Woman At Point Zero

The portrayal of women by female writers compared to the portrayal of women by male writers from the same region.

Introduction

The goal of this essay is to explore the works and portrayal of women, of two Egyptian writers when describing female characters. This will be done by asking the question ‘how and why do the authors use specific language to describe the female protagonists in both novels?’ This essay will encompass two novels, Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero and Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley (Zuqaq al-Midaq).

El Saadawi Woman at Point Zero was written in Egypt in 1975 and was set in the 1950’s to the 1973’s. The exact setting of the events that took place was in a small peasant village called Qanatir prison. It was written in present times of its publishing and tells the story of the harsh and cruel situations women living in Cairo at that time had to endure. It describes female oppression by men and also encompasses the religious aspect and how religion was viewed back then as a type of oppression again, mostly on women. It tells the tale of Firdaus, and her failure to adapt to men and society. Firdaus was sentenced to die after killing a pimp that goes by the name of Marzouk in Cairo. This novel tells her story from her village childhood to when she became a

Women were respected and valued less than men but it was a time where all of that was changing and women were rising to take higher positions and become equal to men. Women were starting to go against cultural and traditional norms and become their own voices. Hamida is a character that strongly shows that. She was a character designed to portray the change in women. She didn’t want to be a common housewife but wanted more than that. And throughout her character we can see that she wanted power and control of her own life but used whatever ways she found to try to obtain