“Come what may I had to be a respectable woman”. An analysis of how the main character in Woman at point zero, Firdaus, learns to perceive respect through the influence of other characters and how she achieves it.
Woman at point zero is a powerful Egyptian novel written by Nawal Elsaadawi, an Arab feminist who practised her craft as a psychologist in a society where women are oppressed by religion, politics and prejudice on an almost daily basis. The novel is a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction that explores female empowerment, courage and persecution in a society dominated by men. The reader 's are presented with the idea of respect constantly throughout the novel. In the west, being respectable is defined as one who holds the idealistic …show more content…
When Sharifa says “The higher you price yourself, the more he will realize what you are really worth” she means that a woman must to take control and learn to value herself rather than relying on a man to do it for her. The two met on the street after Firdaus ' encounter with Bayoumi. This is when she is first introduced to the world of prostitution. Here, Sharifa teacher her that a female that merits respect is one who can live life independently, which in the case of their society, is one who does not need to co-exist/depend on a man.
This belief however was diminished shortly after Firdaus ' encounter with Diaa. Diaa is a journalist whose character Firdaus was very fond of yet, when the two were about to engage in a sexual interaction he bluntly mentioned that her work was “not worthy of respect”. Although the question of how to define respect was manifested earlier in the novel, it is here that she decided “come what may I had to become a respectable woman”. This is the first time in the novel, that she mentions wanting to become a respectable woman and thus acknowledges that she in fact is not one who is worthy of
Woman at point zero is a powerful Egyptian novel written by Nawal Elsaadawi, an Arab feminist who practised her craft as a psychologist in a society where women are oppressed by religion, politics and prejudice on an almost daily basis. The novel is a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction that explores female empowerment, courage and persecution in a society dominated by men. The reader 's are presented with the idea of respect constantly throughout the novel. In the west, being respectable is defined as one who holds the idealistic …show more content…
When Sharifa says “The higher you price yourself, the more he will realize what you are really worth” she means that a woman must to take control and learn to value herself rather than relying on a man to do it for her. The two met on the street after Firdaus ' encounter with Bayoumi. This is when she is first introduced to the world of prostitution. Here, Sharifa teacher her that a female that merits respect is one who can live life independently, which in the case of their society, is one who does not need to co-exist/depend on a man.
This belief however was diminished shortly after Firdaus ' encounter with Diaa. Diaa is a journalist whose character Firdaus was very fond of yet, when the two were about to engage in a sexual interaction he bluntly mentioned that her work was “not worthy of respect”. Although the question of how to define respect was manifested earlier in the novel, it is here that she decided “come what may I had to become a respectable woman”. This is the first time in the novel, that she mentions wanting to become a respectable woman and thus acknowledges that she in fact is not one who is worthy of