Current

VOlUME 04 ISSUE 03 MARCH 2021
Context as the Text Determinant: A Comparative study of Wollstonecraft and El Saadawi’s Socio-Political Backgrounds
Mohamed Abdulhasan Jasm Bahadlkhafaja
Iraqi ministry of education
DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v4-i3-37

Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT

The current paper considers, for the first time, the most controversial feminist writers, in both the West and the East, the British Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and the Egyptian Nawal El Saadawi (1931-2021 ) from a feminist comparative perspective. Choosing these two authors is due to their lasting contributions to the development of feminism in their respective societies. This study is undertaken to shed light on the most salient socio-political circumstances that have prompted the considered authors to write in a strikingly similar way despite the fact that they come from very dissimilar cultures, religions and epochs. The present paper, principally by employing theories of the American school of comparative literature, attempts to vividly manifest how Wollstonecraft and El Saadawi, through their writings, have shared with the reader their own experiences and sufferings to give an authentic example of women’s misery in general. Such findings reveal that the integration of the authors’ personal experiences with their theories enriches their works with conviction and passion, while the French Revolution in the West and the resistance of the British colonizer in many Eastern countries have been vital determinants in the way Wollstonecraft and El Saadawi have written their novels, namely The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (1798) and Women at Point Zero (1973).

KEYWORDS

Wollstonecraft, El Saadawi, socio-political contexts, comparative literature

REFERENCES

1) Abouzeid, A. (2016). [Review of the book A daughter of Isis: the early life of Nawal El Saadawi, by N. El Saadawi]. Gender and Development, 17(3), 537-540. doi:10.2307/27809256

2) Accad, E. (1987). Freedom and the social context: Arab women’s special contribution to literature. Gender Issues, 7(2), 33-48. doi:10.1007/BF02933925

3) Agustín, L. M. (2007). Sex at the margins: Migration, labour markets and the rescue industry London & New York: Zed Books.

4) Al-Tahtawi, R. (2012). Al-murshid al-amin lil banat wa al-banin [The reliable guide for girls and boys]. Cairo: Dar Al- Kutub Al-Massri. (Original work published 1872).

5) Al Wassil, A. (2009, July 9). Simone de Beauvoir Iil al-arabiya: Intisar al-muthakaf amam al-harb wa ideololojiya wa almawta [Simone de beauvoir to Arabic: The victory of educated to write against war and the ideology of the dead]. 14997. Retrieved from http://www.alriyadh.com/445163

6) Alnimnim, H. (2005, November 6). Al-sowt al-nessa'i al-adabi yassdeh muntho karnein [The literary feminist voice has been warbling for the last two decades]. Retrieved from http://www.alittihad.ae/details.php?id=36520&y=2005

7) Amin, O. (2016). Introduction: Why is Nawal El Saadawi banned? In N. El Saadawi (Ed.), Diary of a child called Souad (pp. 1-24). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

8) Amīn, Q. (1899). Tahrir al-mara'a [Woman emancipation]. Cairo: Al-Turqi Liberary.

9) Aptheker, B. (2009). Forward. In N. El Saadawi (Ed.), A daughter of Isis: The autobiography of

10) Nawal El Saadawi (pp. pp. ix-xii). London & New York: Zed Books Ltd.

11) Bouten, J. (1922). Mary Wollstonecraft and the beginning of female emancipation in France and England. Amsterdam: Kruyt.

12) Bouten, J. (1924). Mary Wollstonecraft and the beginnings of female emancipation in France and England. Neophilologus, 9(1), 153-153. doi:10.1007/BF01508600

13) Brockett, L. P. (1870). Woman: Her rights, wrongs, privileges, and responsibilities. Cincinnati: L. Stebbins.

14) Cohen, M. (2004). Gender and ‘method’ in eighteenth-century English education. History of Education, 33(5), 585-595. doi:10.1080/0046760042000254550

15) Cooke, M. (2007). Forward. In N. El Saadawi (Ed.), Woman at point zero (pp. vii-viii). London & New York: Zed Books Ltd.

16) El Saadawi, N. (1977a). Al-untha hi al-assil [Female is the origin]. Beirout: Institution of Arabic Studies.

17) El Saadawi, N. (1977b). Al wajh al 'ari lil mar'a al 'arabiyya [The bare face of the Arabian woman]. Cairo: Madbouli.

18) El Saadawi, N. (1980). The hidden face of Eve: Women in the Arab world (S. Hetata, Trans.). London: Zed Books.

19) El Saadawi, N. (1986). Muthakarati fi sihin al nisa'a [My memoir in women's prison]. Cairo: Dar Almustekbel Alarabi.

20) El Saadawi, N. (1990a). Dirasat 'n al-mara'a wa al-rajul fi al-mujtama'a al-arabi [Studies on woman and man in the Arab society]. Beirout: Institution of Arabic Studies.

21) El Saadawi, N. (1990b). Woman and Sex [Almara' wa aljins] (4th ed.). Alexandria: Almustaqbel.

22) El Saadawi, N. (1992). Ma'raka jadida fi qadhiyat almara' [New battle in the woman's issue]. Cairo: Sina.

23) El Saadawi, N. (2000). Muthekarati fi sijin alnisaa [Memoirs from the women’s prison]. Beirut: Dar Aladab.

24) El Saadawi, N. (2006a). Al mara'a wa al sira'a al nafssi [Woman and psychological struggle] (Vol. 2). Cairo: Madbouli Liberary.

25) El Saadawi, N. (2006b). Awraqi hayati [My papers are my life] (Vol. 2). Cairo: Madbouli Liberary.

26) El Saadawi, N. (2006c). Creativity, dissidence and women. European Institute of the Mediterranean, 14(18), 113-118. Retrieved from http://www.iemed.org/publicacions/quaderns/14/qm14_pdf/18.pdf/view

27) El Saadawi, N. (2006d). Qadyat al mara'a al masriya al syasiya wa al jinsya [The political and sexual case of the egyptian woman] (Vol. 2). Cairo: Madbouli Liberary.

28) El Saadawi, N. (2009). A daughter of Isis: The autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi (S. Hetata, Trans.). London & New York: Zed Books Ltd.

29) El Saadawi, N. (2016). Diary of a child called Souad (O. Amin, Trans.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

30) El Saadawi, N., & Beall, J. (1989). Empowering women for gender equity. Agenda Feminist Media, 5(1989), 33 doi:10.2307/4065647

31) El Saadawi, N., & Wilmuth, M. E. (1995). A feminist in the Arab world. Women & Therapy, 17(3-4), 435-442. doi:10.1300/J015v17n03_17

32) Faubert, M. (2012). Introducation. In M. Wollstonecraft (Ed.), Mary, a fiction and the wrongs of woman, or Maria (pp. 11- 71). Canada: Broadview Press.

33) Frazer, E. (2011). Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay on education. Oxford Review of Education, 37(5), 603- 617. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.625165

34) Friend, C. (2004). Social contract theory. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/

35) Godwin, W. (Ed.). (2001). Memoirs of the author of a vindication of the rights of woman. Canada: Broadview Press Ltd. (Original work published 1798)

36) Gohar, S. (2015). Narrating the marginalized oriental female: Silencing the colonized subaltern. Acta Neophilologica, 48(1-2), 49-66. doi:10.4312/an.48.1-2.49-66

37) Golley, N. A. (2010). Reading Arab women's autobiographies: Shahrazad tells her story. Austin: University of Texas Press.

38) Goodman, R. T. (Ed.). (2015). Literature and the development of feminist theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.

39) Guralnick, E. S. (1977). Radical politics in Mary Wollstonecraft's "a vindication of the rights of woman". The Eighteenth Century, 18(3), 155. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/openview/ba18b0df83f22a8a164cc93e6e51810d/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=1818415

40) Haddad, Y. Y. (1984). Islam, women and revolution in twentieth-century Arab thought. The Muslim World, 74(3-4), 137- 160. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1984.tb03451.x

41) Harlow, B. (1986). From the women's prison: Third world women's narratives of prison. Feminist Studies, 12(3), 501-524. doi:10.2307/3177910

42) Hetata, S. (1992). Introduction. In N. El Saadawi (Ed.), Ma'raka jadida fi qadhiyat almara' [New battle in the woman's issue] (pp. 8-11). Cairo: Sina.

43) Jacobs, D. (2001). Her own woman: The life of Mary Wollstonecraft. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

44) Janes, R. M. (1978). On the reception of Mary Wollstonecraft's: A vindication of the rights of woman. Journal of the History of Ideas, 39(2), 293-302. doi:10.2307/2708781

45) Johnson, C. L. (2002). The Cambridge companion to Mary Wollstonecraft. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

46) Khalil, M. (2005). Intikhabat al-ri'asa al-massrya: Tarshihat haqaqet aghradeha [Egyptian presidential election: Candidacies achieved their aims]. from http://elaph.com/Web/ElaphWriter/2005/8/84746.htm?sectionarchive=ElaphWriter

47) King, M. (1991). Women of the renaissance: Women in culture and society series. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.

48) Knott, S., & Taylor, B. (Eds.). (2005). Women, gender, and enlightenment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

49) Ladele, O. A. (2016). Globalisation and African womens bodies: Some fictional representations. International Journal of English and Literature, 7(8), 135-142. doi:10.5897/IJEL2015.0735

50) Lundberg, F., & Farnham, M. F. (1947). Modern woman: The lost sex. New York: Harper & Brothers.

51) Mahdi, M., & Shamsi, W. (2011). Al adab al nisa'y mustalah yata'arjah bayn mua'yd wa mua'ariz [Arabic feminist literature is swinging between support and refusal]. Contemporary literature studies, 7(2), 135-152. Retrieved from http://fa.journals.sid.ir/ViewPaper.aspx?id=150957

52) Malti-Douglas, F. (1991). Nawal al-Sa'dawi and the escape from the female body: From handicap to gender & Nawal al- Sa'dawi and empowerment through medicine. In F. Malti-Douglas (Ed.), Woman's body, woman's word : gender and discourse in Arabo-Islamic writing (pp. 111-144). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

53) Malti-Douglas, F. (1995). Men, women, and God (s): Nawal El Saadawi and Arab feminist poetics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

54) More, H. (1809). Strictures on the modern system of female education: With a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune. Princeton: Samuel West.

55) Newson-Horst, A. (2010). The essential Nawal El Saadawi: A reader. In A. Newson-Horst (Ed.), . London & New York: Zed Books.

56) Pennell, E. R. (1885). Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. London: WH Allen.

57) Poovey, M. (1982, January). Mary Wollstonecraft: The gender of genres in late eighteenthcentury England. Paper presented at the Novel: A Forum on Fiction (Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 111-126). Duke University Press.

58) Roberts, L. H. (1998). Young Mary Wollstonecraft's schooling and its influence on her future pioneering agenda for the rational education of women. England: ERIC.

59) Rover, C. (1970). Love, morals and the feminists. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Books.

60) Royer, D. (2001). A critical study of the works of Nawal El Saadawi, egyptian writer and activist. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.

61) Saiti, R., & Salti, R. M. (1994). Paradise, heaven, and other oppressive spaces: A critical examination of the life and works of Nawal El-Saadawi. Journal of Arabic Literature, 25(2), 152-174. doi:10.1163/157006494x00059

62) Selim, S. (2004). The novel and the rural imaginary in Egypt, 1880-1985. London & New York: Taylor & Francis Croup.

63) Sharma, A. (1990). The autobiography of desire: Jacobin women novelists of the 1790s. (Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University). Retrieved from http://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=6648555

64) Smith, S. (2007). Interview with Nawal El Saadawi (Cairo, 29th January 2006). Feminist review, 85(1), 59-69. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400322

65) Taylor, B. (2003). Mary Wollstonecraft and the feminist imagination (Vol. 56). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

66) Taylor, N. (2011). Jane Hodson, language and revolution in Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine, and Godwin. Modern Philology, 108(3), 187-190. doi:10.1086_658998

67) Todd, J. (2003). The collected letters of Mary Wollstonecraft. New York: Columbia University Press.

68) Todd, J. (2012). Mary Wollstonecraft: An annotated bibliography (Vol. 39). London & New York: Routledge.

69) Tompkins, J. M. S. (1961). The popular novel in England, 1770-1800. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

70) Tone, B., & Jon, M. (2009). Introduction. In M. Wollstonecraft (Ed.), Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (pp. i-xlii). New York: Oxford University Press.

71) Tötösy de Zepetnek, S., & Vasvári, L. (2013). About the Contextual Study of Literature and

72) Culture, Globalization, and Digital Humanities. In S. Tötösy de Zepetnek & T.

73) Mukherjee (Eds.), Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies (pp. 3-35). New Delhi: Cambridge UP India.

74) Wardle, R. M. (1947). Mary Wollstonecraft, analytical reviewer. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 62(4), 1000-1009. doi:10.2307/459145

75) Wollstonecraft, M. (1787). Thoughts on the education of daughters: With reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life Available from https://books.google.iq/books?hl=ar&lr=&id=GbZYAAAAcAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq

76) Thoughts+on+the+Education+of+Daughters:+With+Reflections&ots=vxX_Sh5VIu&sig=cp6mKG_IZg6MZdaulbxbdIM Xwjg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Thoughts%20on%20the%20Education%20of%20Daughters%3A%20With%20Refle ctions&f=false

77) Wollstonecraft, M. (1993). A vindication of the rights of men and a vindication of the rights of woman. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. (Original work published 1792)

78) Zerukhi, I. (2000). Musahamet al-ameer abdulkadir fi al-nahda al-arabyia [Prince abdulkadir's contribution to modern Arab renaissance]. Revue Sciences Humaines, N/A(14), 87-96. Retrieved from http://revue.umc.edu.dz/index.php/h/article/view/1131

VOlUME 04 ISSUE 03 MARCH 2021

Indexed In

Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar Avatar