La femme Maghrebine dans les romans de Tahar Ben Jelloun: The Maghrebian woman in the works of Tahar Ben Jelloun

This thesis examines the controversial depiction of the Moslem women's plight in a male orientated culture such as Morocco in three novels of the Goncourt prize-winning Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun. The implications of a man writing as a woman will be one of the focal points of the arguments. The first chapter proposes a typological division of the most salient female characters presented in the three novels. The characters are examined in terms of their mental and social progression. Products of a society which balances between two extremes, they pave the way for the birth of a new type of woman, symbolised by the figure of the Androgyne. The second part of this analysis sets out to define the place of the word in the construction of a national and international culture. Tahar Ben Jelloun, being a Moroccan writing in French, contributes to this search to find a culture containing both a national Moroccan heritage as well as international standing with the use of the French language. iii The third chapter deals with the dual French and Moroccan realities observed in the novels, looking specifically at the consequences of colonialism and immigration. The challenge of schooling and the influence of the western consciousness on the eastern mind are examined at length. The fourth and final chapter explores the similarities between several feminist criticisms and Tahar Ben Jelloun' s novels. The absence of a formal male feminist theory leaves an empty space which is discussed at length. The objective of this study is to integrate Tahar Ben Jelloun 's novels (in the larger context of Maghrebian novels) in the contemporary movement toward cultural reconstruction. Tahar Ben Jelloun has defined a dual voice (the Androgyne), whose essential quality is to strive towards cultural unity.

Grantor

French Language and Literature

Year dc:date.issued

1995

Author dc:creator

• Bakhshandegi, Djam

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Salazar, Philippe

• French Language and Literature

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/40654

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/40654