Woman at Point Zero - Possession
What is the role of possessions in Woman at Point Zero?
Prostitution – clients/pimps (Sharifa & Marzouk) how they have a price, so in relation to the clients they are treated as merchandise, whereas for the pimps that are assets – paying a form of ‘tax’ to them in order to obtain protection but are they really?
Prostitution is one of the major roles of possessions in Woman at Point Zero, as prostitution is all do with power through out the novel, and who has it. Prostitution is in every culture but it varies, in Nawal El Saddawi’s Woman at Point Zero it illustrates how prostitution the ways in which women are victims to men, but also that women who choose to be prostitutes is a way to find freedom from sex work. This book is set around the 1960’s, Egypt. Firdaus, the heroine of the novel goes from being a child who is sexually abused by her uncle, to a married woman, to a prostitute, then to work in an office, then back to a prostitute. In the end of the novel the heroine come to the realization that women in Egypt are oppressed no matter what. She believes that all women are on kind or another prostitute. Throughout the novel having clients and pimps are how they have a price for the human body, which was the standard in Egypt at this time, prostitution was very common at this time. There is a very thin line between being a prostitute and having a pimp. The novel is also narrated in first person while she explains her life, intending to capture the power Firdaus had over her own story of her life. And they way she wanted to explain it and the emotions that she felt at the time.
Firdaus escapes her husband Sheikh Mahmoud, and had met Sharifa a high-class prostitute, even though at first Firdaus believes that Sharifa is showing her how to have beauty and strength, she soon realizes that is really showing her these things to become more appealing to men, and to sell Firdaus’s body. “… like the fingers of the man who lay by my side. His nails, too, were
Prostitution – clients/pimps (Sharifa & Marzouk) how they have a price, so in relation to the clients they are treated as merchandise, whereas for the pimps that are assets – paying a form of ‘tax’ to them in order to obtain protection but are they really?
Prostitution is one of the major roles of possessions in Woman at Point Zero, as prostitution is all do with power through out the novel, and who has it. Prostitution is in every culture but it varies, in Nawal El Saddawi’s Woman at Point Zero it illustrates how prostitution the ways in which women are victims to men, but also that women who choose to be prostitutes is a way to find freedom from sex work. This book is set around the 1960’s, Egypt. Firdaus, the heroine of the novel goes from being a child who is sexually abused by her uncle, to a married woman, to a prostitute, then to work in an office, then back to a prostitute. In the end of the novel the heroine come to the realization that women in Egypt are oppressed no matter what. She believes that all women are on kind or another prostitute. Throughout the novel having clients and pimps are how they have a price for the human body, which was the standard in Egypt at this time, prostitution was very common at this time. There is a very thin line between being a prostitute and having a pimp. The novel is also narrated in first person while she explains her life, intending to capture the power Firdaus had over her own story of her life. And they way she wanted to explain it and the emotions that she felt at the time.
Firdaus escapes her husband Sheikh Mahmoud, and had met Sharifa a high-class prostitute, even though at first Firdaus believes that Sharifa is showing her how to have beauty and strength, she soon realizes that is really showing her these things to become more appealing to men, and to sell Firdaus’s body. “… like the fingers of the man who lay by my side. His nails, too, were