Analysis Of Al-Zayyāt's The Open Door

Marilyn Booth considers al-Zayyāt’s The Open Door intertwining two different kinds of marginality by utilizing “female perspective at the center, within a context of family and community” and “everyday language rather than literary diction” (xvii). Centering on Layla and her personal experience, Booth suggests that “Layla’s growth is paralleled by that of the national resistance toward the British which continues to take control despite Egypt’s 1923 independence (xxiii). Likewise, Buijsse in her thesis entitled A Struggle for Independence: A Young Woman’s Coming of Age as National Allegory in Latīfa al-Zayyāt’s al-Bāb al-maftūh also found similar finding of the parallel between Layla’s struggle to gain freedom as woman and Egypt’s struggle to win freedom from the imperialism (26).

On the contrary, Layla’s personal plight is different from, say, her cousin, Gamila, who can be perceived as the one who keeps the door closed in supporting the fundamentals along with most of female characters in the novel such as Gamila’s mother, Layla’s mother, and Dawlat Hanim. Growing up together, both Layla and Gamila share the moment of sisterhood which is not found in el-Saadawi’s Memoirs of a Woman Doctor. In addition, Layla’s peers such as Sanaa and Adila, in a way, enrich Layla’s personal life experience as they involve in her life