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233767

A Journey Towards Embracing Ethnicity and Otherness in Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdul-Fattah

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Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

    In Does My Head Look Big in This? Randa Abdul-Fattah explores the world of young people and to where their mentality turns. Of the many ideas handled in the novel, my paper underlines the attitude of young adult female Muslim minority towards the recurring "otherizing" images associating Muslims with terrorism: the West sees that Muslim men impose and exercise their patriarchal authority over subordinated passive Muslim women. Hijab epitomizes Eastern backwardness, oppression, otherness, and national insecurity. The novelist resents this defective Orientalist eye reawakened following 9/11events and other terrorist activities. Through her characters, she makes an opposing statement. This paper tackles the issue of the "other" from a pure social perspective. It questions these Western views that otherize the Orient and its women. Also, it brings to light how "otherizing" may be inflicted, as well, upon "white young women" when they break the norms of the "exclusively" Western civilized way of life. The paper aims at conveying a real-life picture of a new-generation of solid young women ready to bear the burden of change. They seek to shape a third Western-Eastern history replacing the oppositional binary West vs. East. Applying the analytic method, four girls in their teens are spotlighted as typifying how women confront challenges and do strive against any suppression of their personalities. Supported with critical approaches of a number of theorists, post-colonial and current, the paper has shown how the  racial superiority is undermined and the Western ideology is refuted and proved futile. It also has indicated that Eastern women enthusiastically re-conceptualize the "other".  

DOI

10.21608/jwadi.2022.233767

Keywords

acceptance, counter narrative, Orientalism, the Other, women struggle

Authors

First Name

Nayera Mohammed

Last Name

Hassan

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts, Minia University, Egypt. Assistant Professor of English Literature, Department of English, Faculty of Arts Jouf University, Saudi Arabia

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Volume

34

Article Issue

34

Related Issue

33545

Issue Date

2022-04-01

Receive Date

2022-04-27

Publish Date

2022-04-01

Page Start

137

Page End

166

Print ISSN

2536-9555

Online ISSN

2682-4582

Link

https://jwadi.journals.ekb.eg/article_233767.html

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https://jwadi.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=233767

Order

4

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

1,243

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

مجلة وادي النيل للدراسات والبحوث الإنسانية والاجتماعية والتربويه

Publication Link

https://jwadi.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A Journey Towards Embracing Ethnicity and Otherness in Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdul-Fattah

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023