45 pages • 1 hour read
Content Warning: This section includes descriptions of child sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape, physical violence, and domestic abuse.
“Firdaus, however, remained a woman apart.”
In this single sentence within the Preface, Saadawi describes Firdaus in a simplistic and straightforward way. By the time Firdaus is arrested for murder, she’s apart from everything that previously enslaved her: fear, hope, and want. All of these things she has finally let go, and for this reason, she feels free for the first time in her life. This early description of Firdaus foreshadows the way in which she rises above patriarchal domination by refusing to live and refusing to fear death.
“Murderer or not, she’s an innocent woman and does not deserve to be hanged. They are the ones that ought to hang.”
Saadawi meets a female warder at the prison where Firdaus is being held, and the woman vehemently defends Firdaus’s honor. Saadawi isn’t yet sure of the context of this defensiveness, but it’s an early representation of the novella’s experimentation with guilt and innocence and how these concepts are much more subjective than initially realized. Patriarchal domination resulted in Firdaus’s life of abuse, captivity, and fear; for this reason, both she and the warder believe that Firdaus and all other women are innocent of their crimes.
Plus, gain access to 8,500+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
African Literature
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Contemporary Books on Social Justice
View Collection
Education
View Collection
Equality
View Collection
Fate
View Collection
Guilt
View Collection
Middle Eastern History
View Collection
Politics & Government
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Safety & Danger
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
True Crime & Legal
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection
Women's Studies
View Collection