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400401

A Postcolonial Feminist Study of Suzanne Staples’ <i>Under the Persimmon Tree</i> (2005) and Samar Yazbek’s <i>The Crossing</i> (2015)

Article

Last updated: 30 Dec 2024

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Abstract

The paper presents a critical approach to the Western colonial discourse in representing non‐Western issues, especially the question of third-world Muslim women in Syria and Afghanistan in Suzanne Staples' Under the Persimmon Tree (2005) and Samar Yazbek's The Crossing (2015). Both texts show how women are silenced, marginalized, oppressed, and victimized through culture, history, and geography and how they manage to react and defend their identity to achieve survival and freedom through resistance. The study also highlights the close affinity between displacement and trauma, which affects third-world women's behaviours and actions. The paper examines the consequences of postcolonial intersectionality of gender, class, and religion that faces third-world Muslim women. While Staples introduces those women's stereotyped and subordinated images from a Western perspective, Yazbek reforms the traditional images of the oppressed Syrian women. The paper investigates how each author reconstructs the experiences of the marginalized voices of women through different narrative techniques, such as reconnecting memories in Yazbek's memoir and the transition from one narrator to another in Staples' novel. Finally, the study asserts the importance of the West's understanding of Third World culture, so as not to result in a misunderstanding or misappreciation of Islamic societies' religious or social backgrounds. Following a historical and analytical approach, the paper introduces a brief history of postcolonial feminism, followed by a discourse analysis of both texts in a socio-cultural and religious context.

DOI

10.21608/ttaip.2024.400401

Keywords

postcolonial feminism, Staples’ <i>Under the Persimmon Tree</i>, Yazbek’s <i>The Crossing</i>, Double Colonization, displacement and trauma, identity crisis

Authors

First Name

Asmaa

Last Name

Youssef

MiddleName

Ahmed

Affiliation

English Department, Higher Institute of Languages, Mansoura, Egypt.

Email

asmaayoussef447@yahoo.com

City

ElBehiera

Orcid

-

Volume

6

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

52493

Issue Date

2024-12-01

Receive Date

2024-05-16

Publish Date

2024-12-15

Page Start

192

Page End

209

Print ISSN

2636-4069

Online ISSN

2735-3451

Link

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/article_400401.html

Detail API

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=400401

Order

400,401

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,357

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Textual Turnings: An International Peer-Reviewed Journal in English Studies

Publication Link

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A Postcolonial Feminist Study of Suzanne Staples’ <i>Under the Persimmon Tree</i> (2005) and Samar Yazbek’s <i>The Crossing</i> (2015)

Details

Type

Article

Created At

30 Dec 2024