Ogbeide

Greener Journal of Agricultural Sciences Vol. 3 (1), pp.027-032, January 2013

Research Paper

Manuscript Number:111212259

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15580/GJAS.2013.1.111212259

Behind the Hidden Face of Eve: Alifa Rifaat’s Distant View of a Minaret as a Metaphor

Ogbeide O. Victor

Department of English and Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts, Ekiti State University,

Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Email: ogbeide_v @ yahoo.com

Abstract:

This paper is an imaginative flight, with Alifa Rifaat as guide, to the closed world of the typical Muslim woman living in a patriarchal Muslim society. Behind her veil of invisibility lie her silent pains, sexual dissatisfaction and emotional anguish which are often male-inflicted in their chauvinistic ambition to continue to oil the machinery of patriarchy; an institution that has attracted many unislamic accretions and man made oppressive anti-woman practices over the years. Her reflection of the women as voiceless and powerless in deference to the status quo notwithstanding, the paper contends that by “daring” to portray many of the norms and attitudes related to women in her society, Rifaat has contributed in no small measure to widening the frontiers of women liberation struggle all over the world.

Keywords: Patriarchal, Muslim, Society, Feminism, Veil, Metaphor, invisibility.

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