Resistance/Complicity in Women’s Subordination to Patriarchal Powers in The Sand Fish
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
One of the objectives of feminism in the academia is to expose, in creative and critical resistance literature, various facets of men’s justification for the subordination of women. Resistance literature is growing as a massive body of work in the Arab region too, especially the creative and critical works by Arab women writers, and Maha Gargash’s contribution to it is commendable. The present paper examines the nature of struggle the protagonist, Noora, in Gargash’s novel The Sand Fish launches against patriarchal forces to combat her oppression. An analysis of the fictional character Noora reveals a clear-cut demarcation in the development of her philosophy of life before and after her marriage. She strongly resists patriarchal domination before her marriage, but becomes complicit in her subjugation after marriage. The issue of her complicity has been investigated with insights from Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis of the subject in The Second Sex (1949). Noora’s complicity primarily owes to her material and social situation, but existential angst is also found to be at play influencing her decisions.
Metrics
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Al-Refi'i, J. M. J. (2021). Crystallization of the Islamic Feminist Fatema Mernissi in Maruf Al Rusafi's Poetry. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, 28 (2): 92-82.
Al-Sudeary, Mashael. (2012). Rethinking Muslim Woman’s Agency in Modern Literature. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(21): 69-81. http://www.ijhssnet.com
Atwood, Margaret. (1985). The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Bauer, Nancy. (2006). Beauvoir's Heideggerian Ontology. In Margaret A. Simons (ed.), The philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays (pp. 65-91), Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Brown, R. (2010). Muqtanayati: One hundred treasures. Retrieved from http://www.thejamjardubai.com/downloads/muqtanayati.pdf
Bruneau, Camille. (2018). How do patriarchy and capitalism jointly reinforce the oppression of women? Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt. Book Project Chapter 2.
Callaway, A. A. (2008). ‘Women Disunited: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as a Critique of Feminism.’ Master’s Thesis. San Jose State University.
de Beauvoir, Simone. (1949 /2011). The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany‐Chavallier. New York: Vintage.
Dubai Media Inc. (2015). Maha Gargash: In conversation. Retrieved from http://tickets.emirateslitfest.com/p-87-maha-gargash-in-conversation.aspx
Exum, J Cheryl. (1995). Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests are Being Served? In Gale A. Yee (ed.), Judges and Method; New Approaches in Biblical Studies (pp. 65-90), Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Gargash, Maha. (2009). The Sand Fish. New York: HarperCollins e-books.
Gordon, Murray. (1989). Slavery in the Arab World. New York: New Amsterdam Books.
Graybeal, J. M. (1990). Language and “The Feminine” in Nietzsche and Heidegger. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heath, Nicola. (2018). Five countries that mirror the fictional Gilead. SBS, 17 April 2018. https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2018/04/17/
HarperCollins Publishers. (n.d.). Maha Gargash. Retrieved from https://www.harpercollins.com/cr-104484/maha-gargash
Holland, N. J., & Huntington, P. (2001). Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Holt, M., & Jawad, H. (2013). Women, Islam, and Resistance in the Arab World. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Hopper, Mathew S. (2015). Slaves of One Master: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press.
James, Susan. (2003). Complicity and slavery in The Second Sex. In Claudia Card (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir (pp. 149-167), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Knowles, Charlotte (2019). Beauvoir on Women's Complicity in Their Own Unfreedom. HYPATIA A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 34(2): 242-265. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12469
Kruks, Sonia. (1987). Simone de Beauvoir and the limits of freedom. Social Text, 17 (Autumn): 111–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/466482
Lerner, Gerda. (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lopes, F. M. (2019). Perpetuating the patriarchy: misogyny and (post-)feminist backlash. Philosophical Studies, 176(1): 2517-2538. DOI: 10.1007/s11098-018-1138-z
Mahmood, Saba. (2005). Feminist Theory, Agency, and the Liberatory Subject. In Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone (ed.), On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
Mahmood, W. (2020). The Tone of Female Characters in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, 27(6): 57-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.25130/hum.v27i6.1108
Manne, K. (2017). Down girl: The logic of misogyny. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McCafferty, E. (2012, August 12). Summer reads: Maha Gargash's favourite books. The National. Retrieved from http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/summer-reads-maha-gargashs-favourite-books
Newbould, C. (2014). Film adaptation of Maha Gargash’s The sand fish gets distributors. Retrived from http://www.thenational.ae/arts-lifestyle/dubai-international-film-festival/film-adaptation-of-maha-gargashs-the-sandfish-gets-distributors
Poya, Maryam. (1999). Women, Work, and Islamism: Ideology and Resistance in Iran. London and Ney York: Zed Books.
Sabban, Reema A. (2019). Encountering Domestic Slavery: A Narrative from the Arabian Gulf. In Mary Ann Fay (ed.) (2019), Slavery in the Islamic World: Its Characteristics & Commonality (Chapter 8, pp. 125-153). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sainato, M., & Skojec, C. (2017). Dystopia Depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale Already Exists in Saudi Arabia. Observer, 05/02/2017. https://observer.com/2017/05/the-handmaids-tale-saudi-arabia-oppression-of-women/
Salem, A., & Al-Doury, I. (2021). Valerie Giscard d'Estaing Reforms for Women 1974-1981. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, 28(1): 335-353. http://dx.doi.org/10.25130/jtuh.28.2021.16
Sholkamy, H. (2010). Power, Politics, and Development in the Arab Context: Or how can rearing chicks change patriarchy? Development, 53(2): 254-258.
Walonen, M. K. (2016). Psycho-Geographic Orientation in the Neoliberal City: Establishing and Contesting Pace Identity in the Nascent Literature of Dubai. In: Contemporary World Narrative Fiction and the Spaces of Neoliberalism (New Comparisons in World Literature Series). London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-54955-6_5