Engendering War in Hanan Al Shaykh's 'The Story of Zahra'

16 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2015

See all articles by Isam M Shihada

Isam M Shihada

Al-Aqsa University; Department of English Al Aqsa University

Date Written: December 8, 2008

Abstract

The urgency to retrieve memory in many Arab women's writings becomes the impetus to retell the stories of women silenced, marginalized, and excluded by their own communities. There is no doubt that with the retrieval of memory comes the resituating of the body from its condition as an object of male desire, and "its transformation into a desiring force that rejects its subjugation to a narrative of erasure" (Fayad 148). Hanan Al Shaykh’s "The Story of Zahra" is divided into two books. The first book is entitled "The Scars of Peace". In it we find the central female character, Zahra, is silently victimized by the patriarchal structure through its variously ugly manifestations. The second book is subtitled "The Torrents of War". Here we find a completely different character, one who is ready to do anything to stop the war, even if it takes a relationship with a sniper – a symbol of patriarchal war – which ends in her tragic death.

Keywords: war, patriarchy, Al Shaykh, Lebanese civil war, story of Zahra

Suggested Citation

Shihada, Isam M and Shihada, Isam M, Engendering War in Hanan Al Shaykh's 'The Story of Zahra' (December 8, 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2645365

Isam M Shihada (Contact Author)

Department of English Al Aqsa University

Al-Aqsa University

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