My entire body is quivering as I have just turned the last page of Nawal El Saadawi's book Woman at Point Zero. The author, Nawal El Saadawi, is the narrator, retelling Firdau's story based on an interview conducted within the walls of a dark cold prison. Saadawi blurs the line between herself and Firdau as if she has become the woman on death row. By aligning herself with Firdau, telling her story from her mouth, and crawling into her skin left me with the eerie feeling that even I could become Firdau. Saadawi "died the moment her (Firdau) eyes looked into mine" which is when she sacrifices herself to Firdau's story, and steps down as the dominating voice (7). Saadawi begins sleepwalking into Firdau's life, falling away as the narrator, and slipping into dark waters not knowing how to swim (8).
I woke abruptly to Firdau's voice on the next page demanding, "Let me speak" (9). Along with Saadawi, I found myself transformed into the new narrator, Firdau. The potent experience of her story is possible because of this transformation, and the simple fact, "This is the story of a real woman" (1). Over time the "I" and "me" become me, the reader, and I start to feel as though I'm reading a long forgotten journal I buried in a deep and far away place.
I further became Firdau as she narrated from behind her two eyes looking out into the world. She described the streets, various eyes peering into her, the texture of her clothing, and her life philosophies putting me in her dirty scratchy dress looking out from her "black eyes, with a sparkle that attracted other eyes like a magnet" (58). Saadawi strategically wrote from a static positionally never describing how the men felt molesting or raping Firdau, or how the woman felt when she circumcised her. No matter how hard I tried to escape Firdau's point of view Saadawi wouldn't let me.
I looked forward to Firdau's rebirths, and I applauded her ability to see her life with new eyes, in a new light, or free of another veil being ripped away. Each rebirth was a new entrance into Firdau's character allowing me to stay in her skin throughout the story. Her rebirth into "a new body, smooth and tender as a rose petal" was a much needed and temporary sigh of relief (57). When she tore, "the mask away, and exposed the face of their ugly reality" I felt her freedom welling up inside me (110). I knew she was to become a martyr, but because her point of view was so thoroughly explained I knew that she would find freedom in death and I wanted to cheer because she had won.
Saadawi slyly solidified the illusion that she and I had become Firdau when the same query is found scrawled across the front and back of the book, "And who said that to kill does not require gentleness?" (2, 108). I find myself cemented in Firdau's shoes, and contemplating if I could kill, would I have killed Marzouk, the pimp as she did?
Welcome to the Blog for Craft of Creative Non-Fiction at Mills, English 226, Fall 2011. Here is where you write your reader responses for the books we are reading this semester. These responses examine the scaffolding of the book in regards to presence and identity of the narrator. Don't forget to respond to your colleagues' blogs as well.
Travelpants...who are you? :)
ReplyDeleteIn "response" to your last question, about whether you would be able to kill if you were in Firdaus' shoes, I was just remembering the moment where she wonders, "Why was it that I had never stabbed a man before?" (104) I thought, "Yes!"...as if killing men should have been the most natural thing for her to do. And, once she kills Marzouk and goes to jail, she says, "They know as long as I am alive they will not be safe, that I shall kill them." She doesn't just one man. She also admits that if she wasn't in jail she would kill others.
Margaret, please sign your blog since your name is not obvious, thanks. The comment about gentlesness stayed with mme too and it is repeated at the beginning and the end. There is a great sense that we can't really predict the character.
ReplyDeleteI would have love more elaboration on the rebirths!
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