Beyond Dangers and Damages in Ahlam Mosteghanemi's Chaos Of

PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research University of Djillali Liabes - Sidi Bel Abbes Faculty of Letters, Languages & Arts Department of English Beyond Dangers and Damages in Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Chaos of the Senses Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister in Post-Colonial Woman Literature Written in English Submitted by: Supervised by: Mrs Amina MEZIANE CHERIF Prof. Fewzia BEDJAOUI Board of Examiners: President: Prof. M.Y.BOULENOUAR UDL, Sidi Bel Abbes Supervisor: Prof. Fewzia BEDJAOUI UDL, Sidi Bel Abbes Examiner: Dr Wassila MOURO Tlemcen University Examiner: Dr Omar AZZOUG Tlemcen University Academic Year: 2016/2017 DEDICATION إلـى الـذي ظـل طٍفـه ومازال ٌدفعـنً إلـى آفـاق المعـالً... إلـى شـمسـً التـً ﻻ تـغـٍـب... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Words are not enough to thank Prof. Fewzia BEDJAOUI for her guidance throughout my work. She has been a wonderful supervisor encouraging and directing me with her scholarly remarks and criticism. Her warmth and affection will forever stay in my heart. I also extend my gratitude to the teaching staff at the Department of English, Faculty of Letters, Languages and Arts of Sidi Bel Abbes University, namely Prof. Mohamed Yamine BOULENOUAR, Prof. Belabbes OUERRAD and Dr. Azzeddine BOUHASSOUN for being always ready to offer advice and encouragement when in need. I would like to thank very much Dr. Wassila MOURO and Dr. Omar AZZOUG from Tlemcen University to read my work and contribute to this viva. Many thank yous are granted to Dr. Jean Philippe IMBERT from Dublin City University for his pieces of advice in writing my dissertation and expertise on the intricacies of wo/men identities as portrayed in Comparative Literature. I would like also to thank very much Maestro Alejandro GOMEZ de TUDDO from Mexico City for his conferences on Visual Art and Literature in our Algerian Universities, and which pushed me to go deeper in my perception and understanding of subjectivity and aesthetics in Woman Literature. My heartfelt thanks are due to Prof. Foued DJEMAI from the University of Bouzareah, Algiers 2, for his timely help and for giving me his valuable suggestions. I am extremely grateful to my brother Prof. Djalal MEZIANE CHERIF for tremendously boosting my morale with his intellectual integrity and passion for scholarship. No work could have been possible if he had not provided me with the relevant materials and resources related to the topic. My thanks are also due to Dr. Tayeb BOUAZID from the University of Msila and Miss Taoues MATMER from the University of Tizi Ouzou, who initiated me into this field and provided me with proper advice at the beginning of this project. My thanks are also due to Mr. Laid ZERAGUENIA from Constantine (the home town of “Ahlam Mosteghanemi”) who provided me with inspiration through his reflections on pertinent questions raised by the author. My stay at Sidi Bel Abbes was pleasantly and agreeably comfortable thanks to an excellent set of friends and well-wishers; I wish to thank Mohamed CHIKHAOUI and his family and Abdelkader LAHMAR and his family who welcomed me with open arms. I have to mention how affectionate and generous they were when taking care of my personal needs. The cheerfulness and friendliness of my fellow researchers (Nadia, Djamila, Maachou, Nacer and Nordine) have been of great help whenever I have felt nostalgic. I must mention the beautiful moments we shared at Joumaira‟s. Special thanks to my sisters, nephews, nieces and in-laws for their love, understanding and compassion. No matter how much I write, I can never give enough thanks to my beloved parents for their unending prayers. They have been proud of my work and have provided love and support throughout my life. My three children, Akram, Lyna and Oualieddine have been patiently borne with my continual absences during the past three years. I could never have made this research work possible without their love and support. Finally, my gratitude goes to my husband, Prof. Abdlekrim BENIAICHE who believed in, motivated and encouraged me to achieve this work. Thank you for offering unconditional love and patience, silent and uncomplaining support and care, as well as providing me always with chocolate. ABSTRACT Researches as Mehrdad Darvishpour‟s Islamic Feminism: Compromise or Challenge to Feminism? (2008) on the image of women in religion and in literature are often a sensitive topic in Islam. The literary image of women is created by male authors because the Orient, the birth place of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, was dominated by patriarchy for a long time. Most male authors as Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad, were writing patriarchal oriented stories, where women are degraded to second class beings. This brought about stereotypes, prejudices and à priori condemnation of women, and men placed themselves in the centre of leading stories as well as in the literary canons. On the one hand, men were writing about what they thought about women; their image of women, however, hardly corresponds with what women thought about themselves. On the other hand they were abusing the religious feelings of women and exploited them. This work deals with further research on the concept of women in Islam and on their fictional portraits in Ahlam Mosteghanemi‟s Chaos of The Senses. The goal of this work is to find out the efforts of men, women writers who continued to produce novels after colonialism. In some of these novels, such as Nawal El Saadawi‟s A Daughter of Isis (1997) and Ghada al Samman‟s Beirut Nightmare (1997) female characters are already liberated from oppressive male authority. Women impose their bodies as a fact and live with their discovery of new stories written by and about them. Ahlam Mosteghanemi is the voice of a writer who dares deconstruct the hopes and clichés of women and femininity found in the traditions of Islam, while woman is placed under the man‟s authority and excluded from any kind of authority over men. Indeed male priority prevails as a religious requirement, but both genders are said to have complementary roles. Besides, the “different” interpretation(s) of the sacred Book: the Qur‟an, there is probably “objective” evidence to support women‟s increasing roles and status in different walks of life, notably politics, arts, to name but a few. Indeed, women are associated within sets of authority but remain equal to some extent. And woman written literature contributes to a better understanding of female experiences and voices, crossing borders in time, space and language, thus counteracting harmful “negative” messages. RESUME L‟image de la femme en religion et en littérature, tout comme les recherches portant sur ce sujet, voire l‟étude, de Mehrdad Darvishpour, intitulée Islamic Feminism : Compromise or Challenge to Feminism? (2008), est un thème sensible dans l‟islam. L‟image littéraire de la femme est créée à l‟origine par des écrivains. En effet, l‟orient, berceau du judaïsme, christianisme et islam, a toujours été patriarcal. Par ailleurs, la plupart des écrivains, à savoir Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad, ont écrit des histoires à tendance patriarcale où les femmes sont réduites à sous-être. Chose qui a bel et bien engendré des stéréotypes, des préjugés et une condamnation des femmes à priori. En outre, tout comme les canons littéraires, les hommes se donnaient toujours de l‟importance. Par surcroit, les hommes exprimaient ce qu‟ils pensaient des femmes or cette image ne correspond, en aucun cas, à celle faite par ces dernières elles-mêmes. En fait, les hommes ont abusé du sentiment religieux chez les femmes et ils les ont exploitées par la suite. La présente recherche, qui traite, principalement, du concept de la femme dans l‟islam et de son portrait fictif dans le roman Le Chaos des Sens de Ahlam Mosteghanemi, vise à mettre en évidence les efforts des femmes qui ont continué à produire des romans après le colonialisme. Dans certains de ces romans, citons entre autres A Daughter of Isis de Nawal El-Saadawi (1997) et Beirut Nightmares de Ghada Essaman (1997), les caractères féminins se sont émancipés de l‟autorité masculine éttouffante. Les femmes présentent leurs corps tel un fait et s‟adaptent aux nouvelles histoires écrites par/pour elles-mêmes. Ahlam Mosteghanemi, c‟est la voix d‟une écrivaine qui ose dé/construire les espérances et les clichés, des femmes et de la féminité, existant dans l‟islam au moment où les femmes se soumettent à l‟autorité des hommes en se privant de toute autorité sur eux. La priorité masculine domine par le biais des besoins religieux ; cependant, les deux sexes se complètent. En outre, vu les différentes interprétations du livre sacré le Qur‘an, il est une preuve « objective » qui appuie les statuts et les rôles que joue la femme dans divers domaines et notamment : la politique et l‟art. En fait, les femmes sont soutenues par un nombre d‟autorités mais dans un cadre si limité. La littérature féminine écrite nous aide à mieux comprendre les expériences, à bien entendre la voix des femmes, tout en franchissant les barrières spatio-temporelles et langagières, et à neutraliser les messages « négatifs ». TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION I ACKNOWLEGEMENTS II ABSTRACT IV TABLE OF CONTENTS V GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: POST-COLONIALISM: DEFINITION AND SCOPE Introduction 8 1.1. The Post-Colonial Theory 8 1.1.1. Defining Postcolonial Theory 9 1.1.2. European Background 11 1.1.3. African and Asian Contributions 15 1.1.4. Postcolonial Feminist Theory 28 1.2. Female, Feminist, Feminine 31 1.2.1. Defining Feminism 33 1.2.2. Marxist, Liberal and Radical Feminisms 35 1.2.3. Arab and Islamic Feminisms 39 1.2.4.

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