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
Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”: An Irony of Inclusiveness (Published)
Although some believe that Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” is inclusionary democratic poem, it additionally is exclusionary. Widely read as carrying the idea of inclusive democracy and nationalism, the critics like Betsy Erkkila defines him not only as an American but the world citizen in terms of his inclusive thoughts. But this claim of Whitman’s inclusiveness is ironically lacking in the poem, “Leaves of Grass” and in the reality. Whitman sounds rather sentimental than real in the poem. Though he seems to celebrate democracy, his idea of nationalism has failed to give comparatively equal space to the minorities of immigrants, African-Americans and Native Americans. Moreover, in his efforts to appear inclusive he sounds exclusive that has given an imperial tone to the poem. This paper aims at showing the gap between the ideal notion of nationalism and the problem of excluding minor nationalities in the poem. This contrast of Whitman’s ideal and the real will be discussed primarily with reference to the textual evidences and analysis with the ideas of critics. After some basic concepts of democracy and justice, the paper is to bring that issue into consideration.
Keywords: Democracy, Imperial, Inclusiveness, Minorities, Nationalism, Representation.