“Audacity” in the Representation of “Intimacy” in Malika Mokeddem’s The Forbidden Woman (1993) and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) A Comparative Study
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Date
2017-12
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Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation is a comparative study of the two novels The Awakening (1899) written by the American writer Kate Chopin and The Forbidden Woman (1993) by the Algerian Francophone author Malika Mokeddem. The research topic explores ‘the audacity of Kate Chopin and Malika Mokeddem in the representation of the intimacy in their selected novels. In both narratives, the female narrators reveal a part of their intimacy and sexual life. In fact, describing intimate relations between man and woman was to challenge the phallocentric rules that are based on the mechanism of honor, and modesty that limit woman’s liberty in the society. Both Chopin and Mokeddem have used writing as a means to revolt against the phallocentric rules that control the feminine body and assign to the woman a passive gendered identity. Therefore, the main concern in this dissertation is to find whether Mokeddem and Chopin, as feminist authors succeeded in freeing themselves from an assigned gendered identity through audacious writing about the intimacy? For the theory, it’s relevant to use Héléne Cixous’s ‘Ecriture Feminine’ introduced in her book The Laugh of the Medusa (1975). The theorist urges women to deconstruct the patriarchal system that are governed by the phallocentric laws to recuperate their bodies and affirm their identity. Their audacity to write about intimacy and the feminine sexuality is a means to express their rebellion and their perpetual quest to liberate the woman’s body physically, morally and sexually.
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55p.;30cm.(+cd)
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Comparative Literature