Thesis (MA) - Cyprus International University. Institute of Graduate Studies and Research English Language and Literature Department

Includes bibliography (sheets 84-87)

ABSTRACT
As a bearer and messenger of culture throughout the ages, literature is a pivotal starting
point to study the ideologies within a society. In this research, a qualitative study will
be conducted to show how works of literature embody patriarchal attitudes and
practices in different societies. The primary emphasis of applying the feminist
criticism to the chosen literary texts is to highlight the struggles of female characters.
This research will apply the feminist literary theory to consider the women experience
in two different novels: Wide Sargasso Sea by the Dominican-British author Jean Rhys
and Damascus Bitter Sweet by Ulfat Idilbi, an Arabic translated novel, to draw
connections and differences on the oppression female protagonists and other female
characters undergo, the violence inflicted on them, and their methods of resistance to
the patriarchy. In Western philosophy, the base of feminism is the certainty of an
existence of gender inequality that views women as inferior to men. Therefore, this
research also investigates power-based relations, gender discrimination and infringing
women’s identity in a cross-cultural context. This aims to elaborate and compare how
this gender inequality appear in two diverse literary works, exposing how literature
can reflect human existence and values in different societies. The comparative analysis
of both novels is supported by a comparative literature review that focuses on feminist
ideas to foreground women’s arduous lives and records the struggle and abuse they’ve
been through. It was found out that both patriarchal societies imposed limitations on
the female protagonists according to the interrelated liberal, radical, and social ideas
of feminism. Because of defying those limitations, the protagonists, Sabriya, and
Antoinette, as well as other female characters, were marginalized, exploited, and
disempowered, and they faced psychological, financial, and physical and sexual
oppression to protect the power dynamics set by the patriarchy.
Keywords: Damascus Bitter Sweet, Feminist Literary Theory, Gender roles,
Oppression, Power dynamics, Resistance, Wide Sargasso Sea