left without anyone to talk to. Dada Zeina is the person that brought her up, and the person she is most comfortable with. She talks with her while Dada Zeina is first cooking with her and then helping her to wax her legs. Asya does not feel that she has to keep any conventions, any distance. Asya does not feel that she will hurt, or upset her, or that Dada Zeina would censor her. She simply opens up, which will be something impossible for her to do with anyone else.
Asya attempts to talk to her mother, years later, when her marriage is already almost impossible to fix, but she is incapable of telling her that she has never had sex with her husband, the most important fact that has triggered her adulterous behavior (573). Her mother is left clueless of her daughter’s real problems, only seeing a very loving husband on the surface, just like everyone else. She thinks that her daughter cannot accept her husband how he is, with the little flaws that he has. She only knows that he cannot communicate, which is the basis on Asya’s argument of his not loving her. Asya only tells her mother that he does not really want to know about her, but she does not tell her about the sex or about how he tells her that she does not want to fix their sexless relationship that is destroying her. Her mother thinks that she is immature, idealistic as she was when she was fifteen, arguing about nothing just because she wants to (573).
Even her best friend Chrissie does not know about Asya’s real problems. It is difficult to understand why Asya does not confide on her friend, except for her tendency to take care of everyone around her. Chrissie has a much more difficult life than Asya: her fiancé dies at war (89), she remains unmarried for a long time after that, and when she finally finds another love, he takes in a second wife (438). Chrissie’s childhood is also radically more difficult than Asya’s, since she has an over zealous brother who also does not lack violent behavior who controls everyone in the family (117). When Chrissie asks Asya about her problems she does not want to give her any more grievance, so she chooses not to tell her. Everybody’s perception of Saif is that of a loving and generous husband who is willing to give up everything for Asia, while they see Asya as week, almost spoiled, complaining like a little girl, not wanting to face adulthood.
Asya’s father is another one who sees Saif as a wonderful loving husband and his daughter as unreasonable and capricious, because Asya restricts him from the truth of the most important shortcoming of the relationship. Asya only tells him about the superfluous reasons for their fights, making her father misunderstand her completely (318). Her problem of communication is compounded by itself. It becomes harder and harder for her to say anything to anyone around her since Saif has created an image of perfect, almost saintly husband, while Asya has created an image of spoiled, girlish, stubborn, and incapable of overcoming small problems. Everyone around Asya sees Saif as the most generous man, including her aunts (351). He not only waits for his love to finish university, but also does not oppose to her going to do graduate school in Britain by herself. Not only that but he even gives up his position in the UN to keep her company because she is miserable by herself (359), and rents her a cottage so that she can live comfortably while doing her P.H.D (429). He is so good he even holds her while she vomits (346), and buys her expensive jewelry (351), all of which actions do not go unseen by the Soueif family, told to them by Asya herself. The reader on the other hand sees a much more complex, mature Asya who is incapable of making anyone unhappy at her expense (586).
Saif on the other hand is also incapable of understanding first his girlfriend and then his wife in the sexual sphere. When Asya gives him the option of consummating their relationship while they are still unmarried, he refuses, afraid that she is only doing it because she thinks that is what he wants. Asya, on the other hand tells her nanny Dada Zeina that he did not want to do it to make sure that she would not marry him, only because she had been deflowered by him (139). It all becomes more complicated with our very light understanding of his previous relationships. We read very short inserts into Saif’s thinking, one of which happens right after her attempt to open up to him sexually. He expresses that he is afraid of “her candour, her optimism, her faith” (140). All his other relationships have turned into something he did not want, perhaps after sex, although we don’t really know. We do know that he is afraid of spoiling her, and by association through approximation in the text, the reader understands he might think that sex might rob her of her most precious qualities, as it did to his other relationships.
Saif takes the position of the provider, the guardian, the friend. He uses Asya’s anxiety about sex to avoid it, pushing onto her the notion that she does not want to have it. While it is true that she does indeed fear sex with Saif, she also wants to consummate her marriage, which she expresses over and over again. He opposes to even talk about it, creating a larger barrier as time goes by. The built up anxiety even gives Asya an ulcer (347). Slowly, what starts as a prohibition for Asya (135), and a spoiler for Saif (140, becomes their worst enemy and biggest barrier. As it turns out, it is the lack of sex what takes away Asya’s candor, optimism and faith, precisely what he wanted to prevent. Saif attempts to convince Asya that she does not want to have sex with him (302), that she is relieved not to have sex with him and that it is fine, that he knows better than her what she wants (162). At first she trusts him, she is confused by his sweetness, by his generosity and his selfless behavior, but later she understands her role as a selfless being that acts as a puppet following very rigid directions of behavior to please him:
“She tries to pinpoint the things he does not like, the things about her that put him off. She makes a list of them: she can get rid of them – or at least keep them away from him. He does not like:
1. Her tendency towards abstract discussion, e.g. ‘How do you know absolutely for sure there is no reincarnation?’
2. Her enthusiasms, e.g. for sit-ins, demonstrations, dancing etc.
3. When she takes too long to tell a story.
4. When she points out things to him: ’Oh gosh! Look at that moon!’
5. Her not liking judgments, e.g. ‘But if you look at it from his point of view-‘
6. Her wish to do things. He finds it juvenile.

This list of behaviors summarizes everything about her character. He does not like her spontaneity, her not being judgmental, the way she speaks, her hunger for life, the way she thinks, the way she sees things. She has to completely change herself in order to be with him in peace. She has to cater to him through a fabricated Asya to fit his needs. He crushes her “candour” and “optimism” not through sex but through censorship both mental and sexual. Their relationship grows further apart as Asya converts her helplessness, dependency and naivety into assertiveness and independence, and brings the marriage to its end when she decides to have sex outside of her marriage.
Asya seems to have all the freedom in the world, but the conventionalities of her education make her weak. She learns she has no say so over men. Her father’s word is stronger than her mother’s (139), her friend Chrissie’s father’s word is stronger than her mother’s (118), even her brother’s word is stronger than her mother’s (91). When she wants to marry she has to ask her father and obey him when he says no (146). When it comes to her husband she behaves the same way. She seems to have say-so in her actions, since she does attend university in Britain, but she is incapable of contradicting her husband without thinking that there is something wrong with her actions (517). She becomes her worst enemy because when she knows that she needs to speak up, she makes remarks about her behavior being stupid or childish, instead of giving herself importance. Sex had always been tabooed, negative, the “biggest wrong” a woman could do (135). When her relationship is not consummated through sex, she thinks getting a divorce because of lack of sex in the relationship is “absurd” (359), when in reality it is one of the few causes even the Pope accepts as a viable reason to annul a marriage. But in her society sex is not associated with good women, and she cannot see herself in front of a judge disclosing that the reason for her divorce is because he “won’t perform his conjugal”(359). She often questions whether her aunts have sex with their husbands and whether they would stand for a sexless relationship with their husbands (302) but she often switches the fault to herself because she is indeed “frozen” in bed with Saif (302).
One of the main reasons for her blaming her sexual failure to the long wait to consummate her relationship with Saif is the fact that she knows that she can get aroused, even in very strange circumstances. When she goes to Italy she poses as Umberto’s girlfriend an even pacts with him to cover up her lasting virginity despite her relationship with him (173). She does however have a sexual relationship with him even if they don’t consummate the relationship. She allows herself to enjoy him. She even enjoys to a certain degree, having sex with a stranger, in a bizarre quasi rape scene also in Italy (176). Although she does not want to have sex with the stranger she finds herself aroused by his touch. She also fantasizes about having sex with Mario, her absentee husband’s friend. She even realizes that her thinking about him materializes into a “torrent” (414), making her dryness with Saif not a problem of hers but a problem of hers and Saif. Her confusion however had brought her to a doctor thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with her. After examination he gives her a diagnosis of perfect health and a plastic penis and lubricant to overcome her problem. She only tries to use it once but feels “evil” and “stupid” (510). It is not clear whether she goes to the doctor before or after Mario, what is for sure is that slowly she realizes that there is no physical problem with her an sex, her problem only concerns Saif.
Asya is a victim of her surrounding. She is incapable of switching the role of sex from evil to good, from sex before marriage to sex after marriage. She is also incapable of sharing her problems with those she loves because she does not want to make them suffer, but most of all, she is incapable of assert herself to men. She cannot do it with her father, later with her husband and even with her lover Gerald, she digs herself into a situation where he controls what she thinks or her actions through what he imposes as her thoughts. To the women around her she is assertive, strong, even a little stubborn, but the men see a moldable Asya that will end up thinking what they want her to think, even if she knows better but she no longer wants to fight, she ends up giving herself up.
While the women of Dreams of Trespass are victims of a physical barrier that does not let them literally trespass it, Asya in In the Eye of the Sun is victim of psychological barriers that will ultimately not allow her to fulfill herself. Asya’s devils are more difficult to pinpoint because they are invisible, although they make her physically sick. Fatima in Dreams of Trespass is also a little girl, so the effect of her enclosure is not as psychologically damaging as to the adult women in the house, since she also enjoys considerable more freedom than her mother’s generation. In addition, change in the suffocating traditions seems inexorable with more openness coming to the harem through the nationalists’ quest for women’s rights. The Mernissi women figth against a physical barrier showing solidarity toward each other, and teaching their children to stick to those of their gender. She is taught to be strong and to never depend on anyone of the opposite gender to save her, while at the same time she is taught that ultimate happiness happens with a good man, in a good relationship. The opening of the harem is gradually coming to the Mernissi household. Fatima is young enough to not be radically affected by the close doors, in great measure thanks to her mother who makes sure she is never measured any lower than anyone of the opposite gender. The effects of gender subjugation and the haremnization of women persist through out the decades even after the doors have been opened. Asya is a perfect example of seemingly open freedom but severe psychological damage.

Followups

Post a Followup

Name:
Email:

Subject:

Comments:
: Both novels, Dreams of Trespass and In the Eye of the Sun deal with barriers. In the first one the barrier is a physical one, one that does not allow the women to cross it. While it creates incredible sense of solidarity among the women and a safety net, it also creates despair and a cause to fight for most of the mothers of the Mernissi household. In the second novel, In the Eye of the Sun we also see barriers, but this time they are invisible, more subtle, but equally damaging. Asya’s barrier is of communication at two levels, sexually and emotionally. She is not able to trespass the sexual barrier with her husband and is not able to trespass the communication barrier with neither her husband nor her best friend nor anyone in her family. The women in both of the novels deal with barriers although at completely different levels: one physical and the other psychological. : Fatima Mernissi is a superb writer who introduces the reader into a harem through the mind of a nine-year-old girl. In this autobiographical novel young Mernissi talks uncensored about the contradictions of life in a harem, surrounded by the extraordinary women in her family who are restrained from leaving the family courtyard. These women’s is a struggle of complete lack of freedom. They are not allowed to leave the courtyard except on very few occasions, and escorted by men (Mernissi 39). Their lack of mobility is also accentuated by lack of other freedoms such as education and financial freedom, although they have a voice in the decision making of the crucial changes in the harem life. : Throughout the book the strongest scream of the women is their protest against their incarceration. Their despair is their impossibility of going beyond the walls of their family compound. It is even referred to as a “fortress” ( 39). The word harem however does not necessarily means being restricted to existing within the family compound. Fatima’s grandmother, Yasmina, also lives in a harem but she has the freedom to go wherever she wants. She even climbs trees (30), rides horses, and goes fishing and swimming (39). The Harem in the city does keep the women behind doors. The main difference between the harems is weather they are urban or not. In urban cities harems are considerably more restrictive. Once girls become women they are not allowed to freely walk on the streets (116). The Mernissi women are constantly struggling to overcome their powerlessness and the despair caused by their lack of freedom. Even though they have wonderful moments together, they cannot be completely happy because they are forced to confinment within the area of the household. : Within the house, however, they do have certain privileges that are outside of the realm of men: the terrace (189). Although the men’s living room is more luxurious than the women’s areas, the women share the terrace and there, they give each other strength through story-telling. They represent stories of their heroines and become powerful through their words. They spread the word of other feminist Arabic women who had been also confined to harems but fought with whatever means they had against their powerlessness. Fatima, at an early age is presented with the story of Scheherezade, whose only strength is her intelligence and her ability to defeat death with her words (30). The stories of the princesses of Sheherezade’s tales teach the women and children that they can succeed even with their powerlessness and weakness. They are stories of women like the Mersnissi who have very little power and freedom and a lot of obstacles, but they are able to survive. Their ability to reason with the men around them is their only way to success and they learn that through story telling and theater. It is particularly amazing that the women choose to represent the lives of feminist Arab women. Even if the plays end up loosing excitement because the lives of the heroines were so physically passive, since they were restricted to the harem and to protesting through writing, they still choose to represent the lives of these women, to encourage each other, and teach the little children watching that there is hope. : Fatima is taught how the women in the stories are able to become strong by learning how to read and write in many different languages. She understands that her learning, her education is her way out of the walls. Her mother is her most fierce encourager. She teaches her to fight for herself and to not feel inferior in any way to anyone, even to males. She teaches her about the importance of female solidarity, not only directly through the stories in which the heroine decides to count on female solidarity in order to survive (142), but also in her life when she encourages Fatima to stand for herself instead of expecting her cousin Samir to fight for both of them. Fatima also learns that she is supposed to always be on the side of the women. When the women use the radio in the men’s living room Fatima is interrogated by the men of the family, and punished for telling the truth by being called a traitor by the women. She is not encouraged to tell lies, however she is pushed to keep her alliances clearly with the women (8). : Education is grounds for fierce inequality. The women protest that education used to be the norm in the harems in the past but not any more. In fact, even the slaves were educated in order to entertain the Caliph (154). One of the strongest fighters, Fatima’s mother, is illiterate and depends on her husband for readings of her favorite feminists’ biographies. Even though he does read them to her, it does come with a price. He exchanges the reading for attention from his wife (121). Shielding the women from education serves to keep them ignorant and submissive, although in the case of most of the Mernissi family it does not keep them away from information. On the contrary, it gives them stronger solidarity with each other. The women who can read, read for the ones who can’t (129). The women who are better bargainers and more eloquent describers assist the other ones to get what they want from outside the walls of the harem to be bought by the man in charge of purchasing items, Sidi Allal (213). While in the house aunts and mothers do all they can to open their daughters’ eyes, education outside the house is a different matter. Girls receive a different education, and while it is not limited to the memorization of the Koran, it is not as broad as the education that the boys receive, based on the French system. Fortunately Fatima is able to see the reverse of the differentiation between boys and girls’ education early enough in her childhood (196). As soon as Fatima’s mother hears about the encouragement of the king for girls to receive a westernized education she asks her husband to allow their daughter to switch from Koran school to French system school. Fatima switches school and begins to go to what she calls “real school” where she is able to learn the same subjects as the boys (196). : The decision of the change of schools, however, is too large to be taken solely by Fatima’s father so he calls for a family council. Although the women of the family have limited power, they do have a voice over important matters. The council is composed of all the males in the family as well as the grand mother and Fatima’s mother who is making the petition. In addition, Fatima’s mother is also empowered by her brother who is invited to the council to make sure that his sister’s interests are being protected (197). The council however does not approve Fatima’s mother’s petition to attend literacy school. While the family sees the importance of the girls to receive westernized education, they don’t think it fits in their “tradition” for mothers to assist school (200) : The entire discourse on tradition and respect for tradition creates a dichotomy of opinions in the household. While the minority of the women seem to fully support the tradition of living behind doors in a harem, since they are backed by the grand mother they have the most power. Fatima’s mother abhors the tyranny of the reclusion of the harem but her husband wants to respect his mother’s wishes. Not everything that has to do with living in a harem is detrimental to women, however. In fact, since their freedom is greatly restricted, the harem serves as protection, not necessarily because of the fact that it is an impermeable system that literally does not let any mixing with the outside, but the harem also serves as a refuge. The women of the family are always welcomed into the harem, even if they are married away from the household. If they run into problems with their husbands they are allowed to go back to their family harems, even if the problems result in divorce. The harem becomes a safety net where the women can fall back into after divorce or even just old age, as is the case of the grandmother. The servants are also allowed to stay in the harem after retiring (185). This might not be the case with all the servants or even with all the families, but the Marnissi household seems to have an additional component of humanity because, even though they restrict the movements of all the women in the family, they seem to believe that they are protecting them, that they need that protection in order to survive, while at the same time wanting to preserve tradition. : The women in the harem are also thrown back by the ties of the idea of the inferiority of women and religion. They denounce the disparity between the Koran and its interpretation from men. Both Fatima’s grandmother and mother fiercely believe in the equality between all Muslims regardless of gender (9, 26). Both women are the most verbal about their condemnation of inequality, and act each one in her own harem as an example, and as the one who brings changes into the life in the harem. Yasmina takes the other wives of her husband to fishing expeditions or to have tea on trees, as well as condemns the practice of giving the richer wife less household chores. Fatima’s mother is responsible for changing all the girls’ in the courtyard’s school to the French system school, a huge accomplishment. : Both women are also revolutionaries when it comes to dressing. The women’s clothing in the harem is extremely limiting. Not only does it restrain mobility, but it is also heavy and it makes the women more prone to falling and helplessness since they have to occupy their hands to hold their dress. The men’s dressing however is completely different, allowing them complete freedom of movement. Yasmina is the first one to change her dressing to a shorter one with slit sides to allow her movement. Although she is mocked at the beginning, soon all the other wives follow her (31). The nationalist movement starts to allow women to switch their traditional constraining haik to the men’s dress a more manageable djellaba, and the first woman to follow this permissiveness in the Mernissi household is Fatima’s mother. Not only that but she also changes the veil to a practically transparent one, allowing her to see better but also to be seen which infuriated her father (118). Fatima’s mother is the most ferocious fighter for change and women’s rights in the Mernissi household. : Soueif’s novel, In the Eye of the Sun brings us to the life of an upper middle class family in Egypt through the eyes of Asya. We read her story from her teenage years into her thirties. Asya’s character is given great depth through the lengthy novel. We follow the life of this sophisticated young woman who seems to have all the freedom in the world, compared to the Mernissi women, but we see her tied down to conventions that ultimately restrain her from conducting her life in happiness. After reading Dreams of Trespass it was puzzling to read about a woman who seems to have anything she wants in her reach but is incapable of fully exercising her freedoms. It is difficult as a reader to truly comprehend the origin of Asya’s misery, since she is always surrounded with people who love her, and seem to support her. Asya’s problems do not seem as large as any of the problems of the characters of the other novel, however, her inability to deal with them, and solve them creates a larger and larger problem as she gets older. : Sexual frustration is one of the main reasons for Asya’s unhappiness, in combination with her inability to define what she wants outside of her society, her parents and her husband. She moves, like a puppet, through the strings of the expectations that everyone around her have, never gaining the ability to speak for herself. The combination of these two factors creates immense tension inside of her that never seems to resolve. In her late teens Asya falls in love with Saif, a man a few years older than her. He immediately corresponds to her love. At the beginning of their relationship, the couple has to hide their love to avoid censorship of her family. Nevertheless they enjoy quite a bit of freedom since she is allowed to go anywhere she wants before her seven o’clock curfew. She goes to the cinema, to her friend’s house, even to Saif’s house, unescorted (Soueif 182). But her little taste of freedom does not suffice her. She complains about not being able to be seen with Saif or staying later than seven with him. Above all she complains about her inability to have a sexual relationship with Saif (139). She asks her family permission to marry him but they deny it until she has finished her university studies. She complains in vain, knowing that suppressing her passion is going to have serious consequences, realizing that their lack of intimacy is only drifting them appart (183). She even challenges tradition, and her family by asking Saif not to wait until marriage, years away, but he refuses. When they finally get married, their relationship does not any longer have the component of passion. They are unable to have sex. She becomes tense and uncomfortable and he is not able to ease her out of her absolute frigidity. Although they love each other, they are incapable of communicating sexually throughout their nine-year-long relationship (576). She learns how to suppress her sexuality when it comes to Saif, and later, when it is finally acceptable, she is not able to switch back to the young woman full of desire for him. She complains that she had to wait too many years, which ultimately destroyed her libido (392). : Asya is incapable of talking to her mother, father or even her best friend Chrissie about her problems with Saif. They know she has problems but not the root of her unhappiness with her husband. The only one she attempts to talk to is her nanny Dada Zeina. When it comes to talking with Dada Zeina, Asya does not restrain herself. She tells her openly how he refused to have sex with her when she invited him to. She speaks to Dada Zeina without tribulations or cover-ups. Her nanny questions Saif’s sexuality, and tells her that his behavior is “not normal” (136). Unfortunately her nanny leaves the home once all the children are grown, and Asya is left without anyone to talk to. Dada Zeina is the person that brought her up, and the person she is most comfortable with. She talks with her while Dada Zeina is first cooking with her and then helping her to wax her legs. Asya does not feel that she has to keep any conventions, any distance. Asya does not feel that she will hurt, or upset her, or that Dada Zeina would censor her. She simply opens up, which will be something impossible for her to do with anyone else. : Asya attempts to talk to her mother, years later, when her marriage is already almost impossible to fix, but she is incapable of telling her that she has never had sex with her husband, the most important fact that has triggered her adulterous behavior (573). Her mother is left clueless of her daughter’s real problems, only seeing a very loving husband on the surface, just like everyone else. She thinks that her daughter cannot accept her husband how he is, with the little flaws that he has. She only knows that he cannot communicate, which is the basis on Asya’s argument of his not loving her. Asya only tells her mother that he does not really want to know about her, but she does not tell her about the sex or about how he tells her that she does not want to fix their sexless relationship that is destroying her. Her mother thinks that she is immature, idealistic as she was when she was fifteen, arguing about nothing just because she wants to (573). : Even her best friend Chrissie does not know about Asya’s real problems. It is difficult to understand why Asya does not confide on her friend, except for her tendency to take care of everyone around her. Chrissie has a much more difficult life than Asya: her fiancé dies at war (89), she remains unmarried for a long time after that, and when she finally finds another love, he takes in a second wife (438). Chrissie’s childhood is also radically more difficult than Asya’s, since she has an over zealous brother who also does not lack violent behavior who controls everyone in the family (117). When Chrissie asks Asya about her problems she does not want to give her any more grievance, so she chooses not to tell her. Everybody’s perception of Saif is that of a loving and generous husband who is willing to give up everything for Asia, while they see Asya as week, almost spoiled, complaining like a little girl, not wanting to face adulthood. : Asya’s father is another one who sees Saif as a wonderful loving husband and his daughter as unreasonable and capricious, because Asya restricts him from the truth of the most important shortcoming of the relationship. Asya only tells him about the superfluous reasons for their fights, making her father misunderstand her completely (318). Her problem of communication is compounded by itself. It becomes harder and harder for her to say anything to anyone around her since Saif has created an image of perfect, almost saintly husband, while Asya has created an image of spoiled, girlish, stubborn, and incapable of overcoming small problems. Everyone around Asya sees Saif as the most generous man, including her aunts (351). He not only waits for his love to finish university, but also does not oppose to her going to do graduate school in Britain by herself. Not only that but he even gives up his position in the UN to keep her company because she is miserable by herself (359), and rents her a cottage so that she can live comfortably while doing her P.H.D (429). He is so good he even holds her while she vomits (346), and buys her expensive jewelry (351), all of which actions do not go unseen by the Soueif family, told to them by Asya herself. The reader on the other hand sees a much more complex, mature Asya who is incapable of making anyone unhappy at her expense (586). : Saif on the other hand is also incapable of understanding first his girlfriend and then his wife in the sexual sphere. When Asya gives him the option of consummating their relationship while they are still unmarried, he refuses, afraid that she is only doing it because she thinks that is what he wants. Asya, on the other hand tells her nanny Dada Zeina that he did not want to do it to make sure that she would not marry him, only because she had been deflowered by him (139). It all becomes more complicated with our very light understanding of his previous relationships. We read very short inserts into Saif’s thinking, one of which happens right after her attempt to open up to him sexually. He expresses that he is afraid of “her candour, her optimism, her faith” (140). All his other relationships have turned into something he did not want, perhaps after sex, although we don’t really know. We do know that he is afraid of spoiling her, and by association through approximation in the text, the reader understands he might think that sex might rob her of her most precious qualities, as it did to his other relationships. : Saif takes the position of the provider, the guardian, the friend. He uses Asya’s anxiety about sex to avoid it, pushing onto her the notion that she does not want to have it. While it is true that she does indeed fear sex with Saif, she also wants to consummate her marriage, which she expresses over and over again. He opposes to even talk about it, creating a larger barrier as time goes by. The built up anxiety even gives Asya an ulcer (347). Slowly, what starts as a prohibition for Asya (135), and a spoiler for Saif (140, becomes their worst enemy and biggest barrier. As it turns out, it is the lack of sex what takes away Asya’s candor, optimism and faith, precisely what he wanted to prevent. Saif attempts to convince Asya that she does not want to have sex with him (302), that she is relieved not to have sex with him and that it is fine, that he knows better than her what she wants (162). At first she trusts him, she is confused by his sweetness, by his generosity and his selfless behavior, but later she understands her role as a selfless being that acts as a puppet following very rigid directions of behavior to please him: : “She tries to pinpoint the things he does not like, the things about her that put him off. She makes a list of them: she can get rid of them – or at least keep them away from him. He does not like: : 1. Her tendency towards abstract discussion, e.g. ‘How do you know absolutely for sure there is no reincarnation?’ : 2. Her enthusiasms, e.g. for sit-ins, demonstrations, dancing etc. : 3. When she takes too long to tell a story. : 4. When she points out things to him: ’Oh gosh! Look at that moon!’ : 5. Her not liking judgments, e.g. ‘But if you look at it from his point of view-‘ : 6. Her wish to do things. He finds it juvenile. : This list of behaviors summarizes everything about her character. He does not like her spontaneity, her not being judgmental, the way she speaks, her hunger for life, the way she thinks, the way she sees things. She has to completely change herself in order to be with him in peace. She has to cater to him through a fabricated Asya to fit his needs. He crushes her “candour” and “optimism” not through sex but through censorship both mental and sexual. Their relationship grows further apart as Asya converts her helplessness, dependency and naivety into assertiveness and independence, and brings the marriage to its end when she decides to have sex outside of her marriage. : Asya seems to have all the freedom in the world, but the conventionalities of her education make her weak. She learns she has no say so over men. Her father’s word is stronger than her mother’s (139), her friend Chrissie’s father’s word is stronger than her mother’s (118), even her brother’s word is stronger than her mother’s (91). When she wants to marry she has to ask her father and obey him when he says no (146). When it comes to her husband she behaves the same way. She seems to have say-so in her actions, since she does attend university in Britain, but she is incapable of contradicting her husband without thinking that there is something wrong with her actions (517). She becomes her worst enemy because when she knows that she needs to speak up, she makes remarks about her behavior being stupid or childish, instead of giving herself importance. Sex had always been tabooed, negative, the “biggest wrong” a woman could do (135). When her relationship is not consummated through sex, she thinks getting a divorce because of lack of sex in the relationship is “absurd” (359), when in reality it is one of the few causes even the Pope accepts as a viable reason to annul a marriage. But in her society sex is not associated with good women, and she cannot see herself in front of a judge disclosing that the reason for her divorce is because he “won’t perform his conjugal”(359). She often questions whether her aunts have sex with their husbands and whether they would stand for a sexless relationship with their husbands (302) but she often switches the fault to herself because she is indeed “frozen” in bed with Saif (302). : One of the main reasons for her blaming her sexual failure to the long wait to consummate her relationship with Saif is the fact that she knows that she can get aroused, even in very strange circumstances. When she goes to Italy she poses as Umberto’s girlfriend an even pacts with him to cover up her lasting virginity despite her relationship with him (173). She does however have a sexual relationship with him even if they don’t consummate the relationship. She allows herself to enjoy him. She even enjoys to a certain degree, having sex with a stranger, in a bizarre quasi rape scene also in Italy (176). Although she does not want to have sex with the stranger she finds herself aroused by his touch. She also fantasizes about having sex with Mario, her absentee husband’s friend. She even realizes that her thinking about him materializes into a “torrent” (414), making her dryness with Saif not a problem of hers but a problem of hers and Saif. Her confusion however had brought her to a doctor thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with her. After examination he gives her a diagnosis of perfect health and a plastic penis and lubricant to overcome her problem. She only tries to use it once but feels “evil” and “stupid” (510). It is not clear whether she goes to the doctor before or after Mario, what is for sure is that slowly she realizes that there is no physical problem with her an sex, her problem only concerns Saif. : Asya is a victim of her surrounding. She is incapable of switching the role of sex from evil to good, from sex before marriage to sex after marriage. She is also incapable of sharing her problems with those she loves because she does not want to make them suffer, but most of all, she is incapable of assert herself to men. She cannot do it with her father, later with her husband and even with her lover Gerald, she digs herself into a situation where he controls what she thinks or her actions through what he imposes as her thoughts. To the women around her she is assertive, strong, even a little stubborn, but the men see a moldable Asya that will end up thinking what they want her to think, even if she knows better but she no longer wants to fight, she ends up giving herself up. : While the women of Dreams of Trespass are victims of a physical barrier that does not let them literally trespass it, Asya in In the Eye of the Sun is victim of psychological barriers that will ultimately not allow her to fulfill herself. Asya’s devils are more difficult to pinpoint because they are invisible, although they make her physically sick. Fatima in Dreams of Trespass is also a little girl, so the effect of her enclosure is not as psychologically damaging as to the adult women in the house, since she also enjoys considerable more freedom than her mother’s generation. In addition, change in the suffocating traditions seems inexorable with more openness coming to the harem through the nationalists’ quest for women’s rights. The Mernissi women figth against a physical barrier showing solidarity toward each other, and teaching their children to stick to those of their gender. She is taught to be strong and to never depend on anyone of the opposite gender to save her, while at the same time she is taught that ultimate happiness happens with a good man, in a good relationship. The opening of the harem is gradually coming to the Mernissi household. Fatima is young enough to not be radically affected by the close doors, in great measure thanks to her mother who makes sure she is never measured any lower than anyone of the opposite gender. The effects of gender subjugation and the haremnization of women persist through out the decades even after the doors have been opened. Asya is a perfect example of seemingly open freedom but severe psychological damage. : :

Optional Link URL:
Title of Link:
Optional Image URL: