Three Day Road: A Narrative of Survival in the Great War
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104212
Author(s): Dr. Kiran Kalra
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104212
PDF: Download Full Text
Volume 15 | Issue 2 | April 2024
Pages: 275-284
AboutUs: https://www.the-criterion.com/about/
Archive: https://www.the-criterion.com/archive/
ContactUs: https://www.the-criterion.com/contact/
EditorialBoard: https://www.the-criterion.com/editorial-board/
Submission: https://www.the-criterion.com/submission/
FAQ: https://www.the-criterion.com/fa/
ISSN 2278-9529
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
www.galaxyimrj.com
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
The Pang of Debasement of Female Identity in Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at
Point Zero
S. Sylvia Mercy Jebakumari
Assistant Professor,
Department of English,
SNMV College of Arts and Science,
Coimbatore.
Article History: Submitted-26/03/2024, Revised-12/04/2024, Accepted-18/04/2024, Published-30/04/2024.
Abstract:
The plight of women in post-colonial Africa is intermingled with abuses and tortures.
Women are stifled under the powerful clutches of the male chauvinistic society which crushes
her spirits and aspirations. This research article explores Nawal El Saadawi’s portrayal of the
female protagonist in her novel, “Women at Point Zero” (1983). The novel manifests itself as a
weapon which attacks the patriarchal male tradition through its protagonist, Firdaus. The novel
is a clear portrayal of the futile efforts made by the protagonist to revive her debased female
identity and assert her womanhood. She is trampled by men and deprived of her identity at
various levels in her life. The patriarchal nature of the society has reduced her into a mere sex
toy and a beast of burden. She is baffled by the injustice exhibited towards her and is tossed
into a state of psychotic distress. The unextinguishable fire in her and her yearning for self-
respect turns her into a victim of death sentence. The crime that she committed was an act of
defense and protection of her dignity, which is failed to be realized by the judicial system. The
study is an attack on the male domineering African societies and the need to culminate the
dehumanizing nature of their culture which has overexploited women by abusing her and
traumatizing her physically, sexually and mentally.
Keywords: Culture, Femininity, Identity, Patriarchal, Psychotic.
267
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104141
The Pang of Debasement of Female Identity in Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at Point Zero
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Introduction
A sharp contrast exists in the discourse of trauma in the field of Medical Sciences, Social
Sciences or Humanities and the perceptions are in conflict with one another. Researches in the
fields of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis have aroused questions about the physical and
psychological trauma inflicted on human beings which undermines their ability to comprehend
or discern what is to be done and not to be done.
Herman (1992) indicates that the victims of extremely painful psychological trauma
narrate their stories in a fragmented, contradictory and emotional manner. The traumatic event
itself becomes etched in their identity as an openly manifested symptom of their personality.
Substantiative references from Freudian ‘hysteria’ and George Orwell’s ‘double thinking’ and
‘medical dissociation’, Herman is of the opinion that from a psychological point of view a
traumatic experience cannot be conveyed verbally. The Caruthian literary trauma theory was
formulated based on the research on victims of sexual and domestic violence and victims of
war. According to Bessel Vander Kolk, the victims of trauma lack their ability to correlate and
precisely articulate the memory of their traumatic experience. Kolk (2000) associates the
memory of the victims of psychological trauma to that of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), wherein the reminiscence of the traumatizing event in the memory of the victim
dominates the victim’s consciousness. PTSD manifests as antisocial behaviors and violent
outbursts in victims of trauma. Based on this research, Caruth is of the view that the agony
inflicted by trauma is unexplainable. Caruthian Theory is of the view that the traumatic
experience creates a kind of amnesia and dissociates individuals from the practical world.
The victims of trauma often harbour the hangovers of horrific experiences like being
subjects of earthquakes, floods, fire, kidnappings and terrorist attacks. These traumatic
experiences are reflected as slurred speech, incoherent answers, slowed-down motion and
distorted memories in an individual. Literature has the invincible tendency to capture the essence
of trauma whereby it analyses the agonizing journey of life through the protagonist’s experiences
in Nawal El Saadawi’s novel, ‘Woman at Point Zero’ (1983).
The Impact of Trauma on the Abuse of Women
The subjugation of women by the social and cultural factors has reduced her status in the
family and society as a sex toy and a labouring machine. She is abused and oppressed by cultural
268
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
and religious nuances. The day-to-day experience of African women is no better than the others
and is extremely traumatic. The trauma is registered at every instance in their lives. She is the
subject of extremities of cruelties in the world of patriarchal dominance. She is handicapped due
to religious hypocrisy, domestic violence, poverty, political injustice and other social factors
limiting her potentials as manifested by the protagonist, Firdaus in Women at Point Zero
The protagonist in Women at Point Zero is portrayed as a woman who is very different
from the other women. She deviates from the set norms for a woman as she scares the prison
authorities as pointed by the narrator. She generates a sense of respect as one reads her
personality. She cares for nothing and wants nothing but holds herself in a very high esteem as
one course through the novel. All she wanted was the liberation of women and she tries to
achieve it by dying as a martyr. She believes that she would have a chance to live as a free
woman on another existence.
Firdaus was never treated as a human being in the world of men and was subjugated and
reduced to being a lifeless body throughout her life. She had the privilege of appealing against
the hasty court judgement that was passed on her for the murder that she committed, but her
pride did not permit her to do so. Instead, she confines herself to an invisible wall that she had
constructed which is devoid of men and the other abusers. She stubbornly stays silent and awaits
the movement of her execution. She leads the world into a mystery by refusing to talk about
herself. She flaunts her silent disposition by living a life of her own terms. She exhibits her
defiance towards the world which had been so callous and insensitive towards her by refusing to
speak.
Her act of shuttering herself from the normal world, puzzles the readers prompting them
to find reasons behind her obstinate resolve to shut off everyone as she was approaching her
execution sooner. What was the cruelty imposed on her? What is the reason behind her
indifference and defiance? She finally breaks her silence and agrees to talk to the narrator. She
reveals the reason behind committing the murder and getting rid of her tormentor. She is pictured
as an archetype of a traumatized African woman. There are so many African women who are
subject to tortures under the patriarchal and monstrous male society but never get an opportunity
to expose to the world who they are? What they are subject to? Many women do not even get a
chance to tell their stories as Firdaus does.
269
The Pang of Debasement of Female Identity in Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at Point Zero
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
The narrator comes to know about Firdaus when she visits the inmates of the Egyptian
prisons who were suffering from neurosis. More specifically, Nawal El Saadawi, herself is a
psychiatrist visits the prison to treat patients but grows more interested in Firdaus’ story. On her
meeting with Firdaus, the narrator concludes that Firdaus also was one of the psychiatrically ill
patients. According to the narrator, though Firdaus was suffering from psychosis, she was
exceptional from other prisoners because of her fearlessness of death and her refusal to live.
The author imprints the opinion that Firdaus is so different from other women as she
overcomes those forces that deprive the human beings their right to live and their right to liberty.
The novelist reveals the protagonist’s psychological condition as:
will never meet anyone like her in or out of prison. She refuses all
visitors and won’t speak to anyone. She usually leaves her food untouched
and remains wide awake until dawn (1)
Firdaus was habitually found to sit still, staring vacantly into space for hours which leads
the narrator into believing that she was suffering from perennial maniac symptoms. The prison
doctor is of the opinion that Firdaus did not commit the murder for which she was about to be
executed. The narrator also states that she had never seen a woman who had killed. According to
the author’s interpretation, women are often observed as subservient and also the receivers of
abuses of men. As the protagonist unravels her story, the narrator develops a kind of admiration
towards her as she seemed to be so exceptional from the women she had witnessed.
It becomes obvious that a woman’s life is always subject to the control of men from her
cradle to the grave. The dominant male society subjugates her leaving her at the mercy of her
father initially, secondly her uncle, thirdly her husband, then her boss and the male clients.
Firdaus is of the opinion that every woman is a kind of prostitute, and the worst paid prostitute is
the house wife 76). As a child, she was given reasons by her family to consider her gender as an
inferior one. The most shocking fact was that her father displayed negligence towards the agony
of Firdaus, her mother and any other female sibling. One such episode of neglect happened when
one of her siblings passed away. Her father, ‘would eat his supper, my mother would wash his
legs, and then he would go to sleep, just as he did every night’. (18) In case if the child lost was a
270
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
boy, the father’s display of agony would have been totally different that he would have beaten his
wife for negligence which led to the boy’s death.
After her father’s death, her abuse did take a different shape as it got transferred to her
uncle who was her new guardian. He took every opportunity to molest her. When his uncle’s
wife became intolerant of keeping her under their roof, she was sent to a boarding house. She
was forced into an early marriage immediately after completion of her secondary education. She
also suffered many untold abuses after marriage. As an act of rebellion, she fled from her
husband’s house as she could not tolerate the physical abuse and hunger at her husband’s house.
Nowhere but she could seek refuge in her uncle’s house but was offered no comfort or assurance.
As she narrated how her husband pummelled her, she recalls:
On one occasion, he hit me all over with his shoe, my face and body
became swollen and bruised. So, I left the house and went to my uncle.
But my uncle told me that all husbands beat their wives. And my uncle’s
wife added that her husband often beat her… The precepts of religion
permitted such punishment (Women at Point Zero, 44).
She had no other option but to go back to her husband who started torturing her in worse
ways than before. The tortures continued in worst forms thereafter. Firdaus came to the
realization that in order to determine success as a woman, she always in one way or the other had
to depend on a man for materializing the success. She wanted to restore her dignity even as a
prostitute which she did so by carefully choosing her clients. She always had to count on men for
patronage. She was struck by the realization that without the patronage of such disrespectful
men, her womanhood would prove to be powerless and vulnerable.
The tribulations suffered by Firdaus bears witness of the state of women in El Saadwi’s
Egypt. The prolonged incitement leads to the compulsion of exhibiting violent behaviour
towards the violators. The narrator finds a justification for the murder committed by the
protagonist as she states: ‘it looked to me as though this woman who had killed a human being
and was shortly to be killed herself was a much better person than I’ (3). The novelist indirectly
applauds the protagonist for having displayed the kind of courage to kill the man who abused
271
The Pang of Debasement of Female Identity in Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at Point Zero
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
her. The author points out Firdaus’ transcendence above the fear of death, her refusal to deny her
crime, her negligence to plea to the court as acts of self-esteem. The desire which was burning in
her throughout her life of submissiveness is at last achieved by her.
When Firdaus agrees to meet the narrator in the last few hours before her hanging, the
narrator could not contain her excitement. The mindset of the protagonist is revealed as she states
that she has not achieved enough for the women folk by killing just one man. She perceives
death as a ‘journey to a place unknown to everybody on this earth [that] fills me with pride. All
my life, I have wanted something that fills me with pride, make me feel superior to everyone
else, including kings, princes and rulers’ (11). According to her, living in the male dominated
world was like dying and dying was like living. Firdaus herself admits that all her life she has
‘been searching for something that fills… [her] with pride’ (11). Most of her desires as a woman
were extinguished and one such was her desire to love and be loved. She reminisces how she was
deprived of playing her childhood friend, Muhammadain in the fields. She also recalls the
cultural conspiracy that deprived the joy of being a woman. She reminisces the moment on
which her genitals were clipped to deny her sexual pleasure because of the cultural and religious
constraints of being a promiscuous woman. Even she is denied of her basic right as a human
being. She remembers the day when a woman carried a sharp razor blade and inserted it between
her thighs and scraped off the skin from her genital. This painful incident haunted her even in her
adulthood.
She strongly believed that education can uplift one’s life and dreamed of getting admitted
in the university in Cairo. Her uncle laughed at her aim and remarked that it was a senseless idea
for a woman to cherish such a dream. In another instance, she is also noted to suffer the injustice
of denial of her rights to education. She cherished the hopes that education as the most powerful
weapon which could make her flap her wings and rise to an elite class in the society. Her dream
of going to the university in Cairo gets shattered by her uncle as he laughed at her and thought
that it was something of ridicule that a woman could harbour such a dream. As they converse, the
uncle asks her what she would like to do in Cairo, Firdaus had replied: “I will go to El-Azhar and
study like you”. (16). Her uncle’s reactions to her reply were very hurtful to her wounded pride
as a woman. Her hopes of rising up was suppressed at every level in the society as she thinks:
“El Azhar was an awesome world peopled only by men, and my uncle was one of them”. (21)
272
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Miss. Iqbal was the only person who was supportive with her ambition but because of the
rejection and denial, Firdaus had to move on without further education.
All she has received throughout her life were deprivations and abuses. Finally, realization
dawns in her that the handicap laid by the society on most women is that they cannot dream or
achieve their dreams. It was always the men who bound her by their shackles of power and
decided her existence. She realizes that “all these rulers were men. What they had in common
was an avaricious and distorted personality…. I discovered that history tended to repeat itself
with a foolish obstinacy”. (27) Especially, life had been too cruel to the African women under the
imprisonment of male chauvinism. Her denials and deprivations nurtured Firdaus’ grudge
towards the perpetrators of such misery and she was vengeful over men.
She was not like other women to accept her fate and submit to domestic violence. Hence,
she takes a moral diversion towards the path of prostitution. Her body became irresistible to the
men for which she took the advantage of developing high tastes and a priceless sense of value.
She had the independence of choosing her own men to whom she rendered her services as a sex
worker. Even though she acquired this kind of self-worth and liberty, she did she get disturbed by
pimps who demanded her services to unknown men. Due to her realization of self-worth, she
couldn’t yield to imposition of the pimp in her line. She realizes that the pimp was not ready to
acknowledge her independence. A scuffled ensued between her and the pimp during which time
in order to protect herself, she was forced to kill him. Immediately after killing the pimp, she
becomes exhilarated thinking that she was freed from all her male tormentors. While in the
prison also, when the death sentence was laid on her, as she stayed awaiting death by hanging,
she is excited with the thought that she was free from all male abuse.
The distress that had plagued her throughout her existence as a woman made her put an
end to it by murdering the pimp. At times, she was a poor victim of depression which led to an
instability in her mental state. She once asked her college tutor, Miss. Iqbal, to let her ventilate
her supressed emotions as she pleaded, “Let me cry”. (29) Her tutor states that she has not
witnessed Firdaus cry before. She attributes her outburst to her repressed emotions. “Nothing has
happened. Miss. Iqbal does not know what the reason is. Nothing new has happened to me”. (30)
As she confesses to the narrator, Firdaus states that she “tried to explain to Miss. Iqbal what had
273
The Pang of Debasement of Female Identity in Nawal El Saadawi’s Women at Point Zero
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
happened, but if something had happened which I was unable to recall or as if nothing had
happened at all”. (31)
The entire study focusses on the pathetic condition of women in contemporary Africa. It
views the plight of women as a psychosocial tragedy pronounced on them by dehumanizing
cultural practices where they are oppressed. In line with the view of Caruth that the victims of
psychological trauma suffer a memory by forgetting the horrific experiences they had suffered.
Firdaus had been a subject of abuse since childhood and the novelist portrays her personality to
be in alignment with Caruth’s theoretical personality. The ordeals women go through in Africa
are said to bring a serious impact in the society also. The scars inflicted on victims like Firdaus
by the unsympathetic and domineering patriarchal society are indelible. The study agrees that
Firdaus holds a prestigious acclaim as a woman who had cherished high hopes and has stood
ever tall by holding steadfastly her self-worth and independence.
Works Cited:
Caruth, C (1996) Unclaimed Experience. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. El-
Saadawi, N (1983) Woman at Point Zero. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Herman, J (1992) Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
Kolk, V (2000) “Post traumatic Stress Disorder and Nature of Trauma.” Dialogues Clin
Neurosci. March. 7-22.
274
Dr. Kiran Kalra