Pillars of Salt, A Woman of Five Seasons and A Balcony Over the Fakihani :: Pillars Salt Seasons Balcony Fakihani Papers

Pillars of Salt, A Woman of Five Seasons and A Balcony Over the Fakihani missing works cited â€Å"Maha, sister, my life is like candy-floss; fluffy and full from the outside, empty like this damned hospital room from the inside. And they called the candy-floss ‘girls-curls.’ It was like my life. A girl’s life. A fluffy lie for half a piaster. Ya-la-la.† (Faqir, 19) To many eyes, the women’s liberation movement in the Middle East is nothing more than a mere faà §ade. The solidification of women’s rights in writing means very little when actually put into play, women still continue to be trampled on in all walks of life, behind closed doors and tinted windows. This is especially true of the three novels: Pillars of Salt, A Woman of Five Seasons and A Balcony Over the Fakihani. In these stories, women have earned little or nothing of their God given rights and continue to remain silent behind the false protection and ordinance of the law. True, the circumstances surrounding the equality of women have improved compared to what they once were, but even the most simple of things which Western women take for granted are thorns in the sides of Middle Eastern women. The authors of these books do their best to expose the injustices put upon women that the public rarely sees, even in the light of modernity. It is in these novels that we see how little the women’s liberation movement has done for these â€Å"real† women, these women made of flesh and blood who are still largely insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Rape as a Model of Society One of the most obvious disguises of inequality is the rape of Nasra in the first novel Pillars of Salt. Rape is very much illegal and yet it happens and happens openly. Maha’s mind races when Nasra tells her that she has been raped, we can see how the society view women who have lost their virginity through rape, â€Å"My friend had lost her virginity, her honor, her life. She was nothing now. No longer a virgin, absolutely nothing. A piece of flesh. A cheap whore. (Faqir, 11) This sums up what society thinks of a woman who has dishonored herself and it seems that once this has happened, there is no hope or chance of one ever redeeming herself. This is the fate of Nasra and the fate of all women.