A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE MODERN AND LOWER-CLASS FEMALE CHARACTERS IN MAHFOUZ S MIDAQ ALLEY AND FITZGERALD S THE GREAT GATSBY

The current study attempts to demonstrate transformation and change in the conditions of oppression of women within the patriarchal society under the influence of the dominant discourse of modernism during the first half of the twentieth century. On the basis of a comparative reading of the two novels, namely F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Naguib Mahfouz’s Zuqāq al-Midaq(1947) [Midaq Alley (1966)], the study intends to compare and contrast women’s experience in both Eastern and Western society following the two world wars. Resistance against patriarchal society was one of the most significant issues that were confronted with different female perceptions. To fulfill this aim, the present study benefits from the American school of comparative literature (especially theories of Wellek and Abood) as the theoretical framework through which these similarities and differences would be investigated. With the application of Simone De Beauvoir’s and Christine Delphy feminist theories as paradigms of western feminism and those of Nawal El Saadawi s and Qasim Amin’s as paradigms of Arab feminism, the study reveals the impact of the economic and social status of women upon woman’s oppression as well.

Keywords:

patriarchy , women’s oppression , second wave feminism , comparative literature , The Great Gatsby , Midaq Alley