Gender And Resistence In Nawel El Saadawi’s The Hidden Face Of Eve: Women In The Arab World (1980) And Malika Mokeddem’s Des Rêves Et Des Assassins (1995): A Comparative Study

Résumé: The present research is meant to make a feminist reading of Nawel El Saadawi’s The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World (1980) and Malika Mokeddem’s Des rêves et des assassins (1995). Our main concern in this comparative study is to highlight the common struggles of the female characters for emancipation and break away from patriarchy and gender constraints. In order to reach our aim, we have opted for Judith Butler’s theory put forward in her book entitled Gender trouble: Feminism and Subversion of identity (1999). We have also supplied our theoretical framework by Frantz Fanon’s chapter of “the Algerian Family” as developed in A dying Colonialism (1965) in order to develop more our issue, and to demonstrate the subordinate position that women occupy in society. The work comprises a discussion of two important issues; the first part includes the representation of women as victim of patriarchy and their objectification in both aforementioned works, while the second one discusses the alternative ways of resistance and the subversion of identity. As far as our findings, we may say that in both works, the two respective authors have drawn pictures of two worlds which are predominant by gender stereotypes, patriarchy and traditional world order. Yet as it is portrayed in both works, the two protagonists succeeded to overwhelm these constraints either by resistance or by subversion.

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