Fear the Conscious: A Review of Woman at Point Zero
I came across this novel back when I was completely ignorant on the idea of women liberation. Safe to say, it was never quite the same ever since.
Consciousness is the first step towards emancipation and self liberation - and this theme, is brilliantly explored by Nawal El Saadawi in her novel Woman at Point Zero. Set mainly in the prison in Qanatir, Egypt, this novels tells a story about a woman named Firdaus, whom Nawal met when she was already conducting a research on neurosis occurring within Egyptian women. With help from a doctor who works in the Qanatir prison, Nawal comes into contact with Firdaus, who is the infamous one even within dozens of prisoners within the prison which, according to the doctor, is one of a kind; who carries in her such peculiarities in which she (Nawal) would never encounter anywhere in every part of the world. Such peculiarities are apparent within Firdaus’s self - like how insistently she refuses to meet every single visitors or how she would ask for pen and paper and then spend hours seemingly without doing a single thing; or even within Firdaus’s surrounding - like how one female warden in the prison, the state apparatus, siding with Firdaus saying that bearer of the actual crime lies within ‘them’ (possibly referring to men in power, both bureaucratically and figuratively,) to the point that when the warden met Nawal for the first time, she shunned her thinking that she, like everybody else, sides with ‘them.’ For days, Firdaus refuses to meet Nawal, even when she is introduced as external doctor, a psychiatry, who has nothing to do with the men in power. It isn’t until the day of her execution, that Firdaus is willing to see Nawal; and thus, the powerful story of Women at Point Zero begins - told from first person perspective; through the eyes of Firdaus, the icon of empowerment, the woman who manage to liberate herself.
Firdaus starts with the story from her childhood - this is also her first encounter with oppression. She grew up in a rural village; under care of poor farmer of a father, who she describes as religious - referring to how he usually pray every Friday morning, and within his groups would later go on praising the Imam and his sermon of virtue; while on the other hand, doing the exact opposite of the virtuous, citing how her father would hit and make her mother a salve in every night and how if opportunity presents itself, he would trade his daughter off a dowry. The mother, she mentions, appears also perhaps as source of her oppression, in which shown in how she circumcises Firdaus’s genital area after she questions about her father. In her childhood memory she also cites her first sexual encounter (or perhaps, sexual violence); first with the boy in her village whom she refers as playing bride and groom - as an embodiment of experience with pleasure, then; with her old uncle, who would at times cope a feel at an area within her thighs, mostly in a forceful manner, robbing all sense of pleasure she once feels when she is with the aforementioned boy, which will continue especially after the death of the parents and she moves with her uncle to Cairo. Yet at the same time, it is also with her uncle whom she feels a lot closer; in which he fills the needs of an adequate superego - something that even the father and the mother could not possibly do.
Upon graduating from school, she finds that she no longer has any place within her uncle’s home. Her uncle’s wife clearly despises her; and she comes up with an idea of marrying (more precisely, sells her off for a sum of money) to Syeikh Mahmoud, the wife’s uncle. Firdaus run away upon knowing this plan, yet, as if bound to cruel chains of fate, she has no choice to go back to her uncle’s home and forced to agree to this idea of marriage. Marriage with Mahmoud is also her next encounter with oppression, in which he frequently abuses her while trying to legitimize that this act of violence is the actual embodiment of religiosity; only a true devotee will he practices violence upon his wife. Once again, Firdaus runs away, but she still cannot free herself from another experience of abuse. This time she meets man named Bayoumi. Despite putting a kind appearance at first; he then also abuses Firdaus and even sells her to his friend. Then, after successfully fleeing from Bayoumi, Firdaus meets Sharifa Salah el Dine, the higher-class prostitute; who then, despite also being the one who is responsible of turning Firdaus into prostitute, also can be regarded as her first encounter with the notion of self worth. Her encounter with Fawzy shortly after also serves as an eye opener; she then again runs away from Sharifa’s place and finds herself strolling in the street - and this is her turning point. In which Firdaus can be said has finally attained certain consciousness: of the streets and an embodiment of freedom, contrary to homes where [respectable] women are constantly abused [by men]; and also how being a prostitute actually let her seize total control over her own body and let her become an actual respectable woman above everything else.
But this self realization again encounters another hurdle. When Firdaus sees a man named Di’aa, he blatantly tells her that she isn’t a respectable woman, in which makes Firdaus once again questions her life. She leaves her occupation as prostitute and finds a job in industrial company. Yet her encounter with fellow coworker changes everything. Told in a similar manner, a repetition of her relationship with her woman teacher in School, Ms. Iqbal, Firdaus then throws herself into the street once more. ‘An accomplished prostitute is better than a perverse religious.’ All prostitutes are the least deluded of all women - and that institutionalized marriage is the cruelest, most evil form of oppression fabricated for women.
By this time, Firdaus has once again regained her consciousness. She understood all along that she despises men; particularly within patriarchal society. All men in her life are the source of oppression, yet at the same time serves as a staple in her leap of consciousness. And women within male perspective are only commodity of desire; in which the cheapest of them is the wives - obtained via marriage, which only serves as legitimate papers concerning ownership of them. Incident with the pimp (and with the prince as well) where she stabs him is also serves as her moment of truth. That it is actually that easy once women attain consciousness to overthrow the source of their oppression.All masters fear their slave; something that Firdaus sees, reflected though the eyes of the pimp. All men in power fear the wrath of liberated women. And that is why Firdaus must be executed. She isn’t guilty of crime of murder; as the female warden states at the start of the story - the murder itself may as well be regarded as a justified crime. Firdaus is guilty of political consciousness; as a woman, on the oppression of men under patriarchy, on the realization of how easy it is to fight back. Firdaus needs to be executed and silenced, over the fear of contagion of an example - in order to maintain the status quo.
Firdaus is free. She has triumphed over all; both the fear of death as well as the desire of living. She welcomes death in fascination, and she will hold her head high.
