War in white sheets: The public invasion of the private female space in women’s literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v2i10.215Keywords:
feminism, femihumanism, nationalism, sisterhood, politics, warAbstract
Abstract: The dichotomy between the “angel in the house’ and the “devil in the flesh” used to symbolize the restrictions facing women in 19th century literature. With the advance of the different stages of feminism, this began to slowly dissipate as more female heroines began to be depicted as a major part of both the private and public spheres. However, does a more prolific female presence eliminate this opposition? This research paper will focus on whether such a distinction continues to preside over the works of female novelists, and the works under study are Hanan Al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra and Women of Sand and Myrrh in addition to Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.
References
ACCAD, EVELYNE, Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East, New York: New York UP, 1990.
AL-SHAYKH, HANAN, The Story of Zahra: A Novel, 1986, Trans. Peter Ford, New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
Women of Sand and Myrrh, 1989, trans. Catherine Cobham, London: Quartet Books, 1993.
COOKE, MIRIAM, War’s Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.
DARRAJ, SUSAN, “We All Want the Same Things Basically’: Feminism in Arab Women’s Literature”, Women and Language 26.1, (Spring 2003), pp. 79 – 82.
GELBLUM, AMIRA, “Ideological Crossroads: Feminism, Pacifism, and Socialism”, Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace 1870 – 1930, Ed. Billie Melman, New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 307 – 327.
GRIFFITHS, MORWENNA, Feminisms and the Self: The Web of Identity, London: Routledge, 1995.
LESSING, DORIS, The Golden Notebook, 2nd ed. London: Flamingo, 1972.
MOKHTAR, KHAOULA, “Becoming Liberated in Beirut”, Women of the Mediterranean, ed. Monique Gadant, trans. A. M. Berret, New Jersey: Zed Books, 1986, pp 5 - 11.
SALIBA, THERESE, “Arab Feminism at the Millennium”, Signs, Vol. 25, No. 4, Feminisms at a Millennium, (Summer, 2000), pp. 1087-1092.
SEGAL, LYNNE, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, London: Virago, 1987
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).