AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 7, Number 1. February 2023 Pp.301-312
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol7no1.22
Subverting the Binary Oppositions concerning Female Agency in Alameddine’s An
Unnecessary Woman
Noritah Omar
Modern Languages and Communication Faculty, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang Malaysia
Assia Alhasan
Modern Languages and Communication Faculty, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang Malaysia
Corresponding Author: a.alhasan@ut.edu.sa
Zainor Izat Zainal
Modern Languages and Communication Faculty, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang Malaysia
Ida Baizura Bahar
Modern Languages and Communication Faculty, University Putra Malaysia,
Serdang Malaysia
Received: 11/26/2022 Accepted: 02/18/2023 Published 02/26/2023
Abstract:
This study explores woman’s agency in Alameddine’s fiction, An Unnecessary Woman (2013) concerning the normative state of agency in a communal structure that controls women’s behaviors and wishes set by suppression. The current study uses the deconstruction theory of French post-structuralists Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous, taken from a feminist perspective, which undermines gender dichotomies and interrupts “the unquestionable truth” in Western philosophy. In short, Rabih Alameddine’s fiction reveals the misconceptions about – and misrepresentations of – Arab women in contemporary Arab American fiction and disrupts the binary opposition which resembles the backbone of patriarchy.
Keywords: agency, binary, deconstruction, feminism, hélène cixous, jacques derrida, oppositions, rabih Alameddine
Cite as: Omar, N., Alhasan, A., Zainal, Z. I., & Bahar, I. B. (2023). Subverting the Binary Oppositions concerning Female Agency in Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 7 (1). 301-312.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol7no1.22
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