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Wafa Amayreh
Asian 320
Professor Jiyad
Emerging Voices:
Family and Identity
Whether it was the impoverished desert village, the war torn hills of Beirut, affluent Barqais, the jet set in London and Paris, or the enclosed lives of women in a harem in Morocco, the female characters in these novels all shared five common threads that dealt with the family and the search for identity. In my reading of five novels about Arab women from backgrounds and in situations as diverse as I thought possible, I was surprised to find this common thread running through every piece of literature. In this paper, I will analyze the role the women’s families have in the education of the women, the role of women and families in the literature in political support and times of war, women’s health and family planning, and most of all what these issues do to the emerging identity of the Arab woman. In a society that is so oriented around the extended family, and in which elderly parents are rarely if ever sent to nursing homes, the family’s opinion weighs heavily on what a woman can and cannot do with her life. The examination of the manner in which education is regarded in the families of these women is critical for a better understanding of the decisions they make. In a traditionally patriarchal society where the man is the breadwinner, the assessment of the subject of work outside the home is also interesting. In a region so riddled with almost constant political and military upheaval, there has been bound to have been a change in the roles women in the family play in support of these political and military actions. Finally, the issue of identity is much more prominent in the more modern novels and the issue of the modern family versus the individual and the rise of the individual from the modern family plays very prominently in “In the Eye of the Sun” and Dreams of Trespass”. The Arab family, as Magida Salman writes, is where “the fate of women is being decided and unfolds” (Salman 7). Therefore, it is necessary to understand the huge impact the family has on the identity of Arab women. Identity as a concept is valuable as a center for cross-cultural understandings of human experience because it begins with the individual, and issues of identity in a literary context can act as a mirror for what is happening in the real world.
Blood is thicker than water: Love, Marriage and all its Perils
Pillars of Salt, which is set in the early 20s in Jordan is the earliest chronologically and presents an interesting portrait of a young Arab woman, Maha, struggling for actualization and survival in a poor village. Maha lives at home with her father and brother, and she is the homemaker and her ailing father’s care-taker. From the very beginning of the novel it is evident that the family is interdependent, and women are not independent before or after marriage, and this is evident from the moment the women’s courtships are described, despite the contrasts. Maha’s courting begins when Harb asks her to meet him at night, and Maha replies, “Are you mad? For a girl to be out at night is a crime of honor. They will shoot me in the eyes.” (Faqir 10). She feels that she must resist Harb because of the repercussions this may have on her reputation. Indeed, honor killings are still a source of fear in women across the Arab world and for someone in Maha’s position were a menace of worthy of taking note. Harb then goes to Maha’s father and asks for her hand, who quickly relays the request to his daughter, asking her permission before he gives Harb an answer. Maha’s opinion is of definite concern to her father, while Um Saad’s opinion is of little importance. This is quite clear in Um Saad’s story of meeting Muhammad the Circassian in the marketplace. Um Saad is in love with the youth, and wishes to marry him she sees marriage as an escape from her father’s violence and her dim future. She describes how her father’s belt “reduced [her] to a piece of flayed meat” when her father asks her, “Who is Muhammad?” (Faqir 100). Um Saad goes on to explain how she heard her father discussing with Muhammad his marriage proposal. Her father lies and tells Muhammed Haniyyeh is engaged to her cousin, and says to Muhammad, “The answer is no” (Faqir 101). All this time, Haniyyeh is listening to the conversation. She is never asked her opinion, and is instead beaten. A week later, Haniyyeh is tricked into getting dressed, and is taken unwittingly to her wedding. She expresses great happiness upon initially hearing she will be married (Faqir 102), yet is thrown into a miserable existence of “washing [her husband’s] feet with soap and water” (Faqir 121) and producing sons Unlike Maha, Um Saad has absolutely no say in the decision her father makes to marry her to an old man with “soggy cheeks” (Faqir 109). The contrast in description of the sexual relations in marriage of Maha and Um Saad are also quite divergent. Maha’s first experience with Harb in the Dead Sea is very positive, and they seem to be in tune to each other. She describes how the “horizon grew wider, growing limitless” (Faqir 54), and how she “love[s] that man”, speaking of Harb (Faqir 54). Harb never pushed Maha sexually, and on their wedding night Harb tells Maha “[he] cannot do it.” (Faqir 45). Instead of forcing the first sexual experience, the couple decides instead to prick Maha’s finger and provide the tribe with proof of her virginity this way. In all subsequent scenes when Maha and Harb are together, it is obvious that they are very loving, and throughout the novel she calls him “twin of my soul” (Faqir 9), and he admiringly calls her “my mare”. Maha remembers that her mother told her “men were birds of prey”, and this gives the reader a glimpse into the representation of Arab men in the eyes of Arab women in this culture. Women must counter men’s violent tendencies and not allow men the thrill of the chase in order to protect their honor, and it is foremost for this reason that Maha decides (after much deliberation) that if Harb is genuinely interested in her, he will still want her if she does not meet him. When Harb is killed by the English, Maha is extremely mournful, and this affects her more than anything she could have imagined. Her loyalty to him even after his death illustrates the type of relationship they had. Um Saad’s first experience, on the other hand, was quite violent. Um Saad describes how Abu Saad, her husband, “chased [her] and ripped [her] dress apart.” (Faqir 109). Apparently, Um Saad is prepubescent, but Abu Saad decides to deflower her “all the same” (Faqir 109). For all practical intents and purposes, this is a rape. Um Saad does not give consent. Their relationship never progresses past this state, and Um Saad describes how “He gave orders and [she] listened” (Faqir 151). When after six months of marriage Maha begins to believe she is barren, Harb never suggests remarrying. However, after twenty years of marriage and eight sons, Abu Saad takes another wife. This shows the fundamental lack of respect in the relationship between Um and Abu Saad. He does not even have the decency to tell her, and she is the last to know, as her son Walid points out (Faqir 178). The point in Um Saad’s story when she begins sleeping on the kitchen floor is particularly heart-wrenching (Faqir 179); she is not respected as a human being whereas Maha is.
A Woman of Five Seasons, by Leila Al-Atrash, presents the relationship of the wealthy Ihsan and Nadia in the fictional state of Barqais. Whereas in Pillars of Salt Maha and Um Saad never escape the shackles of their societies, A Woman of Five Seasons follows Nadia’s transformation from completely submissive to Ihsan to self-realized and powerful in her relationship. The first words in the novel are those of Ihsan calling Nadia his “lovely kitten” (Al-Atrash 1). This term of endearment shows how Ihsan regards Nadia as a plaything, cute and fickle, and not something to be taken seriously. more often than not, Nadia goes along with Ihsan’s belittling comments, but she occasionally rises to the occasion and once describes how it “made her feel ill” when Ihsan calls her “kitten” (Al-Atrash 13). Their relationship is very one-sided, and is riddled with misunderstandings and a lack of communication. Ihsan is inconsiderate of many things, including Nadia’s feelings and has an image of her he wishes to use to further his career. He is very conniving, and uses Nadia as a pawn in his arms smuggling operations. When Ihsan requests that Nadia befriend the wives of his business colleagues, Nadia protests but gives in. This is usually the pattern she follows when asked by Ihsan to do something she would rather not: she protests briefly, but ends up sacrificing her wants and needs and going along with what Ihsan wants. Towards the end of the novel this begins to change, and the balance of power shifts in her favor. In contrast with Pillars of Salt, Ihsan’s desire for Nadia to act as a token in his game shows a situation in which women are more directly involved in the everyday lives of their husbands whereas the lives of men and women in Pillars of Salt were completely separate. Caught between tradition and modernization, Nadia describes how “[she] wanted to be that skillful woman who wraps her husband around with love and happiness” (Al-Atrash 33), yet feels she is being “hemmed in” and “stifled” by these same desires for domesticity. Although the circumstances under which Nadia and Ihsan were married were quite different from previously discussed situations, she expresses the same idea that marriage was a means to an end, “Marriage was the aim – a strange, confused feeling, somewhere between getting a husband and finding love.” (Al-Atrash 40). As this novel is very much concerned with the effect the relationship has on the identity of the woman involved, aspects of the relationship saturate every facet of Nadia’s life, from her education, to her health, to her perception of herself and especially her identity.
From the pampered lives of Nadia and Ihsan we move to the war-torn hills of Lebanon during the civil war in A Balcony over the Fakihani. Understandably, the characters of this novel are preoccupied with day to day survival more than they are with high society dinner parties or self-actualization. Yet the relationships in the novel provide for interesting analysis. We are introduced to the widow of a martyr, who as with Maha in Pillars of Salt, is justifiably extremely affected by her husband’s death. The widow Yusra is described as “utterly broken”, and “shaken by fits of weeping so intense they took away all her strength” (Badr 25). In keeping with the war setting of the novel, it is interesting that one of the first glimpses into a relationship is of a broken one, and the consequences of war on human bonds. After her initial reaction is shown, Yusra considers her child. She is three months pregnant, and says, “Three months in the womb. Six more to complete the pregnancy. Another person would be born. It would be a Palestinian, from its first moment in the world.” (Badr 25). At this moment it seems that the only thing sustaining Yusra is the fact that her husband will like on in her child. This is image is also political, and plays on the issue of women as the source of future militias and resistance fighters.
In the next novella, we are introduced to Su’ad and her husband Umar, a young married couple who are trying to establish themselves. Again, the war pervades every aspect of life including Su’ad’s courtship. Her description of her early meetings and sightings of Umar are always in the context of war, and she describes how she would “see him sometimes in military dress, with his Kalashnikov over his shoulder” (Badr 36). There is no doubt that this relationship is stifled by the civil war, and that survival takes precedent over analyses of the self and of what the individuals in the relationship are looking for as in A Woman of Five Seasons. This novella, as in the previous one, turns out to be the tale of the destruction of relationships and lives caused by war. This theme is emphasized by the fact that Su’ad is pregnant, but loses her baby. In an environment such as this one, it is difficult for any life or relationship to flourish. There is no happy ending.
Dreams of Trespass, the story of a young girl and her childhood in a harem in Morocco, conveys some interesting messages about women and their relationships with men. This memoir follows a young Fatima Mernissi through her childhood in Fez and it is through her eyes and observations that we learn about these relationships. Fatima’s mother and father seem to have a loving and intimate relationship, despite the lack of privacy the harem setting may seem to afford. Fatima describes how her father agrees to allow his wife to have a private breakfast with him on occasion, something unheard of in a harem. Fatima’s mother, a member of the younger generation of women and ideas in the harem, is never portrayed as sexually or intellectually represses. On the contrary, the women frequently discuss great issues and are never discouraged from doing so by the men. Fatima’s mother lives a happy life with her husband, despite always trying to break down the walls of the harem. The polygamy in this family is also an interesting point for discussion. While there are many different women married to Fatima’s grandfather, they seem to get along very well and have formed a solid, close-knit group that shares chores and fun and is more or less cooperative. As this is the story of the coming of age of a young girl, there is much to discuss on the issue of identity and how it is formed by the family.
In the Eye of the Sun is the portrait of a young Egyptian woman and her struggle to be happy and to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Asya, the main female character, grows up wealthy in Egypt, and marries a very Westernized husband. Her relationship with her husband is the source for much heart-ache and soul-searching. When Asya first begins her courtship with Saif, she feels incredibly certain that he is the one for her. She spends her time working out how she will see Saif between the hours when school lets out, and her curfew. Saif is older than Asya, and she feels “grown-up” around him. Asya says: “But Chrissie, we don’t even have anywhere to be alone together any more. The courses are over so he doesn’t have the room at the Omar Khayyam. We meet at the club and walk around and hold hands and have these long, long silences, and then I phone him late at night after my parents are asleep and we have some more long, long silences – and I can’t bear it.” (Soueif 147). This feeling of frustration ends up haunting Nadia for the rest of the duration of her relationship with Saif. Asya and Saif go on a trip to Beirut together, were they spend the night alone together in a hotel room and Asya expresses feeling “grown-up” once again. Asya feels that she is ready for sex, and on numerous occasions pushes Saif to have sex before they are married. Saif resists, and this issue becomes a huge problem for their relationship in the future. When the couple finally does consummate their marriage, Asya experience such pain that Saif stops. Their sexual life is like all other aspects of their relationship – confused and peppered with a lack of communication and misunderstanding. Saif initiates sex often, but Asya usually pushes him away. She is described my Saif as “more than anxious: terrified” (Soueif 344). Asya and Saif are never really together emotionally. Saif is always more detached than she is, looking up at her from a pedestal perhaps, which would explain his pet name of “princess” for her. There relationship is very polite, and at one point Saif says, he loves Asya like a sister, and could live with her as one after their sexual life goes completely to shambles. Later in the novel, Asya has an affair with a man who is the opposite of Saif: brusque, uncouth, American, and poor Gerald. Asya relates that she is never emotionally attached to Gerald, and she feels “relieved” when he leaves whereas she feels relieved upon Saif’s return. What is Asya looking for in her affair? Sexual fulfillment, and possibly for the feeling that she is a real person. She describes disbelief that she, Asya is having an affair. Asya does not know what she wants, and this comes across in her relationships. In the end, Asya and Saif go their separate ways and their relationships never reach closure or a solution. In this novel, the main female character’s indecision and confusion about what she wants from herself come across in her relationships and marriages.
Education and the Arab Family in Literature
Families in the middle east are often very close knit, and it is not unusual to have several generations living under one roof. Hence it is not surprising that family relationships stretch far beyond the husband wife situation and that many people may have a say in the upbringing of a child, or the decisions and individual may make. Individuality is much less of an issue for people in the Arab world than is the issue of keeping within the ancient societal codes of conduct, respecting ones parents, and considering the repercussions decisions an individual may make can have on an entire family or society. One of these issues is education, which is extremely important to the women who have left the basic struggle for survival and have reached a higher standard of living – Fatima in Dreams of Trespass, Asya in In the Eye of the Sun, and Nadia in A Woman of Five Seasons.
Asya does not know how to live outside the context of school. The nearly epic 800 page novel follows her from the end of her high school career, through her undergraduate work at the University of Cairo and through the culmination of her PhD in England. Education is an extremely important to Asya, partially because her parents are both well-respected experts in their fields. Asya’s mother Lateefa is a very strong force behind Asya’s education. She moves to England with Asya when Asya feels alone, and that she is unable to work. When Lateefa and Asya meet in Greece, Lateefa reassures Asya that she will finish her degree, and then life will begin. Lateefa feels very strongly that Asya’s life will not be worth living anyway if she does not finish. Asya expresses that the only reason she is going through all of his schooling is because it is what is expected of her. She knows nothing else. When she finishes her studying in England, she never reaches the point of knowing how to begin experiencing life in a positive manner. She is stuck in stasis, waiting for perfection to greet her. Despite Asya’s high level of education, she seems very naïve about matters of the heart.
Fatima Mernissi grows up with many mentors who are very “educated” in different types of knowledge. Fatima is always receiving advice and words of wisdom from her grandmother Yasmina, her cousin Chama, and Habiba, and her mother. Unlike Asya, Fatima receives consistent, well-rounded advise not only about scholastics, but about what to think of love, traditional notions of women, and life in and outside of the harem. The women are more often than not patient with Fatima’s questions, and because of this her curious nature is allowed to flourish in the walls of the harem. Lateefa realizes that education is Fatima’s only way out of the harem, and arranges for her daughter‘s education. Habiba weaves grand stories of the world outside of the harem, and Fatima describes how “riding on her words, we traveled past Sind and Hind, leaving Muslim territories behind, living dangerously, and making friends with the Christians and Jews, who shared their bizarre foods with us and watched us do our prayers, while we watched them do theirs,” (Mernissi 19). Habiba teaches Fatima about freedom, and how to attain it even when enclosed in a harem. With Yasmina, Fatima learns that she should “never accept inequality, for it was not logical” (Mernissi 26). From Chama, Fatima learns all about the lives of Muslim feminists through Chama’s dramatic interpretations of their lives. Fatima clearly has a strong ideological and spiritual background, which she learns from the women in her family.
Nadia struggles the most out of these three women for her education. Her husband insists that she have children and put off her education, to which she agrees. Nadia says, “I stopped my studies that year, even though Ihsan and my mother had agreed I should finish them after we married.” (Al-Atrash 41). One of the main reasons Nadia does this is to “prove” her womanhood (Al-Atrash 41). However, when she decides she is ready to get back into studying, “Ihsan would not let [her]” (Al-Atrash 42). As she says, she let him “plan the first chapter” of her life. It does not help that Ihsan utterly misunderstands Nadia’s desire for an education. He says, “Education doesn’t come form books, Nadia” (Al-Atrash 42). He is consistently taking her books away from her, and this is ironic because Ihsan really knows nothing about life and living. Jalal, on the other hand, is more suited to Nadia intellectually. Ihsan mocks Jalal for reading, and this and his treatment of Nadia are a manifestation of his insecurity.
Health and Family Planning
The issue of health and childbirth is one central to all of the characters in each of the novels. From the perception of women as producers of the new militia and soldiers for ideological conflicts, to very wealthy families for whom having children has a much more cerebral quality, all of the women are affected by their efforts to have children. For Maha in Pillars of Salt, it is imperative that she have a child in order to prove to both her own and Harb’s families that she is worthy of having children. While Maha is only married for six months without conceiving, and her husband is away fighting much of the time, she sees it necessary in the context of her society to remedy the problem. The storyteller tells us that Harb’s friends said, “If you bought an English rifle and found out it did not shoot, what would you do? You would throw it away and buy another.” (Faqir 70). This illustrates the view many Arab men (and women) have that women are dispensable, and must validate their existences by producing offspring for the man. As time passes and Maha still does not succeed in conceiving a child, she goes to Hajjeh Hulala for a folk remedy. The remedy, which seems very severe, is an attempt to “get rid of that evil spirit in [her] belly” (Faqir 74) by using a mixture of herbs that includes red pepper, and is very painful. When this proves unsuccessful, Maha decides to ask her aunt Tamam to take her to Hulala for “cauterizing” (Faqir 91). Needles to say, the incident is extremely painful and it takes Maha a few months to heal from the process. When Maha finds out she is pregnant, she simultaneously loses her husband Harb, and is very deeply affected by his loss. However, she remembers the child and this becomes her motivation for living and symbolizes the struggle for continuation of life in the desert village. After her son, Mubarak, is born Maha transfers all of her efforts to keeping him alive and healthy, and providing for his future. Um Saad, like Maha, has the full burden of childbirth and upbringing on her shoulders. However, even though she bears her husband eight sons this is not enough to gain her any respect in his eyes. In the end, both Maha and Um Saad are separated from their progeny which is very unusual in the Arab world, as children are usually the caretakers and protectors of their parents. Mubarak is too young to know of his mother’s fate, and it is likely that Um Saad’s sons do not care.
Nadia says, “In the ten years since we were married, I’ve done what he wanted. He insisted I become pregnant, got to know the signs of my monthly period – waiting all the time – and when my body wouldn’t respond to nature, he’d rant and rave because I couldn’t conceive.” (Al-Atrash 41). Again we are presented with the notion that should a woman be unable to conceive immediately, there must be something horribly wrong with her. There is never any question about the man’s role in reproduction, which is a rather key component of the equation. Nadia expresses regret that she allowed her husband to make decisions for her. This illustrates the concept that the man is in charge of the woman, and therefore has certain rights to her body. Nadia is very intelligent, yet she faces the exploitive nature of her husband and a struggle to gain some semblance of freedom and control over herself.
In the third novel, A Balcony over the Fakihani, we see a reversion to survival tactics. This reversion, which is caused by the war hanging over the lives of all of the characters, is evident even in the health of women. As previously mentioned, women in this novel have their bodies politicized, because they are now providing the future fighters. It is curious, too, that the women in this novel seem elevated to the status of honorary men on many occasions because of the role they play in providing the new generation of fighters. The theme of destruction of humanity figures much more strongly than women’s health. Nothing can flourish in this environment.
On the other hand, in the protective walls of the harem women spend their days discuss health and reproductive issues. Fatima’s mother has only two children, and it is to be assumed that there is some family planning involved in this. In keeping with the tradition of mentoring young Asya, Lalla Tam, her teacher, decides to explain biology to her one day. She says, “We need to know about the human body, and Allah’s wonderful design.” (Mernissi 190). She explains “how boys and girls became men and women capable of having babies” (Mernissi 190). Fatima’s mother is dismayed when she hears that Fatima knows all of this, because she realizes Fatima has grown up, and was “no longer a child” (Mernissi 190). Because life in the harem centers around the women, they are more privileged than the women in any other novel because they have a support system. They even have special days dedicated to the care and beautification of the female body. In this novel, there is no discomfort associated with having a young female adolescent in the house. Magida Salman writes, “The arrival of menstruation is accompanied by the haunting problem of the virginity- the honor of the girl which must from then on be supervised, hidden and controlled.” (Salman 7). On the contrary, Fatima’s mother encourages her to take hold of her own personality and body.
Asya, who is caught between western and eastern cultures, is introduced to us at her workstation trying to compose a brochure for family planning for distribution in rural parts of Egypt. Asya says “it just doesn’t feel right” (Soueif 23), regarding her attempts to bridge the family planning culture gap. She expresses her anxiety over not having a family, and wondering whether people will accept her and listen to her message. Again, this is the issue of validation of women through childbirth, which becomes central to the novel. When Asya first realizes she is pregnant, her reaction is very different from any other woman in the previous novels. Instead of being jubilant at having proven her womanhood, like Nadia, or relief like Maha, she seems not to want the child. Indeed, she had wanted to wait to have children, but did not succeed in getting contraceptives. She expresses disbelief, and says, “Thirteen months married and four months pregnant. But how could it have happened?” (Soueif 261). She worries about what childbirth will do to her figure, and about the pain. Whereas in the previous novels, the men have been jubilant to find out that their wives are pregnant, and the author writes, “When she had told him he had not been particularly jubilant. Or particularly miserable. Or even surprised.” (Soueif 264). This is first of all illustrative of the communication gap between Asya and Saif, and second of all shows how the position in which Asya finds herself of being in between cultures permeates every part of her life. Later on in the novel, Asya has trouble with her pregnancy and finally expresses concern for the baby, and when she finally miscarries after more than two weeks of bed rest, she worries that her family will think she did something to the baby. The miscarriage will come back to haunt her many years later in London, when Saif finds out about her affair with Gerald and says, “Why didn’t you die? Why didn’t you die instead of killing the baby?” (Soueif 631). Asya is not sexually healthy. On the night of her wedding, she and Saif try to have sex, but Asya finds that “it hurt too much, and that she’d never thought it would hurt so much” and that she “couldn’t bear it” (Soueif 258). Although it may seem normal for an inexperienced young woman to experience pain during her first sexual experience, it is expected that the couple will get over this and lead normal lives. However, Asya is never again able to have sex with Saif. When he initiates, she pushes him away because she is afraid of the pain he might cause her. When Asya finally gets up the courage to go to a doctor in England, she finds herself too embarrassed to actually do anything on her own to solve her problem. It is not until she has an affair with Gerald that she is able to fully enjoy sex. However, with him it is purely physical. Asya’s attempt to systematically categorize aspects of her life that she wants to improve, or understand better leads to her separation of romance and sex. She expresses doubts with whether romance and sex rally should be allowed to live in spheres as separate as they do (Soueif 460-461). Asya’s struggle for sexual fulfillment, and aspects of her traditional mindset clash frequently, leaving her utterly confused.
Politics and Women in the Family
Another aspect of life that helps form the women’s identities is that of the role of the woman in politics. Women have always participated in struggles for national liberation, and this is illustrated in all five novels. It is also interesting to observe the fact that the women are under the influence of two authorities: the men, and the government. In “The political challenges facing women” Nawal al-Saadawi writes that only access to political power will “enable women to change public or private laws to make them more just”, but that this political power “has not yet been realized for women in any Arab nation.” (Saadawi 13). The novels follow that Arab woman’s struggle to realize this power and use it for her good.
Throughout Pillars of Salt, Maha is portrayed in a very fierce manner. She is called a “tigress” (Faqir 11), and is on more than one occasion described by the storyteller as a ferocious ‘demon’. The storyteller also describes her as a “sharp sword stuck in the sides of the Arabs’ enemies” (Faqir 2), and the women in his narrative as violent “birds of prey”. Maha is fiercely defensive of Harb, and tells him she will “drink the blood” of the man who wounded him (Faqir 83). Again, she comes across as aggressive when a person she cares for is hurt. This image of Maha as a warrior reinforces the suggestion that she is indeed involved in the politics of the time, if indirectly so. Maha is Harb’s strongest supporter, and she is left to deal with the mess created by men that is warm, both literally and figuratively. The storyteller depicts a very gruesome picture of Harb’s death, describing the “eggs” dropped from “metal eagles” (bombs dropped from airplanes), and the way the bombings “split open the bodies of men, exposing their entrails.” (Faqir 115). Immediately following this very visual and perhaps exaggerated portrayal of the slaughter of the Bedouin soldiers, we are presented with Maha’s point of view. Harb’s death is a great loss for her, and she says, “The twin of [her] soul had departed this earth.” (Faqir 117). Her immediate reaction to the wrenching of his love from her life is to start “slapping” her face, and “yanking” her hair (Faqir 117). Clearly, Maha is suffering greatly. Harb’s death is an example of the direct effect the political climate has on Maha.
A Balcony over the Fakihani covers the civil conflict in Lebanon, and is only fictional in design, as all of the places and events are real. On the first page of the first novella, “A Land of Rock and Thyme”, we are introduced to Yusra’s dream of waling past the Martyrs’ cemetery. Yusra then recounts how she wants to visit her husband’s grave, but is wary of the “tense” situation and the fighting that “had broken out again” (Badr 4). We are immediately presented with a sense of what life is like for her, as she describes how it would be “difficult to run” if shelling begins (Badr 4). The novel goes on to describe page after page of the violence of everyday life. Yusra’s eleven-year-old brother is hit in the stomach by shrapnel (Badr 8). She describes how, “Nada, a friend of mine, was killed by a sniper, and she was a volunteer nurse. Death even reached her.” (Badr 11). Yusra tells about a young man who has made his coffin from a cupboard door and is soon after killed by shrapnel (Badr 11). Yusra describes how during her family’s attempt to escape the warm she sees “a woman dressed in the deepest black, more than forty years old.” (Badr 17). This woman is “hitting a man over the head with a piece of wood with a nail on the end of it” (Badr 17). In this novel, even the old widows take part in the killing. A young very distraught Yusra describes how her hands “beat helplessly against [her] cheeks” after being unable to find her grandmother and out of fear of murder (Badr 17). The entire novel continues with short, objective descriptions of very graphic and extensive violence. It is hard to imagine what kind of effect this would have on the identity of a woman, but it is certainly one that leaves nothing untouched. The second novella, “A Balcony over the Fakihani”, is told from the perspective of a second woman, Su’ad. Su’ad is confronted with the same cycle of shelling and hiding as Yusra, and faces many of the same issues. She relates the account of an attack on the Shatila camp, and how “the constant din was like the noise of an earthquake swallowing up heaven and earth together.” (Badr 45). Soon after the attack Su’ad notices a white hair on her baby Ruba’s head. She is shocked that the pain and suffering has affected even her very young child (Badr 46). Though the female characters in A Balcony over the Fakihani are perhaps more liberated than those in Pillars of Salt in the sense that they are literate, it is impossible to work towards personal actualization under the political circumstances.
A Woman of Five Seasons presents an entirely different socio-economic background than we have encountered in Pillars of Salt or A Balcony over the Fakihani. The main female character, Nadia, lives a very unchallenging domestic life in the fictional Barqais (which is a pseudonym for Kuwait) during the late 1960s. According to Mervat Hatem, “Among the Gulf States, Kuwait has moved furthest to integrate women in the public arena.” (Hatem 35). She goes on to write that that the Kuwaiti Women’s Social and Cultural Society worked closely with the government on calling several conferences on Gulf women (Hatem 37). . At one point Ihsan hypocritically tells Nadia “revolutionaries don’t care about this sort of luxury”, speaking of a painting in the room (Al-Atrash 65). Nadia replies that the artist was “a man before he was a revolutionary” which sums up Nadia’s struggle to put being a woman, and on a higher level a person above ‘the cause’ (Al-Atrash 65). It is only when the revolution and violence are put in the background that a woman can concentrate on truly becoming a person. In this novel, Al-Atrash writes about women’s perceptions and tasks from a human perspective. While other characters may be struggling for the independence of their nations, Nadia is struggling to allow her “defeated person” to flourish (Al-Atrash 35). Nadia is also indirectly involved in her husband’s clandestine operations, as she is a pawn for gaining influence with the influential. She expresses how she “waited” for Ihsan to “ask [her] to join in what he does” so she can “shout and get angry”, but is disappointed when he does not (Al-Atrash 45). Using women in this manner is an accepted practice. A description of the methodology of arms smuggling on page 108 is eerily calm, especially when compared to the violence in A Balcony over the Fakihani. Again, this illustrates a degree of removal from the ‘hands-on’ approach to conflict, and therefore gives the characters time to focus on other pursuits.
In Dreams of Trespass, Fatima’s maternal grandfather who lives in the country on a farm has a warrior wife. Tamou “appeared one morning over the horizon of the flat Gharb plain, riding a Spanish saddled horse, and dressed in a man’s white cape and a woman’s headdress so that the soldiers would not shoot at her” (Mernissi 50). Tamou is different from the other women, and has tattoos on her face and a fierce and rebellious spirit. Tambour was a “war heroine” who was married to Fatima’s grandfather in order to “justify her presence on the farm, in case the French police came looking for her.” (Mernissi 51). Tamou is one of the only women in the novels directly involved in and playing an active role in any sort of conflict. In addition to Tamou’s story, there is also the story of political liberation in Morocco. Fatima first goes to school after backing by both nationalists and religious leaders leads to the allowing of girls in public school. Fatima’s frequent descriptions of plays put on by Chama of famous Arab feminists illustrate the desire the women have for freedom, and their awareness of their situation. Mernissi writes, “Moroccan women, thirsty for liberation and change, had to export their feminists from the East, for there were no local ones as yet famous enough to become public figures and nurture their dreams.” (Mernissi 128). Chama remarks, “Women have advanced everywhere except here. We are a museum.” (Mernissi 128). This exemplifies the positive efforts women make to change their situation. It is a peaceful yet forceful method, and often the women are able to change small things.
The final novel is set in the mayhem of modern Middle Eastern politics. Soueif is constantly interjecting snippets of politics into her narrative. Asya describes a desire to join political groups, and is frequently described as having strong opinions about everything. Asya’s sister Deena’s involvement in the politics is more direct. Deena visits Asya in England, and insists on working as a waitress in order to gain money to buy her boyfriend Amnesty International reports. In a conversation with Deena, Asya asks if it is possible to “be politically committed and yet have an open mind” (Soueif 470), to which Deena answers that this is possible, if of course the ideal is just. Later on, while Asya is still trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, Deena is studying for her PhD, raising children, and supporting a “husband in jail thirty kilometers outside Cairo”, and that “none of it phases her in the slightest, and there isn’t a minute in the day when she isn’t doing something that she knows she ought to be doing- and what’s more, that she wants to do” (Soueif 741). This is in direct contrast to Asya, who never knows what she wants to be doing, and does not even always know what she should be doing. This portrayal of the political woman as strong, motivated, and fierce is common to all five novels.
Fragmented selves: identity and its formation in the characters
Identity (national, ethnic, gender, or otherwise) is formed from a number of different point, not least of which, as we have seen, is the family. Maha’s identity is stagnant, and she is never given a real chance to grow as a human being past everyday survival. Maha’s relationship with Harb was very beneficial, and could have allowed her to ask more questions about herself and to grow as a person, but Harb dies before he and Maha have a chance to do this. Maha’s father is also a good person, and she has a positive relationship with him. However, he is dying. Maha speaks very highly of her mother, and it is implied that they also had a very positive relationship. yet again, however, Maha’s mother is dead. The only family ties she has left are her brother Daffash, with whom it could hardly be said that she has any sort of positive relationship, and baby Mubarak, who is too young and helpless to be of any consequence in her situation. Maha has no positive family ties, and no genuine sense of actualized identity. There is obviously a correlation between family influence and identity in this situation. Nadia in A Woman of Five Seasons is gradually able to break away from the cultural and domestic oppression and take hold of her own person. Throughout the course of the novel, we see a gradual progression from complete obedience to her husband to a complete shift in the balance of power. The last line in the novel is, “The decision, he knew, was hers alone now” (Al-Atrash 168) and this sums up the entire shift in the balance. Nadia finally grows past Ihsan’s attempts to manipulate and exploit her, and finally becomes her own person. The female characters in A Balcony over the Fakihani, like Maha, are never allowed the chance to further their own identities and senses of self because, understandably, times of war call for individual concerns to be put on hold. In a sense, young Fatima has to leave her family and come back to it in order to gain her identity. The memoir is the story of the development of a young girl’s identity. Her family is always supportive, and provides her with the foundation for self-actualization. Asya, who is caught between East and West, struggles to come to terms with these conflicting parts of herself. In the ends, she feels as if she needs to be discovered, but does not choose to chip and chisel away at herself until her true nature shines through. She chooses to leave the real work to other people, and it is safe to say that this method will never lead to any sort of true happiness. As a result of Asya’s mixed upbringing, she is confused throughout her whole life and is not sure which way she wants to go, or whether the directions she chooses to define herself with are valid. What do we learn from this? The formation of identities is not primordial, nor are identities unchanging. Moreover, in a society such as the Arab one, family has an immense impact on the formation of identity in individuals. With increased socio-economic stability came increased emotional well-being and a better status for the women of the families. Perhaps as the Arab world moves towards greater economic health and higher levels of emotional as well as scholastic education, it will be possible for Arab women to move in the direction of knowing themselves, and thereby improving their living conditions and reforming societies. This, however, requires not only a change on the part of individual women, but also of individual families, for without familial support, Arab women will find it excessively difficult to break free.