A Reading in -Arab Women Writers: An Anthology Of Short Stories - - Part Two

In this part of the anthology, the six short stories discuss love, sexuality, jealousy, deception and shyness as seen by Arab women. The theme of the pictures seems repetitive and dominating in the subconscious of women writers.

In “The Picture” by The Egyptian author Nawal Al-Saadawi, we read on the hidden admiration of a young girl for her family’s young maid, but she was always afraid of the picture of her father, her most feared god, the one she adores more than the invisible God he asked her to worship. She was afraid of him, proud of him, and submissive to him in the same time. He forced her to quit studying, not to go outside, not to look from the shutters, and to pray and made ablutions before to have noble dreams, until she discovered his truth, and the picture of her most feared god fall. At that difficult moment, she dared to scratch his picture, which she dare not look --dir--ectly to it before.

In “The picture” by the Egyptian author Latifa Al-Zayyat, we read on a family composed of the parents and a little boy--;-- and how a woman feels jealous when her husband looks at another woman, and consider that as impending threat. She tries to remove her from his sight, to deem her as a cheap woman, and regret at once her marriage to him. The story is so realistic and expressive, and shows how men usually consider women’s freedom attractive, but refuse them for their own wives, may be because they are afraid of free women. Finally, she took a picture with her husband, to show that lady – most possibly unaware of that feverish hatred to her inside the wife’s heart – but she regrets that at last, and torn up the picture because love cannot be gained by force,´-or-imposed.

In “The Picture” by The Kuwaiti author Layla Al-Uthman, we read on a forty-five year old woman celebrating her birthday, and wonder if her husband did that out of love,´-or-to remind her that she is getting older. She compared between her lost youth, and his young look despite being older than she is. This story shows us the worries of women when they get older. She decided to deceive him, and to find a lover, who might care for her beauty, but she could not think of any. The next day she met an elderly woman in the market, she remembered seeing her somewhere! Finally, she remembered her son’s letter, which was accompanied by the picture of that woman. She remembered her words on regretting that experience of having sex with that elderly woman--;-- and how he had irrigated a dead land, so she gives us all her thoughts.

In “The smile” by The Tunisian author Nafila Dhahab, we read about secret one-sided love, and how the young girl embraced the smile of her lover, and spread it everywhere, till she discovered after years that he had lost him mind because of the war, and that she would never know if he was loving her´-or-not.

In “My mother’s friend” by the Egyptian author Nura Amin, we can read about an issue rarely discussed in this part, which is homosexuality, and how a young girl did not realize what her mother did with that lady when her father is away, and why she prevented her from talking to her at the same time.

In “A Worthless woman” by the Moroccan author Hayat Bin Al-Shaykh, we read about a woman whose lover asked her to give him everything, and if not he called her “abnormal” and “crazy”. The love described here is so submissive, and made the woman feels worthless and desperate. I did not like such submission and lack of confidence.

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