For my first independent novel, I chose to read Woman At Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi. This was a fascinating story about a woman who suffered a life of abuse and despair from her childhood, up to her execution. Told from the perspective of Saadawi, the woman, Firdaus relates her tale from her prison cell the day before her execution. She has been sentenced to death after killing her pimp, Marzouk, and is based on a true story.
Firdaus has lived a truly unfortunate life. She was beaten and neglected by her parents, and sexually abused by friends and relatives before she even finished high school. She is later married off to her uncle's wife's old, dirty uncle, who abuses her so badly she flees from her home. It is here that she turns to prostitution as a means of survival. She goes through a series of ups and downs, until she is told that her profession "is not respectable." She gives up prostitution for a brief stint as a entry-level secretary for a large company. She realizes that her life isn't as profitable as when she could sell her body for money. Returning to prostitution only results in her arrest and death.
This story is an insight to the struggles that women in the Middle East face. Firdaus states that "all women are victims" and "all women are prostitutes" in one way or another, to themselves, to their husbands and to society. She has a very negative outlook on marriage, feeling that as soon as a woman marries, she becomes a slave to her husband, which I believe to be true in this particular society. In the end, she comes to "hate men" and everything that they stand for. She also emphasized that the pain of selling her body was not as bad as the pain of a broken heart, illustrated when she falls very hard for a young worker, Ibranim.
From a female perspective, there are a lot of things that hit close to home for me. In no way am I comparing my life and situations to Fidaus', but her pain and suffering at the hands of men is still something that can be seen splashed across the headlines of newspapers today. Women abused, battered, raped and prostituting themselves out as a profession is still common today in our own country. It made me angry, the further into the book that I went, not only at the men who abused Firdaus, but at Firdaus herself for not fighting harder for respect and self dignity. The book was very powerful and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a book that shows the struggles of a woman in modern Middle East culture.
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2 comments:
I agree with you that Firdaus is so abused and used she can only see the bad in men. But in a situation where women are abused many dnn't understand that what is happening to them is abuse. The abusers make their victims feel they deserve what is happening to them and it's a very hard cycle to break free from. Many fear for their lives if they leave their abuser and for good reason too.
I agree with Linda, that sometimes the woman believes that the husband has a certain "right" to abuse her. In "Woman at Point Zero," this can especially be seen by the Uncle's relationship with his wife. When Firdaus was first abused by her husband, she flees to her Uncle's home and tells them what happened. Her Uncle says that "all husbands beat their wives" and the wife adds that her husband often beats her and that "it was precisely men well versed in their religion who beat their wives." This disturbed me, just like it disturbed you because these people think that, according to their religion, it is ok to be abused.
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