The life of Dr.

Nawal el-Saadawi, the well-known Egyptian physician, feminist, author, and

psychiatrist, has been a constant uphill battle for the past four decades. Since the
publication of her first novel, Mudhakkirdt Tabibah (1958; translated as Memoirs of a
Woman Doctor, 1988) until the present, she has been under attack by, it seems, everyone
from local politicians and religious figures to readers and literary critics.

Story of the novel, Woman at Point Zero

The novel relates the story of Firdaus (a common name in Arab countries meaning
paradise), a woman who has been sentenced to die for killing a man, as told to a fictional
narrator who visits her in the jail in which she is awaiting execution.

Story within story

Firdaus' story is one of constant suffering and struggle against a society that oppresses her
at every stage in her life. She is born to a lower-class peasant family, abused by her father,
and suffers clitoridectomy when she is young (an experience that does not leave her for the
rest of her life). She is then married off to an older man whom she cannot stand, and
repeatedly betrayed and raped (both physically and emotionally) by different characters in
the novel.

Although she manages to earn a secondary school certificate, she is hardly given the
chance to put it to good use by a society that refuses to see her as anything other than a
body that is meant to exist for the sole pleasure of men. As a result, and perhaps in an
effort to gain some power, Firdaus eventually turns to prostitution. Yet-not unlike every
other instance in her life where she attempts to gain some independence-Firdaus' efforts
are halted by a pimp who attempts to control her life, abuse her, and steal her money. In a
case of self-defense, she eventually kills the pimp and is sentenced to die for her actions.

Style of novel

The novel is written in a multi-framed narrative style. The narrative in this novel seems
hallucinatory, establishing a tone that differs from the realism that one may expect at the
beginning. In one of the narrative frames, the reader is presented with two women, Firdaus
and the narrator, who find themselves in a confined space. Yet it is not long before the
narrative of one of them succeeds in going beyond space, taking the narrator on a journey
that resembles a dream.

Frame narrative A story in which another story is enclosed or embedded as a 'tale within
the tale', or which contains several such tales.
Importance of frame narrative

At first glance, it may seem that the frame narrator is present solely to mystify and
construct an audience for Firdaus' narrative. Yet, her role becomes more essential when
one attempts to study the relationship between Firdaus and herself.

The relationship between the narrator and Firdaus has been seen by Barbara Harlow as a
way to preserving "authorial distance ... by means of which the writer is able to
interpret the woman's individuality as politically significant" (Resistance Literature,
New York: Methuen, 137).

Harlow sees Woman at Point Zero as a novel that "merges the requirements of fiction and
narrative form with the historical and sociological demands of biography. There is a
parallel relationship between narrator Firdous and that between el-Saadawi and the 'real'
Firdaus whom she had met in 1973 while researching neurosis in Egyptian women.

Firdous insistence not to write

Firdaus's refusal to interview the writer in the beginning of the novel implicates her
established sense of illusionary reality. The concept of "writing" also plays an important
part in this novel. From the very beginning, Firdaus' view of 'writing' as a means to
promulgate lies and deceit is established:

Each time I picked up a newspaper and found the picture of a man who was one of
them [kings, princes, and rulers], I would spit on it. I knew I was only spitting on a
piece of newspaper which I needed for covering the kitchen shelves. Nevertheless, I
spat, and then left the spit where it was to dry. (11)

Such actions on Firdaus' part may help to explain her initial refusal to allow her story to be
written down. Because of the way she views writing in newspapers, because any
expression in writing evokes photos of famous men in newspapers, Firdaus does not want
to be implicated in the writing project herself.

Through writing, Firdaus' victory becomes more pronounced, for her story will serve not
only as a permanent example to all women but also as a means of using the colonizer's
tools against him, of "writing back" against the oppressor.

Negative criticism purported by Tarabishi against the character of Firdaus

Upon seeing a photo of one of the men she despises in the newspaper, Firdaus-in addition
to spitting on it-fills with a desire to "lift [her] hand and bring it smashing down on his
face," adding that "they know as long as I am alive they will not be safe, that I shall kill
them. My life means their death." Instead of interpreting such statements as a cry by the
oppressed against the oppressor, critics such as Tarabishi, who states that "it goes without
saying that 'them' refers to men" (17) have regarded them as attempts on Firdaus' part "to
challenge the biological laws of nature" (Tarabishi 17). In Untha didd al-untha, Tarabishi
states: Thus Firdaus is a fighter, and her battlefield is the two sexes. Her slogan is that,
far from complementing each other, the sexes actually repel each other, like the
Manichean principles of good and evil. It is a war without truce and without exception.
(17)

Such gross misinterpretations of Firdaus' behavior and views shows that he refuses to see
in Firdaus anything but a "prostitute and murderer’.

Oppression of body

Firdaus' body is central to the narrative and comes to represent different things at various
parts of the novel.

It is central in her quest for an identity and is often written as a certain kind of loss (for
example, her clitoridectomy). Eyes are also a part of the body that is constantly
reemphasized within the narrative. At recurring moments in Firdaus' life, she is the object
of somebody else's gaze. Yet, for her, not all gazes are of the same kind. There seems to be
two kinds of gazes in the novel: Firdaus' mother's, which one may initially associate with
tenderness, and the lovers', which are dangerous and threatening to her survival. Yet, as
the constant recalling of eyes and looks occurs, one notes that all eyes, all gazes, seem to
mesh. Even the nurturing eyes of her mother, or those of Miss Iqbal, come to represent
points of illusionary happiness that always precede the moment of betrayal. Various gazes
and momentary happiness become therefore the norm in the life of a woman who is
continuously disappointed and abused.

Space / identity crisis

Firdaus is thus a woman without a home, without a support network, and in search of her
identity. Firdaus has been shown as a character whose freedom is associated with death in
a patriarchal Middle East society.

Throughout the novel, she cannot seem to find a space in which to belong. She leaves
domestic space early in her life, never to return. In addition, her marriage reinforces the
notion that, for her, home comes to represent an oppressive space. Upon her escape, she
establishes a new space for the novel-the streets.

There are recurring descriptions of the streets in Cairo which slowly become Firdaus' new
home. Although they do not provide her with safety or shelter-turning her instead into the
victim of various gazes and dangers-the streets are still the only space in the novel where
she feels some kind of freedom. Firdaus therefore goes outside of the traditional space
that is assigned to (Arab) women.