Woman at Point Zero

From the book, “Woman at Point Zero,” the narrator of the book is Nawal El Saadawi, who happens to be psychiatrist responsible for interviewing women in prison. Nawal tells an unhappy story of a woman named Firdaus. She is a woman who flees away from her abusive husband and becomes a prostitute. She then changes to be an office worker. Later she decides to change the job and becomes a prostitute again. She also goes to an extent of killing a man who had forced her to accept him as her pimp. The author meets Firdaus as she was about to be prosecuted. In this case, we are going to concentrate on the relationship that Firdaus had with her parent, her education, and her husband.

Firdaus had a strong connection with her mother when she was younger. The eyes of her mother mesmerized, and she saw this as a symbol of connection, safety, security, presence, and support. She remembers when she was learning how to walk and remembers her mother’s eyes as something that could support her. It's these eyes that made her to think that she was being cared for and looked after. This portrayed her mother as an affectionate being. However, this was different as she grew up she began to ask why she could not associate with her father. Her mother sent some women that circumcised her. At this point, she understood that the society she thought of was not similar to that she saw eye to eye with her mother. She saw her mother’s eyes as evils and was no longer a hero she up to (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke).

It’s her mother that made her to undergo Female Genital Mutilation. At this point she realized that sex was only to be pleasurable to her again, it was for men to enjoy. It was at this point that she changed how she viewed her mother and she was no longer a hero to her. She saw her mother as the first person to subject her to body harm. She started fearing her mother and she saw her as a product of tradition, and everyone in the community lacked individualism. She could no longer associate her mother with anything light. She could no longer experience the slightest joy or “light.” Her mother eyes now reflected her depression. Her mother was no longer special; she only practiced inhumanity. Firadaus’ mother was therefore significant for the theme of this story simply, it helps one to be able to understand why Firdaus developed a negative attitude towards her mother. Firdaus was raised without a father, and so she could not be able to understand who her father really was. When she finally managed to ask her mother who how she managed to raise without a father, her mother became very furious. This made her mother to take a knife and she therefore cut a piece of flesh from Firdaus’ thighs, “…a woman who was carrying a small knife or maybe a razor blade. They cut off a piece of flesh from between my thighs” (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 24). Firdaus was not able to sleep that night, due to the pain that she was feeling. This really made to see her mother as an animal and not a human being. Moreover, that action made Firdaus to see herself as a child who was not important and did not deserve anything in this world.

Firdaus relation with her father is distant. Her father represents cultural norms. A man that was always harsh towards women. She did not have a personal connection with her father. She acknowledged that she did not have anyone in relationship with her as a father. Her father did not treat her mother well as he demanded services as a king, “How to bend over the head’s man hand and pretend to kiss it, how to beat his wife and make her bite the dust…(Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 38)”. They had owner-servant relationship. She was also forced to respect him. She experienced “forced respect.” Her father claimed that boys were more important that girls, therefore, deserved more respect. She experienced “Owner-servant relationship” she had a mug in her hands that represented a voice of tradition (Hamam).

After she was sent to her uncle, she felt that education was the only thing that she was left with. She had caring teachers. At one day, Firdaus went to school playground where they cried together with Iqbal as she told her about her past experiences with her mother.  She had her happy years when she immersed her life in books and learning. She was then sent to a boarding school after his uncle married his boss’s daughter. Although her books were sold, she had a better experience at school. She gains reputation of being a bookworm as she could spend most of her time in library. According to her books were more important to her than people. Firdaus was a top performer, and she could therefore emerge as the first student in the class, simply because she worked so hard in order to be like her uncle. She therefore took her studies seriously, a thin which often made to be awarded due to her performance in class, “when I was awarded my primary school certificate he bought me a little wristwatch…(Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 46)” This was the main reason why teachers developed a good relationship with her (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke). Moreover, Firdaus managed to be second best student in the school and the seventh student in the country, after the end of the year exams. She was therefore called before the parents where she was awarded. Firdaus was not only a good performer in school, but she was also determined to work very hard in order to be able to fulfill her dreams of being a doctor in future.

For Firdaus, she had a poor relationship with her husband, Sheikh Mahmoud. Her relationship with “shek mohammed” was different from that of her uncle. His uncle’s wife was a virtuous woman “duty perfect obedience” She disliked the idea of marriage, and she saw it as being cheapest from prostitution. She describes her man as ugly, violent beast and being desperate for her. She sees marriage as a waste of time as she is not paid. Marriage is terrible according to her, and when she sees that she could not handle it, she runs away. She did not have a good relationship with her husband as she was more of a servant instead of being a lover. She describes hands of her husband as “knarled with claws.” This means that she perceived him as a monstrous creature. She bases her experience on marriage with the one she experienced with Shek Mohammed. She doesn’t believe in marriage anymore, and she explains that she could not go back to it. Every man that they had connection with abused her sexually. This was the reason why she missed her father as she he did not sexualize her (Okuyade and Adekoya, 2014). After leaving her husaband, Firdaus walked through the streets with swollen eyes and a bruised face, but no one could pay attention to her. She then went to a coffee shop, since she was feeling very thirsty, she asked for water in the coffee house but the waiter sent her away, telling that the coffee house was not for pasers by. In addition, the waiter told her that the Sayeda Zeinab mausoleum was around the corner, and she could find all the water she needed.

After a short while, the waiter looked at Firdaus for a moment and asked her what had happened to her face, but she was not able to answer, “I tried to say something in reply, but the words would not come so I hid my face… (saʻdāwī, Sharīf & Miriam, 59)” The waiter then walked away after which he brought her a cup full of water, but Firdaus was not able to drink it because her through was swollen. The owner of the coff-shop noticed her and asked her if anyone had hit her, and offered her hot tea. Bayoumi, who was the owner of the hotel took her into his house, where the two lived peacefuly untill she asked Bayouni to help her find a job. Bayouni slapped on the face, and then hit her on the stomach with his fist and she fell unconscious. One day she finally managed to escape from Bayoumi’s house and went running into the street where she met a woman by the name Sharifa. Sharifa told that she needed to value herself in order for men to value her. Within no time, she moved into Sharifa’s house where she started working as a prostitute.

Firdaus was forced by circumstances to become a prostitute, she had not planned to be a prostitute. Her dream was to become a doctor, since she was a top performer while in high school. She worked so hard and managed to get a secondary school certificate after the completion  of  her studies. After completing her studies, things did not go as she thought they could have gone. Her uncle married her off to an old man, who was as old as Firdaus father. Firdaus could not be able to withstand the way her was stinking. This made her to wish she was had not been married by the man (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 58). In addition, she felt abandoned while living with her husband, since her husband was a person who woud always be negative even if Furdaus did the right thing. This therefore led to the theme of marriage and violence, whereby Firdaus was beaten by her husband making her face to swell. She therefore ran to her uncles place but she was sent back by her uncle to her husbands house.

The theme of marriage violence is therefore signficant in the deveploment of this story, since it allows us to be able to understand why Firdaus could not be able to stay with her husband for long. Most women were used to being beaten by their husband, and so they remained loyal to their husbands. Moreover, Firdaus’ mother was usually beaten by her father and she never walked out of that marriage. Firdaus could not be able to tolerate her husbands beating and so she opted to run away (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 102). The flow of events in the novel consequently depicts Firdaus as a girl who is always in trouble, in that wherever se goes to, things turn out to be worse than she had come from. As Firdaus moves to the coffee shop, she allowed by Bayoumi to stay in his house, whereby Bayoumi treates her very and he does not even lay a finger on her. In this instance, Firdaus seems to be naïve, and she therefore starts demanding that Bayoumi helps her to get a job. Bayoumi is not impressed by Firdaus’ move and he therefore gets provoked ending up slapping her. Firdaus believes that all men are supposed to treat her well, and they are supposed to help her in whatever she wants to get. Due to naivity and hypocrisy, she belives in every person she meets.

The relationship between Bayoumi and Firdaus was so good, bearing in mind that Bayoumi took care of Firdaus after she had been badly beaten by her husband. Firdaus did not have a place to go to, and to her, Bayoumi was more like an angle. Bayoumi had allowed a total stranger into his house, after her realized that Firdaus had no parents, this therefore made him to allow her into his two roomed house (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 103). What Firdaus was patients, she could be able to wait until she could get a good job, she therefore started pushing Bayoumi of his limits, making him to react by beating her, and even locking her in the house as he left for work. Bayoumi had a hidden agenda towards Firdaus, and what Firdaus did not understand was that Bayoumi now owned her. Firdaus could not therefore be able to make her own decisions.

Firdaus finally ran away and met Sharifa, an old woman who taught her about prostitution, the lady taught her the importance of valuing oneself. Sharifa told her that she was being beaten by other men simply because she did not respect herself. Sharifa therefore lured Firdaus into becoming a prostitute, where she enjoyed sleeping with men for money, Now she could be able to cater for her bills, she could also be able to sleep wit men who had clean finger nails, as opposed to her husband’s which were black. In addition, she enjoyed the sexual pleasure (Saʻdāwī, Ḥatātah and Cooke, 104). One day she met a man who told her that she could not be respect since she was a prostitute, this made her to feel humiliated, a move which made her to look for an ordinary job and she therefore quitted prostitution. After getting an office job, she enjoyed her work even though she earned very little money as opposed to the money she earned fro  prostitution. Firdaus therefor realized that she hated men when she met Marzouk, a man who want to marry her force. Marzouk had decided to enslave her, through taking her salary and controlling each and everything she did. He would also threaten her, a move which made her to kill him, landing Firdaus in prison.