Men Violence, Culture And Women Determination In Elif Shafak’shonor (2011) And Alice Walker’scolor Purple (1983)

Résumé: The following research is a comparative study of Elif Shafak's Honor and Alice Walker's Color Purple. The entire work is concerned with the representation of women in both novels. More specifically, it focuses on the theme of patriarchy and the diverse facets allied to the subject. The study centers on the subject of violence, masculinity, and the role of society and tradition in the construction of gender, female reaction to the gender issue of violence against women is also a major concern in this research. Dwelling on a number of notions introduced in the feminist theory in addition to Albert Bandura's social learning theory of violence, our study argues that the two novels converge with regard to the representation of the theme of violence. On the one hand, both Shafak and Walker focus on domestic violence, which represents an umbrella to all forms of violence. On the other hand, they offer clear evidence that violence goes hand in hand with the inherited traditional beliefs and practices. Interestingly, this research does not go without referring to the theme of female determination explored in the two novels. Both the Turkish Shafak and the black writer Alice Walker throw light on women's reaction to male patriarchal traditional system. Women's struggle to challenge the socially constructed gender roles is manifested through the motif of letter writing.

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