A Feminist Reading of the Group (Published)
Mary McCarthy is an important feminist writer. The Group, as one of her most famous novels, sparked the heated discussion of the theme of women’s self-liberation. This paper will analyze feminism of this novel from two spheres. The first is the public sphere which includes education, employment and politics. They have received higher education. They are devoted to make contributions to the society and realize their own value. The second is the domestic sphere which includes sex and contraception, marriage and child-rearing. Although having got married, they are not willing to abound themselves in family life. They seek their position in the community and the family actively.
Keywords: Feminism, Mary McCarthy, the group
Metamorphosis of Women from Oppression to Empowerment in Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Padmarag: A Literary Role Model of Women Emancipation (Published)
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Padmarag celebrates the empowerment of women as the driving force for women’s emancipation from the shackles of patriarchy. The metamorphosis of women from sufferers of captivation and deprivation to empowerment and emancipation is presented through the lives of Tarini Bhavan inmates. The feminist movement in Padmarag is a social reformation movement. It is based upon the revelation that patriarchal oppression is present everywhere and that women should be emancipated from this oppression along with being facilitated with equal opportunity in every sphere of life like men. In Tarini Bhavan, the sufferer women from different castes and creeds endeavor to achieve education, human rights, freedom of movement, and political recognition. They prove themselves as role models for their own gender and show the world that empowered women can advance themselves and play a crucial role in society.
Keywords: Feminism, Patriarchy, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, metamorphosis, women emancipation, women empowerment
Auto-Fiction between Imagination and Reality: Aesthetics of Writing of the Arab Female Writer in the Exile of Her Society- Nawal al-Sa’dawi’ As a Model (Published)
Auto-fiction in its modern concept is considered an art that is a product of the modern cultural development that has conquered the world since 19 B.C. This ‘culture’ carries all the components of innovation and constant growth in human life, including the means of material and technological product, the scientific and medical prosperity, and appearance of new sciences in the arena of application and experimentation, which had not been known before, with new concepts, which helped a lot in understanding the human soul in all its conditions. Among the advantages of this awareness is the popularity of people’s interests in what is known today in modern literature by the name of the art of auto-fiction. Thus, the writer’s life or any life of any person who likes to write his autobiography are no more surrounded by precautions, prohibitions or taboos. Previously, it was forbidden to approach certain issues or even thinking about them because they were considered taboos.[1]It is possible to consider rebellion against norms, breaking social shackles, overcoming all the difficulties of reality and aspiration for emancipation as the most important motives that characterize the woman’s autobiography in the modern era. These motives characterize the modern woman’s discourse, which is actually achieved in her autobiography at all levels.
Citation: Hanan Bishara (2021) Auto-Fiction between Imagination and Reality: Aesthetics of Writing of the Arab Female Writer in The Exile of Her Society- Nawal Al-Sa’dawi’ As A Model, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.9, No.6, pp.37-55
Keywords: Aesthetics, Female, Feminism, Male, Society, auto-fiction
Giving Voice to the Voiceless: A Feminist Approach to Carol Ann Duffy’s Poetry (Published)
Carol Ann Duffy, the foremost Contemporary British poet Laureate, presents gender issues in her own distinguishable way and this distinctiveness comes from her individual confidence. She explores everyday experience in her poetry and this article is especially based on Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poems The World’s Wife (1999) which reflects her own feminist view of the world and recalls historical, mythical and religious figures. The collection acts as an arena for formerly voiceless woman who have been marginalised to a subservient role under the guise of men and repudiated their own story and their own voice. Duffy’s characters abdicate all feminine gender norms; they have casual sex, discard marriage, smoke, drink, swear, and rebel against society’s expectations in order to subvert feminine archetypes. That is to say, in this collection of poetry, Duffy gives voice to the voiceless women, looks for what it is like to be a woman and uses dramatic monologue to covey her thoughts through these characters. . The speakers of the poems are dominant, bold, colourful and unapologetically female; but there is also male voice, be it mediated through the female voice. The aim of this article is to anatomize male-female relationship dynamic, subversion of gender stereotypes; and to analyze the wishes, dreams and the ability of the woman to change her position in the world not just as a daughter, a wife or a mother but rather as an individual with full access to human rights and duties.
Keywords: Feminism, Stereotype, duffy, subservient
Discovering ‘Nora’ and ‘Romita’s Entity and Identity in Their Contemporary Societies in the Light of Feminism: A Comparative Study between Ibsen’s a Doll’s House and Suchitra’s Dahan (Published)
This article investigates both the texts in the eyes of feminism, here, one is a Norwegian play “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen and the other one is an Indian novel “Dahan” by Suchitra Bhattacharya. It aims to explore the deteriorating social and economic conditions of women and lastly their search for individual entity and identity. Ibsen wrote “A Doll’s House” (1879) whereas after more than 100 years later Suchitra wrote “Dahan” (1996) but the depiction of women in our society remains standstill. They are still undergoing exploitation, negligence, injustice, disrespect, patriarchal domination etc. These two literary pieces focus on these issues against women and make a comparative study between them. Both the women are delineated as a stereotypical one with the beginning of the texts. But as the story moves forward, they break the conventional norms and strictures of their society. They start to discover and reshape themselves after realizing the facts they are facing long time. The study compares the feministic views of two prominent writers. Both the authors are conscious of the condition of women in their own times and try to break the prevailing progressive thoughts into their writings. This paper also persuades the readers to understand the concept of feminism in terms of literature.
Keywords: Comparative study, Disillusionment, Feminism, Self-realization, emancipation, revolt
The Construction Of Women In Representations of Palestine in Ghassan Kanafani’s Umm Saad (Published)
This essay will argue that the multiplicity of identities is the main feature in the construction of representations of women in Palestine. Moreover; this essay will explore a range of different identities and positions that Palestinian women take on. In order to demonstrate this aim, the paper will contrast and compare the representations of Palestinian women both before and after the Intifada as represented by the male writer Ghassan Kanafani and the female writer Suad Amiry. And will analyse the multiplicity of female identities in the works of Kanafani and Amiry. Two specific texts by Kanafani and Amiry were chosen in order to give a more profound analysis – Umm Saad which represents a Palestinian woman before the Intifada‘ with ’a nationalism that draws as a political movement which challenges the colonial state’’ and Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries that symbolises the Palestinian woman after the Intifada with different kind of nationalism that draws on‘’ a cultural construct which enables the colonial to posit their differences and autonomy’’. The choice of these texts is explained by the fact that they provide the most vivid representations of both the colonial and anti-colonial mentalities of Palestinian women. These texts are also chosen because they clearly reveal a distinction between ‘under occupation literature’ and ‘exile literature”.
Keywords: Feminism, Identity, Nationalism, palestinian woman, post-colonialism
Feminist Giants: Contributions to the Feminist Canon by Famous Selected Theorists (Published)
The paper explores the pivotal contribution made to the feminist canon by some famous Anglo-American, African-American and French theorists. In particular, the paper discusses the principal feminist arguments made by Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Simon De Beauvoir, Helen Cixous, and Elaine Showalter. Each theorist has significantly added to the agenda of the feminist discipline, and thus evidently contributed to the transformation the discipline has witnessed so far. The paper highlights this contribution by investigating the major concepts and ideas proposed by those writers, and attempts to pinpoint similarities and differences among them, when applicable.
Keywords: Anglo-American, Feminism, Literary Criticism
“Hyena in Petticoat”: Wollstonecraft’s Peaceful Revolution in a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Published)
This study aims at highlighting the peculiar feminist stand of the famous British feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, in her well-renowned work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The paper shows that Wollstonecraft was shrewd enough not to go in direct attack against the strongly-established patriarchal edifice of her time. Unlike mainstream feminist discourse, Wollstonecraft peacefully called for empowering women without negatively affecting the status quo of man. More interestingly, Wollstonecraft does not put the blame on the patriarchal mentality as such. Rather, she addresses women themselves as they contribute to their own subjugation. She calls for a change within women themselves in order for them to achieve the societal transformation they desire.
Keywords: A Vindication, Feminism, Wollstonecraft
Portrayal of Socially Subjugated Indian Women in Desai’s “The Domestic Maid” (Published)
The specifics of this research include women’s relegated portrayal in Indian society. Showalter’s model of cultural feminism has been used to expose the subjugated Indian females. This perspective is taken as the foundation for the study which investigates that how the society in which female authors work and function shapes women’s goals, responses and point of view. This study means to investigate the role and contribution of patriarchy and patriarchal values towards the misery, suffering, loneliness and unhappiness of women. Further it emphasizes other psychological, social and economic problems experienced by them. In pursuance of the methodological design outlined above, the story has been scrutinized on feminine notion. This research refers to social and cultural milieu of Indian women and founds the bleak outlook of Indian women’s life.
Keywords: Cultural model, Feminine, Feminism, Patriarchal, Showalter
Issues of Cultural, Political and Racial Identity of Women in Rich’s Poetry: A Socio-Feministic Analysis (Published)
This paper aims to analyze the socio-feministic picture of a poet who has distinguished place in American literature for her contribution in the field of feminism. The feminist struggle against patriarchal set up has been found in Rich’s poetry with reference to the selected poems. In these poems women are not constantly under men’s power and supremacy; they want to struggle for their rights and make an improved life even when there is no man. Women revolt and escape as they are being oppressed and burdened by male oriented society. She is different from other American poets like Plath whose poetry revolves round her. This paper will helpful in understanding the background of her poems.
Keywords: Cultural, Feminism, Issues, Political, Racial, Rich, Social