26th Annual Student Research Conference
The Language of the Female Body: A Feminist Analysis of Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North and Nawal El Saadawi's Women at Point Zero
Robert E. Overmann
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
The women characters, Hosna and Firdaus, in Tayeb Salih'’s Season of Migration to the North and Nawal El Saadawi'’s Woman at Point Zero, respectively, rebel against their subjugation as women in patriarchal societies. By tracing the patterns of gender-based oppression in farming communities in mid-twentieth-century Sudan and Egypt, the authors illuminate how the two women arrive at self-discovery in a cultural, economic, social and political landscape that would prevent the same. This paper will analyze the similarities and differences between the ways in which the two texts portray the role the female body plays in women’s oppression and empowerment even as the two women, at the cost of their lives, consciously choose to revolt.
Keywords: English, Middle Eastern literature, Women's and Gender Studies, Tayeb Salih, Nawal El Saadawi
Topic(s):English
Women's and Gender Studies
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 207-5
Location: VH 1320
Time: 10:30