Contemporary Oriental Literature: A Feminist Orientation

Abstract

iii Abstract The Age of Colonialism was the hardest in history; it affected and destroyed whole cultures and civilizations and those of the Orient were of no exception. One of the permanent results that this institution left was the feeling of otherness that touched the colonized more than the colonizer and was later worsened to influence the generations that were next to come, and as a response to it; different disciplines and perspectives emerged such as postcolonial studies and theories of criticism. In the Middle East, as one part of the Orient, the latter has given scholars the opportunity to address their issues their own way and for the first time retell history with their own words, something that colonialism has denied them for a very long time. In the contemporary era and on the same vein of thought, female authors started to direct the situations and problems that are peculiar to them as a people and a gender focusing on feminism that is postcolonial which in return differentiates them form the mainstream rest. The aim of this research is to address one of the most common feminist problems in the Middle East, patriarchy; how itis conducted and institutionalized in the contemporary times based on a postcolonial feminist interpretation of Joumana Haddad‟s masterpiece..