Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

1203 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

In what ways are power and control significant throughout Firdaus’ life, and how does she utilize this power and control?

Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero is a significantly direct, sharp-cutting novel. It gives rise to some extreme emotions of agitation and outrage towards the nature of humans, in particular men and their maltreatment of women. This novel left me shocked, upset and angry at not only the antagonists in the book, but also society and the blind eye it so often turns towards abuse. Woman at Point Zero, as the title hints, deals with the struggles of a woman and her fight for freedom and independence in a land that shackles her with misogynistic mores and sexism. Power and control is undeniably a major theme throughout the novel, and Firdaus’ struggle to attain it is certainly a captivating one.

The Novel deals with the trials and tribulations of a young woman in Egypt, abandoned, betrayed and abused by all the men she encounters in her life, eventually leading to her own death. Firdaus tells us how “every single man I did get to know filled me with but one desire: to life my hand and bring it smashing down on his face.” And she goes on to tell her story. The reader is introduced to Firdaus in the first chapter of the novel through the descriptions of a psychiatrist with a burning curiosity and desire to speak with the infamous Firdaus. The psychiatrist has only heard hearsay of Firdaus, and based on this, feels the need to speak with her. Firdaus is on death row, convicted of murder, more importantly: the murder of a man. After several attempts to meet Firdaus, the psychiatrist is finally asked to speak with her. Firdaus’ story is a shocking, cold-hard factual one. Her courage and drive are admirab...

... middle of paper ...

...e punishment allotted to her without hesitation. She is finally free from “our wants, our hopes, our fears that enslave us” . Upon being told there is hope of her release, she states that she has no desire to be released. Perhaps Firdaus’ most powerful statement is as follows, “Everybody has to die. I prefer to die for a crime I have committed rather than to die for one of the crimes which you have committed.” , seizing final control and full power over her very own life, accepting her death for a doing of her own rather than by the abuse and maltreatment of a man.

Bibliography

• El Saadawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero. Trans. Sherif Hetata. London & New York: Zed Books, 1983
• "Review: Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi." Amy Reads. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
• "Woman at Point Zero." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Guests of the Sheik by Elizabeth Warnock

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.

    Read More

  • Cherifa’s Story in Assia Djebar’s Novel, Children of the New World

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    Djerbar, Assia. Children of the New World. Translated by Marjolijn de Jager. New York: The Feminist Press, 2005.

    Read More

  • The Most Influential Woman of the Past Millenium: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Rosa Parks

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Read, Phyllis J., and Bernard L. Witlieb. The Book of Women's Firsts. New York: Random House, 1992.

    Read More

  • Breaking the Social Norms: Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1558 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bogard, Carley Rees. “The Awakening: A Refusal to Compromise.” University of Michigan Papers in Women’s Studies 2.3 (1977): 15-31. Gale Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 January 2014.

    Read More

  • Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation

    2087 Words  | 5 Pages

    Saiving, Valerie. "The Human Situation: A Feminine View" in Womanspirit Rising, Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds. Harper & Row, 1979, pp. 25-42.

    Read More

  • My Antonia Essay: The Role of Women

    2160 Words  | 5 Pages

    Walby, Sylvia. "Woman and Nation." Mapping the Nation. ed. Gopal Balakrishnan. New York: Verso, 1996. 235-254.

    Read More

  • Sexism In The Women's Swimming Pool By Nawal El Saadawi

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both el Saadawi and Al-Shaykh both show how perception and expression are both affected within the confines of politics, social opportunities, and male privilege depicted in their stories. Whether the reader is a follower of the feminist movement or not, it is very clear and easy to see that these women are not being treated with the respect that any human being deserves. The misogynistic stranglehold on society, especially in this part of the world, is excessive and avoidable in today’s world but it is very likely that the traditional, conservative ways of the past will continue to control and inhibit women from being able to be fully treated as equals for many years to come, perhaps even after this generation has

    Read More

  • Female Gender Roles in Haggard’s She and Haddawy’s The Arabian Nights

    1317 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel She and in the stories of The Arabian Nights, both Haggard and Haddawy explore the expanding gender roles of women within the nineteenth century. At a time that focused on the New Woman Question, traditional gender roles were shifted to produce greater rights and responsibilities for women. Both Ayesha, from Haggard’s novel She, and Shahrazad, from Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights, transgress the traditional roles of women as they are being portrayed as strong and educated females, unwilling to yield to men’s commands. While She (Ayesha) takes her power to the extreme (i.e. embodying the femme fatale), Shahrazad offers a counterpart to She (i.e. she is strong yet selfless and concerned with the welfare of others). Thus, from the two characters emerge the idea of a woman who does not abide by the constraints of nineteenth century gender roles and, instead, symbolizes the New Woman.

    Read More

  • The Power of Myth

    4006 Words  | 9 Pages

    Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of Women. Designed by Gloria Steinem. Harper Collins Publishers, 1985.

    Read More

  • A Thousand Splendid Suns

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    In a nation brimming with discrimination, violence and fear, a multitudinous number of hearts will become malevolent and unemotional. However, people will rebel. In the eye-opening novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini, the country of Afghanistan is exposed to possess cruel, treacherous and sexist law and people. The women are classified as something lower than human, and men have the jurisdiction over the women. At the same time, the most horrible treatment can bring out some of the best traits in victims, such as consideration, boldness, and protectiveness. Although, living in an inconsiderate world, women can still carry aspiration and benevolence. Mariam and Laila (the main characters of A Thousand Splendid Suns) are able to retain their consideration, boldness and protectiveness, as sufferers in their atrocious world.

    Read More

  • Vindicating the Suffering Revolutionary Women in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria

    1976 Words  | 4 Pages

    Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 17-20. JSTOR. 2

    Read More

  • The Novel Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

    1221 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi and the article “With Tasers and placards, the women of Egypt are fighting back against sexism” by Laurie Penny can be connected both internally in regards to the text and outwardly to the time and place surrounding the novel and article. Although Woman at Point Zero provides a fictional journey, one that is at heart and by inspiration very genuine, the ideas incorporated into this novel are just as authentic as those provided by the first hand account given by Laurie Penny. Woman at Point Zero follows the story of one woman, Firdaus, who is forcibly raped on numerous occasions. Firdaus later finds security by means of prostitution, which leads her to be targeted on a more authoritative scale. Ultimately Firdaus finds strength to retaliate against the men who have harmed her, as can be seen when she defends herself, killing her pimp. Penny documented her experience at a women’s march in Egypt, after interviewing after obtaining views of the social injustices occurring in this region. The very similar infrastructure for these texts allows one to easily draw connections. Both article and novel can be connected through the familiar settings of the authors, the techniques used to convey the situation of Egypt, and the direct intentions that the authors held and ultimately saw into fruition.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Hypocrisy In Woman At Point Zero

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    The oppression of women in the Middle East and North Africa was commonplace, with women often beaten and deprived of fundamental rights. Entrapped by social constraints, there was little hope for opposition, as the patriarchal perspectives of society were enforced by everyone, even women themselves. One of the most prevalent ways was through the use of hypocrisy and double standards to cast an illusion of justice and equality, when in reality, women were disadvantaged in nearly every aspect. The hypocrisy of society is demonstrated in Nawal El Saadawi’s novel Woman at Point Zero, where women such as Firdaus are dominated by double standards. She finds both initial hope and consequent

    Read More

  • Catholic Women through the Ages

    2301 Words  | 5 Pages

    Le, F. G., Buehrle, M. C., & Von, H. A. (2010). The Eternal woman: The timeless meaning of the feminine. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

    Read More

  • What Is The Self-Worth In Woman At Point Zero

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout Woman at Point Zero, Nawal El Saadawi presents Firdaus to be on the ongoing search to increase and justify her self-worth. Firdaus learns how to attain her self-worth in different ways from different people, however each contributor of self-worth was dependent on money. Firdaus discovers the value of education from her uncle, appearance from Sharifa and her most profound moment on her own. Throughout Firdaus’ life her uncle’s money allows for education, her solicited money affords an upper class disguise but the ultimate distinction of her self-worth occurs when she finally overcomes that value of money.

    Read More

More about Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Open Document