The Community of Female Voices in Arab Women Literature :: Fatima Mernissi Arab Culture Cultural Essays

The Community of Female Voices in Arab Women Literature In her memoir, Dreams of Trespass, Fatima Mernissi remembers asking her grandmother Yasmina how one can discern a true story from a false one. The wise old woman, Yasmina, told her granddaughter to relax and not look at life in extreme polarities because "there are things which could be both [true and false] and things which could be neither" (Dreams, 61). "Words are like onions," Yasmina explained further and "the more skins you peel off, the more meanings you encounter" (Dreams, 61). Thus, according to Yasmina, the real power of finding the "true" answer for oneself is to discover "multiplicities of meanings" because then right and wrong become irrelevant (Dreams, 61). Yasmina's image of words as onions can be used in one's understanding of the multilayered complexity of oppression in Arab women literature. Although in some novels, such as The Pillars of Salt and Drams of Trespass, female oppression is an obvious result of social norms, in other texts (In the Eye of the Sun, for example) the main female character, Asya Ulama, seems to be free of any form of social pressure. However, one has to keep in mind that no woman ever stands alone in her oppression, whether it is physical or psychological oppression, or both. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to "peal off all the skins of an onion" or to uncover all the different layers of female oppression presented in the five books: Pillars of Salt, A woman of Five Seasons, A Balcony Over Fakihani, Dreams of Trespass and In the Eye of the Sun. The Feminist Theory The feminist writer, Gloria Anzaldua, argues that in order for silence to "transform into speech, sound and words," the silence must first ‘traverse through our female bodies" (Making, XIII). According to Anzaldua, the female silence is richly layered and it hides important voices which once discovered lead to women's liberation. Many feminist writers would argue that women can only tell their stories when they listen to (and follow) their inner voices. These inner voices are not only singular voices of the "self" but also communal voices that connect women with past and future generations. Thus, if one is to explore the oppression of Muslim women through the work of Arab women novelists, one must keep in mind the multilayered complexity of women's voices, or what I call the "community of

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Essay

Just imagine part of your body being taken away from you†¦scary right? That is exactly what happened to Henrietta Lacks. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot explains who Henrietta was, where she came from, the events that put her in the hospital and eventually killed her, and the legacy she has left in the world of science. Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920. No one knows how she became Henrietta. Her mother, Eliza Lacks Pleasant, died while giving birth. Henrietta’s father, Johnny Pleasant, did not have the patience to raise ten children, so he took them all to live in Clover, Virginia. Henrietta lived with her grandfather and her cousin, David Lacks. Henrietta and David had shared a bedroom since she was four, so it was not a surprise when they started having children together. Henrietta had five children in all: Lawrence, Elsie, Sonny, Deborah, Joe (who later changed his name to Zakariyya). A week before learning she was pregnant with Joe, Henrietta had told some of her cousins that she had a knot inside her. About five months after giving birth she finally went to her doctor. The doctor told her she had better go to the John Hopkins gynecology clinic. Howard Jones said he had seen easily a thousand cervical cancer lesions, but he had never seen anything like what was inside Henrietta. Dr. Jones cut a small sample and sent it to the pathology lab where Mary Kubicek handled the now famous cells. She labeled the culture â€Å"HeLa† for Henrietta and Lacks and then carried them to an incubator room. Four days later, George Gey, the leader of the lab, noticed the cells were growing with mythological intensity and doubled their numbers every twenty-four hours. George Gey told a few of his closest colleges about the magnificent find and gave them some cultures of the â€Å"immortal cells.† Henrietta never knew that her cells had been extracted and placed in labs. She just went on living her life. By September 1951, Henrietta’s body was overtaken with tumors. They had grown on her diaphragm, bladder, and liver. They had blocked her intestines and made her stomach swell. Henrietta knew she would die soon, and she did on October 4, 1951. Henrietta’s family did not find out about her cells being in almost every lab until 1973. Lawrence’s wife, Bobbette, found that her mother-in-law’s cells were taken from a friend’s brother who had recently conducted an experiment with them. Lawrence called Hopkins, but they said that there was no record of patient by the name of Henrietta Lacks. Lawrence, Sonny, Deborah, and Zakariyya tried to avoid all reporters after that. Deborah especially had trouble with what little knowledge she had about her mother’s cells. She constantly had panic attacks and got hives when talking about her mother. One reporter, Rebecca Skloot, continuously asked Deborah to talk, and eventually she gave in. Deborah and Skloot spent a lot of time together after that. They went to the â€Å"home-house† where Henrietta grew up. Rebecca took Deborah and Zakariyya to meet with a lab technician to learn more about their mother’s cells. That was the first time Zakariyya talked openly about his mother and did not get enraged. Rebecca Skloot had promised Deborah two things: to see her mother’s cells and figure out what happened to Henrietta’s sister, Elsie. Rebecca and Deborah went on a road trip to find out any information they could about Elsie. Elsie had been admitted to the Hospital for the Negro Insane because she had epilepsy and was classified as mentally retarded. Rebecca and Deborah had become good friends while they were investigating for information about Henrietta. Rebecca was devastated when she learned Deborah passed away. The author’s purpose in writing this book was to in inform and explain from whom the world famous HeLa cells originated from. Rebecca Skloot stated in the book that when she first heard of the HeLa cells, she was obsessed with them. She intended the book to be seen and read by everyone interested in science. Skloot wrote at times very formally and sometimes very informally. She wanted to capture how Henrietta and her family really communicated. This book really made me start to think. In the wonderful world of science, not always do people actually look behind the blinding facts to see where (or who) the information came from and what lengths it took to gain it. After reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I will now think what people had to do to gain the information I’m learning about. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone. I found it very intriguing and it kept my attention. There were a total of twenty seven photographs in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Every single photo told a story and helped to explain the written words even more vibrantly. Rebecca Skloot also told stories within the big one. She told about Henrietta’s hard life before she passed away. Skloot explained the facts behind why and how she died. The afterword of the book was very factual and had little to do with Henrietta Lacks. It answers the questions â€Å"Wasn’t it illegal for doctors to take Henrietta’s cells without her knowledge?†and â€Å"Don’t doctors have to tell you when they use your cells in research?†. The answer to both questions is no, and the afterword goes into detail about the medical related laws that have been passed for patient privacy and such. Rebecca Skloot’s final purpose to write The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was, I believe, to tell a story of a woman’s incredible part in science and history, which wasn’t even her choice. Henrietta’s story deserved to be told, and Rebecca Skloot did an amazing job telling us about the incredibly brave and immortal Henrietta Lacks.

Supernatural in Shakespeare’s The Tempest And Marlowe’s...

The Supernatural in Shakespeare’s The Tempest And Marlowe’s The Tragical History of D. Faustus The supernatural forces are at once alike and distinct in Shakespeare’s The Tempest and in Marlowe’s The Tragical History of D. Faustus. The supernatural is kind to Prospero and his daughter Miranda in The Tempest, while the devils in Dr Faustus eagerly wait for the day that Faustus would join them in Hell. In both plays, the supernatural provides recurrent waves of sounds and feelings, lending special atmospheric qualities to The Tempest and Dr Faustus. The supernatural serves as a reminder of the hierarchies that exist in both plays, and it also illuminates the human heart, revealing the characters’ thoughts and wishes. Often appearing†¦show more content†¦In Dr Faustus, the supernatural suffuses the story with a gloomy and serious atmosphere. There is stillness to Dr Faustus, unlike the tempestuousness of Shakespeare’s play; as in The Tempest, however, the supernatural invades every corner of Dr Faustus, and Mephastophilis tells Faustus: â⠂¬Å"Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it† (I.iii.80). Where it is not Heaven, it is Hell. Depression settles on Faustus and even on the devils when they realize that Hell is everywhere. As Mephastophilis says, â€Å"Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris†(I.v.42). The devils aim to recruit more lost souls to accompany them in Hell and to expand Lucifer’s dominion, but they are never joyful even when they are successful. There is but dread and suspense when the clock strikes midnight in scene viii – one can see Faustus’ expressions of fear and disbelief, but the supernatural beings do not reveal any emotion. The supernatural only spread a sense of miasmal doom in Dr Faustus. In The Tempest, the supernatural seems to be all-seeing. When Caliban curses Prospero in the opening of II.ii, there is a roar of thunder, as though Prospero’s supernatural servants are warning Caliban to not overstep his boundaries. To say that the supernatural beings are merely spreaders of fear and doom is to overlook their adaptability. The spirits in The Tempest and Dr Faustus also use their powers to create spectacles, masques,Show MoreRelatedElizabethan Era11072 Words   |  45 PagesThe Elizabethan Age is the time period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was an age considered to be the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the full flowering of English literature and English poetry. In Elizabethan theater, William Shakespeare, among others, composed and staged plays in a variety of settings that broke away from Englands past style of plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration