Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Woman at Point Zero, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Pervasive Sexism and Oppression
Prostitution and Transactional Relationships
Fear and Survival
Religious Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
Firdaus narrates: she states that she will speak uninterrupted, since the men are coming to execute her this very evening. By tomorrow, she’ll be in whatever life comes after. She prides herself on going to this “place unknown.” Firdaus has been searching her whole life for something to be proud of, something that would make her “superior” to men. Every man she has known only makes her want to strike them. Whenever Firdaus sees their pictures in the newspaper, she spits on them. She was a successful prostitute, though she did not know all men. But she knew many. She hid her fear of them behind expensive makeup. Her clothing and makeup are upper class. Her education is middle class. Her birth makes her lower class.
Before Firdaus even begins describing her earliest years, she summarizes the major themes of her life. Her desire to strike men suggests that she harbors a deep anger toward the entire sex. Firdaus’s description of her life as prostitute suggests that sexuality will play a predominate role in her story. The suggestion that she appears upper-class despite her lower-class birth suggests that classism and money will also have significant impact on her life.
Themes
When Firdaus is growing up, her father is a poor farmer. He doesn’t know how to read or write, only how to steal crops, beat his wife, sell his daughter for a dowry, or sell a dying animal as if it is healthy. Each Friday he goes to the mosque to pray, and afterward he walks with his friends discussing virtue and honor and “invoking Allah’s name.” Firdaus sees her father walking with his friends while she carries water, but they all look so similar to each other that she doesn’t know which is her father.
Firdaus’s father’s behavior displays both pervasive sexism and religious hypocrisy rampant in Egyptian society. While it might be tempting to see Firdaus’s father and his bad behavior as an outlier, Firdaus’s inability to distinguish between her father and other men suggests that he is an everyman, and such behavior is ubiquitous in their society.
Themes
When Firdaus has not yet reached puberty, her mother brings a woman who cuts off “a piece of flesh from between [Firdaus’s] thighs.” Firdaus cries all night. Her mother used to send her to the fields, where she and a young boy named Mohammadain eagerly sneak away to play “bride and bridegroom”—Firdaus lays down and Mohammadain reaches his hands up her dress until she feels a “sharp pleasure.” But now her mother keeps her home to make bread. As Firdaus kneels, kneading dough between her knees, her gown rides up her legs. Her uncle, reading behind her, slowly reaches his hand up her thigh and under her gown, like Mohammadain. Her uncle goes further than Mohammadain, but Firdaus no longer feels the “sensation of pleasure,” though she closes her eyes and tries to remember where it came from.
Although never explicitly named, Firdaus experiences female circumcision, often described as genital mutilation by those who oppose the practice. Female circumcision typically involves removing a woman’s clitoris, thus removing much of the pleasurable sensation from sex. This is widely condemned as a brutal and sexist practice, used to repress women’s sexuality. Firdaus is circumcised before she even understands what it means, and she is given no say in the matter. This forced and permanent mutilation of her own developing body demonstrates that she has no agency in a society that heavily oppresses women.
Themes
Firdaus’s uncle visits during holidays from Cairo, where he attends the university, El Azhar. He teaches Firdaus how to read and write and he sings to her, and tells her about life in the city. Whenever he has to leave, Firdaus begs him to take her with him, but he tells her that El Azhar is only for men. When Firdaus walks sadly back to her father’s house, she wonders who she truly is, if her parents are actually her parents, and if she is truly their daughter.
Firdaus’s relationship with her uncle is complicated, since he represents her only remotely positive relationship with an adult, yet sexually abuses and exploits her. Firdaus’s need for adult affection seems to make her more compliant to her uncle’s abuse, demonstrating how a sexist society that neglects and abuses female children can enable child abusers to groom young girls.
Themes
Get the entire Woman at Point Zero LitChart as a printable PDF.
Firdaus thinks about her mother’s eyes, about the first time she sees them. She feels as if those eyes always watch her as a child, always follow her. When Firdaus learns to walk, her mother’s eyes hold her up, and Firdaus clings to them. As an adult, Firdaus cannot remember what her mother’s eyes looked like—what shape they were, whether they had lashes or color. All she remembers is “two rings of intense white around two circles of intense black,” and they look as though “sunlight was pouring into them from some magical source.” Firdaus’s mother tends to her father until her mother is “no longer there.” Firdaus has to “replace[]” her mother for a time until a new woman arrives, whose eyes are not her mother’s. Her stepmother’s eyes seem to dull the light, rather than pour light out.
Firdaus barely mentions her mother at all, suggesting that she has little memory of her, apparently because she died early in Firdaus’s life. Firdaus’s description of her mother’s eyes focuses on the light pouring through them from somewhere else, suggesting that, although she does not really remember her mother, she views her as someone who brought life and goodness into her world. The description of her mother’s eyes is one of several story elements that repeats multiple times with different characters. This circular form of storytelling emphasizes the way that history repeats, and how Firdaus experiences emotions and reactions that are common to other people.
Themes
Firdaus has many siblings, but they often die from disease or dysentery. When a son dies, her father beats her mother. When a daughter dies, he simply eats his dinner and goes to sleep. Her father never misses a meal and always eats, even when there is no food for his wife and children. Often, starving, Firdaus watches her father slowly eat and slap away any child’s hand that reaches for his dinner. Firdaus feels that he is not her father. She is closer to her uncle. When Firdaus’s father dies, her uncle puts her in elementary school. When her stepmother dies, Firdaus’s uncle takes Firdaus with him to Cairo.
Firdaus’s father’s indifference to any of his daughters dying suggests that the Egyptian society in which they live believes women and girls have little to no value. The fact that Firdaus’s father eats while the rest of his family goes hungry suggests that families in this society are severely patriarchal—the needs and wishes of the father are essentially all that matters. Meanwhile, despite Firdaus’s uncle’s abuse—which is inexcusable, regardless—he is critical to Firdaus’s education, again complicating the relationship between them.
Themes
When Firdaus enters her uncle’s house in Cairo, she feels reborn. She sees an electric light for the first time and screams. Her uncle gives her shoes and a dress to wear. Firdaus sees a mirror for the for the first time, and stares at her reflection with its large nose and thin lips. She despises what she sees—the features look like her parents—and decides that she hates that mirror.
Firdaus’s move into Cairo with her uncle represents her entrance into the modern world, after being raised in a poor, undeveloped farming community. Ironically, Cairo’s technological progression does not make it any more progressive in its treatment of women.
Themes
However, Firdaus loves school and loves her uncle. When she comes home from school, she cleans his house, does his laundry, cooks dinner, and eats with him when he returns from El Azhar in the evenings. She sits next to him while he reads to her, and when she falls ill he sits with her all night, stroking her head on his lap while she drifts in and out of sleep.
Once again, although her uncle does terrible things to her, her memories of him as a kind and protective figure depict him as a multidimensional person rather than a simple villain, which suggests that even men who display some good qualities are still capable of horrific things.
Themes
When Firdaus finishes primary school, her uncle takes her to the cinema. In the film, she sees a woman dancing with bare thighs and a man kiss another woman on the lips. Firdaus hides her face behind her hand. Her uncle tells her that such acts are sinful, but she cannot even bear to look into his eyes. When they get home, Firdaus hides beneath a blanket, trembling, waiting for her uncle to reach under the blanket, up her thighs, and press his lips on her mouth. Somewhere in her body, Firdaus feels a distant pleasure trying to awaken, but feels that it comes from outside her body, from a part of her that was “severed.”
Firdaus’s shame at what she sees in the film elicits her fears of her uncle’s sexual abuse, while also stirring some element of sexual desire. This typifies a common element of Firdaus’s story, where her experiences of rape, sexual assault, and legitimate sexual experiences and desires all blur together. While this does not legitimizes non-consensual sexual experiences, it does reflect a complicated reality of childhood sexual abuse, where an individual’s concepts of pain, pleasure, and violation can become blurred together.
Themes
Firdaus’s uncle eventually grows distant from her. He stays out late into the evening and stops reading to her. He dresses in a suit and tie, rather than a robe and turban. Firdaus begins secondary school and her uncle takes her to live with him and his new wife in a bigger house. Her uncle’s wife is fat and soft-spoken, but the softness seems to hide “cruelty.” Firdaus thinks her uncle does not love his wife, but fears her, since she comes from a higher social class. Her uncle brings a small servant girl to live in their home. She sleeps on the floor in Firdaus’s bed, but when Firdaus invites her to share the bed on a harshly cold night, her uncle’s wife sees it and beats them both.
Firdaus’s uncle’s relationship with his wife seems purely motivated by financial gain and devoid of any affection, attraction, or care. This suggests that one consequence of pervasive sexism is that relationships between men and women lose their potential for authentic connection. Those relationships instead become mere social contracts, where each person tries to get something from the other. The beating that Firdaus’s uncle’s wife gives Firdaus for sharing her bed with the servant suggests that she values class distinction more than compassion.
Themes
Firdaus’s uncle seems to grow antagonistic toward her and sends her to live in the boarding portion of her school. Other children’s parents take them home on weekends, but Firdaus’s uncle never does. Even so, Firdaus loves school. She makes a close friend named Wafeya, and at night they lie together and share secrets and feelings. Firdaus only speaks about the future, because there is nothing for her to say about her past. She wants to become a head of state, though she knows that it’s impossible for women.
Firdaus’s dream of becoming head of state shows that she has high aspirations, with the intellect to match. However, her knowledge that she cannot become an elected leader as a woman suggests that societal sexism prevents women like her from reaching their true potential and offering their strengths and capabilities to the world.
Themes
One night, Wafeya asks Firdaus if she’s ever been in love. Firdaus says that she lives her life without love, but Wafeya thinks that is hardly a life. As Firdaus falls asleep, she remembers Mohammadain and the sharp pleasure he made her feel, that’s now been cut away. She cries for the loss, as if it had only just been taken from her.
Firdaus’s new sense of loss suggests that, beyond the act of mutilating a girl’s body, one of the great cruelties of female circumcision is that it takes sexual pleasure away from the individual long before she can understand what this feeling is. By the time a circumcised woman understands what has been done to her body, it is far too late.
Themes
To pass the time, Firdaus spends her free hours in the school’s library and develops a love for books. She reads the histories of various Middle Eastern kingdoms and the succession of kings. Every one of them seems evil, obsessed with money, sex, and power. They hide their deeds during their lifetimes so that each makes the same errors, and history repeats itself over and over again. Firdaus reads newspapers as well, where she sees pictures of “rulers” feigning religious piety at the mosques, pretending that they don’t use religion to simply protect their own interests.
Firdaus’s conception that all the kings are evil and all the rulers are frauds foreshadows her eventual belief that all men are criminals. The ruler’s feigning religious piety suggests that in Egyptian society, organized religion is not a way to serve Allah (God), but simply a tool to reinforce the ruling class’s wealth and power. Firdaus’s note that history repeats itself reflects the circular manner in which she tells her own story, where events repeat nearly verbatim, but with different characters.
Themes
When Firdaus tires of reading, she sits alone at night in the playground. One night, as she sits, crying, a teacher named Miss Iqbal finds her and sits with her, trying to console her. Firdaus looks into her eyes and sees white rings around black centers, as if light pours through them from some magical source. She holds Miss Iqbal’s hands in her own, and the contact stirs a distant feeling of pleasure inside Firdaus, “like a part of my being which had been born with me when I was born, but had not grown with me when I had grown.” Firdaus opens her lips to speak, but her voice fails her, so she holds on tightly to Miss Iqbal’s hands.
The description of Miss Iqbal’s eyes closely parallels that of Firdaus’s mother’s eyes, suggesting that Firdaus similarly sees Miss Iqbal as a source of life and motherly compassion. At the same time, Firdaus’s stirring feeling of pleasure suggests that she has unrealized romantic feelings for Miss Iqbal. In a world where men oppress and prey upon Firdaus, it makes sense that she would be attracted to an adult woman who represents everything men are not.
Themes
Whenever Firdaus sees Miss Iqbal, she wants to speak, wants to reach out and touch her, but Miss Iqbal does not seem to notice Firdaus more than any other girl. Firdaus wonders if Miss Iqbal forgot their encounter in the playground. Wafeya notices that Firdaus speaks of her teacher often, and asks if she’s in love with Miss Iqbal. Firdaus denies it, thinking it impossible to be in love with a woman.
Firdaus’s denial of love for Miss Iqbal stems purely from the fact that Miss Iqbal is a woman, so it seems impossible. Although this is the only reference to homosexuality in the book, it suggests that Egypt’s sexist and conservative society, which does not accept homosexuality, prevents Firdaus from even understanding her own feelings.
Themes
Her final examination for school occurs not long after, and Firdaus ranks as the second student in her school and seventh in the entire country. During the assembly to recognize student achievement, the principal calls for Firdaus to come forward with her guardian. However, her guardian is not present and Firdaus feels paralyzed in her chair, unable to move. Miss Iqbal’s eyes reach her through the darkness, and the teacher takes her by the hand and leads her to the stage. The contact stirs a pleasure that feels like pain in Firdaus’s body. Miss Iqbal accepts the award with Firdaus and signs the necessary forms as if she were her parent, then leads Firdaus back to her seat.
Firdaus’s placement among the top students in the nation suggests that she has great potential as a scholar, leader, or professional, which only reinforces the awful effects of pervasive sexism since Egyptian women at this time are largely forbidden to pursue any of those things. Meanwhile, Firdaus’s desire toward Miss Iqbal, a kind of a surrogate parent figure, may reflect Firdaus’s lack of positive adult relationships throughout her childhood.
Themes
The school year ends, and all of the other girls’ parents take them home. A staff member has to telegram Firdaus’s uncle to come retrieve her. The night before he arrives, Firdaus sits alone in the dark, in a courtyard. She thinks she sees a shape moving in the darkness and hopes that it is Miss Iqbal, but when she calls out she realizes it is only a small brick wall that has always been there. When her uncle picks her up the next day, Firdaus frantically looks at every door and window, hoping they will open to reveal Miss Iqbal’s face. None of them do. All she sees is the final closed door as she leaves the empty school.
The scene of Firdaus mistaking a brick wall for someone she longs for and the image of the closed door are repeated multiple times throughout the story, much like the description of her mother’s eyes. This again suggests that events in Firdaus’s life have a way of repeating themselves, and suggests that the characters involved in these parallel scenes occupy similar roles in Firdaus’s life, at least for a time.
Themes
When Firdaus returns to her uncle’s house, she finds that he and his wife now have children of their own. The only place for her to sleep is on a couch in the dining room, against a thin wall through which she can hear her uncle and his wife—who refers to him as “your holiness”—speaking in their bedroom. Firdaus’s uncle’s wife wants to be rid of Firdaus, to send her to university. Her uncle insists that it would reflect on him poorly as a leader and religious man to have his niece studying alongside men.
Firdaus’s uncle’s wife’s use of “your holiness” suggests that religion encourages her to be deferential and submissive to her husband, rather than operate as equals within their relationship. Her uncle’s refusal to send her to university because it would reflect poorly on him again demonstrates how pervasive sexism and religious norms can repress women and hold them back from reaching their potential.
Themes
Firdaus’s uncle’s wife decides that they should marry Firdaus to Sheikh Mahmoud, even though he is an old widower with a “deformity” on his face. Her uncle’s wife speaks eagerly about what dowry they could get from Sheikh Mahmoud, and both she and Firdaus’s uncle thank Allah for their good circumstances. They think Firdaus would be fortunate to marry such a man. She hears her uncle start to kiss his wife’s body, and though she protests he forces himself on her, saying, “I’m your husband and you’re my wife.” Firdaus feels the wall vibrate and she seems to vibrate with it. Her breathing grows rapid with a “strange frenzy.” After they finish, Firdaus’s breathing returns to normal and she drifts to sleep, covered in sweat.
The incentive of gaining a large dowry suggests that Firdaus’s uncle and his wife are effectively selling Firdaus to an old man, demonstrating how sexist societal traditions can dehumanize women, treating them as property rather than as human beings with agency. Her uncle’s insistence that sex, even without consent, is his marital right suggests that societal sexism also enables marital rape, teaching husbands that their right to their wife’s body supersedes a woman’s own right to decide what she does and does not want.
Themes
The next morning, after making breakfast for her uncle, Firdaus packs a backpack with her nightgown, secondary school degree, and merit certificate. She leaves her uncle’s house and walks out into the street, unsure of where she will go. She feels as if the world is opening itself to her and she observes all the different people, separated by wealth and social class, thronging about the city. The rich men are fatter, and look as though they are always about to pounce. She feels a mixture of “wonderment” and fear that she is now a part of this mass of people. She feels like an infant newly exposed to the full breadth of the world.
Firdaus’s packed bag and merit certificate suggest that she is running away to strike out on her own, rather than be subjected to an arranged marriage to an old man. For Firdaus, this is an expression of her own agency and suggests that she wants to choose her path, rather than have one forced upon her. However, her feeling of being an infant in a dangerous world suggests that with agency comes risk and fear, since no one will be there to protect her.
Themes
As night falls, Firdaus has no place to sleep and her stomach aches with hunger. From the darkness, Firdaus senses two eyes watching her, waiting, roving up and down her body. Terror rises within her and she takes shelter in a well-lit shop until she feels the eyes have gone. She runs home to her uncle’s house. She cannot recall what the eyes even look like, but whenever she walks in the street, she fears they’ll return.
Once again, eyes represent Firdaus’s perception of the person to whom they belong. Although Firdaus does not seem to see the man, her sense that the eyes rove up and down her body implies that they are evaluating her purely based on her sexuality, treating her like prey. This makes her return to her uncle and the arranged marriage, suggesting that fear of predatory men often leads women to accept oppressive situations.
Themes
Time passes, though Firdaus does not remember it, and she is married off to Sheikh Mahmoud. She is 18, but he is more than 60, and he has a swollen infection below his lower lip which dribbles bloody pus that smells like “dead dogs.” Firdaus sleeps in a comfortable bed, but her husband always appears beside her. When his infection does not run, she lets him kiss her face. He rakes his hands over her body and wraps himself around her, like a starving man wiping his bowl clean, leaving “not a single crumb behind.” Sheikh Mahmoud never eats much, but he hawkishly watches Firdaus eat. If she leaves any trace of food, he scolds her for “wastefulness.”
Sheikh Mahmoud’s infection is grotesquely described, reiterating the horror of the new life into which Firdaus has been forced. Although Firdaus does not call it such, her resistance to Mahmoud’s advances suggests that he effectively rapes her. The image of his wiping the bowl, Firdaus, clean without leaving anything behind suggests that his assaults on her body leaves her feeling empty and used, with nothing left for herself.
Themes
Whenever Sheik Mahmoud unwraps himself from Firdaus’s body, she slips away to the bathroom and carefully scrubs every inch of herself multiple times, washing her husband off of her. Sheik Mahmoud no longer works, nor has any friends or goes out to eat, because that would require spending money and he is miserly to the core. He spends all day closely watching Firdaus and shouts and beats her whenever he finds anything that could possibly be described as wastefulness, such as spilling a few grains of soap on the floor. Eventually, Sheik Mahmoud beats Firdaus every day, regardless of her behavior.
Sheikh Mahmoud’s whole life seems oriented around using and oppressing Firdaus, suggesting that dominating a woman constitutes his whole reason for existence. This seems to suggest that beyond merely mistreating women, in a pervasively sexist society, many men derive some sense of pleasure or power from controlling and hurting women. This makes such sexism seem nearly sociopathic.
Themes
When Sheikh Mahmoud beats Firdaus with a shoe, leaving her entire body badly bruised, she runs to her uncle’s house for protection. However, her uncle tells her that all men beat their wives; it is common practice. When Firdaus protests that surely religious men like her uncle don’t beat their wives, his wife tells Firdaus that it is especially religious men who do such things—their religion permits it, and their wives must practice “perfect obedience.” When Firdaus’s uncle brings her back to Mahmoud, Mahmoud does not acknowledge Firdaus or give her anything to eat for a night and a day.
Firdaus’s uncle’s indifference to Sheikh Mahmoud beating his niece suggests that their society’s belief in the low value of women is so deeply entrenched that men do not even recognize their own female family members as worth protecting. Additionally, Firdaus’s uncle’s wife’s statement that religious men are allowed to beat their wives by religious law again indicates that such religious men are deeply hypocritical, less interested in serving God or people than justifying their own power.
Themes
Firdaus grows so hungry that she takes some food for herself, and Sheikh Mahmoud shouts at her and berates her for leaving, insisting that he is the only person in the world who will “put up” with her and shelter her. He rapes Firdaus, and though his infection drips pus on her face and lips, Firdaus does not resist, but lets her body go limp like “a piece of dead wood.” Not long after, Mahmoud beats her with a stick so badly that blood runs out of her nose and ears. Firdaus flees, but rather than go to her uncle’s house she wanders the streets, face bleeding. Nobody takes notice of her as she wanders along the street, alone and empty-handed.
Sheikh Mahmoud’s insistence that no one else will give Firdaus shelter demonstrates how men can control women by weaponizing women’s social dependence on them, even if it is only perceived. Firdaus’s decision to go limp and simply endure the rape and violence indicates that she disassociates, separating her conscious mind from her physical body, as a way to endure horrific suffering.
Themes
Firdaus sits outside a coffeehouse and asks for water. The waiter initially refuses, but seeing that she is injured, eventually relents. The owner of the coffee-house comes out and asks Firdaus why her face is battered and bruised. Firdaus tells him that she has nowhere to go, but wants to find a job with her school certificate. The man introduces himself as Bayoumi and says that she can live with him, in a spare room, until she gets back on her feet. Firdaus thinks that Bayoumi’s eyes seem kind and that his hands are “quiet,” “almost submissive.” On the way back to his flat, Bayoumi stops at a market and asks Firdaus if she prefers oranges or tangerines. She realizes that she’s never been asked her preference for anything before.
Firdaus’s initial belief that Bayoumi’s eyes are kind suggests that she perceives him as a trustworthy and gentle individual. His generosity initially appears purely philanthropic. Firdaus’s surprise at being asked for her preference between something as insignificant as fruit reveals the level of control men have exerted over her for her entire life. Even for something as menial as food preference, Firdaus has been given so little agency thus far that it never occurred to her that she could choose for herself.
Themes
When they arrive at Bayoumi’s home, Bayoumi insists that Firdaus sleep in the bed and that he will sleep on the floor, which is the first time anyone has ever put Firdaus’s needs before their own. As Bayoumi guides her there with a hand on her arm, Firdaus feels the memory of an “obscure pleasure” vibrate in her body. She spends several months with him, cooking and keeping his house while he is working. He never strikes her or watches her plate to see if she wastes food.
Bayoumi appears to be the first man in Firdaus’s life not to demand something of her or seek to exploit her. This briefly raises the possibility that non-transactional relationships can exist between men and women—a man may value Firdaus and respect her purely on the basis of her dignity as a human being.
Themes
However, after several months, Firdaus still desires to work and earn her own wage, to be independent, rather than stuck in Bayoumi’s house. When she tells him she is going out to look for a job, Bayoumi becomes enraged and slaps her in the face. His hands seem large and strong. His eyes are jet black, and Firdaus realizes she is truly seeing them for the first time as they wander from her face, down her chest, her torso, and settle on her groin. Firdaus puts her hands over her genitals but Bayoumi rips her hands away.
Tragically, Bayoumi’s violence indicates that his kind demeanor was a façade—he has only been fooling Firdaus before taking what he wants from her. For Firdaus, this negates the possibility of a non-transactional relationship, since Bayoumi clearly wants to exploit her sexuality. The fact that Bayoumi does not exhibit this side of himself until Firdaus tries to break her dependence on him again suggests that women’s dependence gives men a sense of power and control.
Themes
Bayoumi starts locking Firdaus in the apartment each day and forcing her to sleep on the floor. When he comes home, late at night, he slaps her hard in the face and rapes her. Firdaus withdraws into her mind, leaving her body abandoned like “an empty sock” without desire or pain or pleasure—without any feeling at all. One night, Firdaus realizes the man on top of her is not Bayoumi, though the man tells her that he is the same as Bayoumi. The man asks Firdaus if she feels “pleasure.” She is afraid to say no, so she lies and tells him she does. The man calls her “slut, bitch” and bites her shoulder and breast. She hears the same words (and many others) from Bayoumi and his friends, night after night.
Firdaus’s ability to make her body “an empty sock” without feeling suggests that disassociation allows her to protect herself and endure suffering, but also causes her to dehumanize herself. She does not describe her body as something which belongs to her, which she has the right to govern, but merely as an object that men force their way into. The presence of men other than Bayoumi implies that he is operating as Firdaus’s pimp. The fact that a man asks Firdaus if she feels pleasure while effectively raping her suggests that he does not recognize the difference between legitimate, consensual sex and sexual assault.
Themes
Eventually, a neighbor woman realizes that Firdaus is trapped when she sees her crying through the lattice in the door. The neighbor calls a carpenter who breaks the door down while Bayoumi is at work, and Firdaus flees into the street, which now seems to be the only safe place for her. After walking for hours, Firdaus finds a stone bench in the park where she goes to sit and rest. A woman sits beside her and asks her name. Firdaus looks at the woman and is startled by how powerfully green she is: green eyes, green eye shadow, green shawl, like the powerful green of trees growing along the Nile. The woman asks which man—“son of dog”—hurt Firdaus, and says that she knows them all, “they’re all the same.”
Again, eyes prove to be symbolically significant in Firdaus’s recollection, signaling for the reader that, like Firdaus’s mother and Miss Iqbal, Sharifa may turn into a rare source of maternal comfort for Sharifa. Further, Sharifa’s green clothes and eyes evoke growing trees, which suggests that Sharifa may help Firdaus to personally grow.
Themes
Firdaus tells the woman about her uncle and Bayoumi. The woman introduces herself as Sharifa Salah El Dine, speaking the name with an air of pride. Sharifa talks Firdaus back to her apartment, and Firdaus tells her all about her life. Sharifa’s apartment is lavish and she gives Firdaus soft clothes to wear. After a shower, Firdaus feels that she has been reborn as a soft and tender being. Sharifa watches her, and Firdaus puts her arms around her and “abandons” herself to Sharifa’s powerful green eyes. Sharifa tells Firdaus that to survive, one must be “harder than life,” and that though “my skin is soft, my heart is cruel, and my bite is deadly.” She tells Firdaus that life is a snake that bites the weak, and they each must also be deadly snakes in order to survive.
Sharifa’s lavish apartment and clothing suggest that she is wealthy and that she has somehow risen above the pervasive sexism in Egyptian society. Meanwhile, Sharifa’s admonition that Firdaus must become hard and deadly foreshadows Firdaus’s eventual realization that she can wield power over men. Again, Sharifa seems to be a critical character for Firdaus’s personal development.
Themes
Sharifa helps Firdaus to understand the events of her past and re-envision herself in the present. Firdaus realizes that her own eyes are dark and alluring, her nose proud and sultry, her body slender and her thighs muscular. She realizes that she never truly hated her mother, loved her uncle, or knew Bayoumi and his friends. Sharifa teaches Firdaus to set her own worth—everyone has a price, and Sharifa’s is very high. Firdaus is educated and cultured, more even than Sharifa herself, and Sharifa tells Firdaus that her value is twice what Sharifa’s is. When Firdaus says that she cannot ask a man to give her money, Sharifa assures her that she will do it herself—Firdaus does not need to worry about asking.
Sharifa teaches Firdaus to recognize her own strengths and beauty and draw confidence from them. However, Sharifa still ties these things to one’s “price,” the fee that they will demand before letting a man have sex with them. This suggests that even for a seemingly empowered woman like Sharifa, society’s pervasive sexism still causes her to see all relationships between men and women as transactional. Although Sharifa sells herself for a high price, men still buy her, and she still trades her agency for money.
Themes
Firdaus feels changed. Her world is “silvery” and silken. At night she has sex with men, but their fingernails are clean and manicured, unlike Bayoumi’s, whose black and dirty nails raked across her body. Firdaus holds such men’s hands between her breasts, then moves them down between her thighs. Though she feels something, it is more of a distant memory than an actual feeling, like “an organ that had ceased to be mine, on the body of a woman who was no longer me.” Firdaus asks Sharifa why she cannot feel pleasure during sex, but Sharifa tells her they should just work, not feel. Feeling leads to pain. Their pleasure is in the material comforts that money buys.
Fingernails appear repeatedly as a minor symbol to represent a man’s social class and demeanor. Since Firdaus decides to value herself highly, she only wants to have sex with men who are wealthy and sophisticated—who have clean fingernails. Sharifa’s statement that as women, their only pleasure should be in material comforts, reflects society’s attitudes toward women’s sexuality: they should not enjoy sex, but only offer it to men in exchange for wealth or security, such as in a marriage.
Themes
One day, Firdaus stops finding any pleasure in the soft clothes, perfumes, and view of the Nile from her balcony. She never leaves the house, but remains in bed day and night, “crucified,” while rich married men come to her. They dig their fingernails into Firdaus’s body, and when she lets out a muffled cry of pain they ignorantly ask if she feels pleasure. She starts to spit in their faces, but the men misread her pursed lips and bite them.
Firdaus’s loss of appreciation for material comforts indicates that she realizes there is little pleasure in such things when her body still does not belong to her. The image of her “crucified” evokes the crucifixion of Christ as a sacrifice for humanity’s sins. This suggests that Firdaus is herself a sacrifice to men for the “sin” of being born a woman in a man’s world.
Themes
One man named Fawzy is not foolish, and asks if Firdaus feels pain rather than pleasure. She tells him she does. He asks if she wants to just sleep in his arms, and she does. Fawzy tells Firdaus that Sharifa is taking advantage of her, making money off her body and pain. He says that he’ll deal with Sharifa. Outside her bedroom, Firdaus hears Fawzy tell Sharifa he’s taking Firdaus away to marry her.
Like Bayoumi, Fawzy briefly appears to be a decent man with Firdaus’s best interests in mind. However, his claim that he will take Firdaus away to marry her indicates that, like Sharifa, he only wants to exploit Firdaus’s body, rather than respect her personal agency by asking her what she wants to do with her own life.
Themes
Sharifa protests and remarks that the last girl Fawzy took away fell on bad fortune. They argue, threaten violence against each other, and Firdaus hears Fawzy rape Sharifa, covering her protests with his hand. The sound of them creaking on the bed in the next room, the vibrations on the wall stirs Firdaus out of her daze—she realizes what Sharifa has turned her into. With Sharifa and Fawzy asleep in the next room, Firdaus puts on a dress and sneaks out of house.
Bayoumi, Sharifa, and Fawzy parallel each other in the way they gain Firdaus’s trust by pretending to care about her desires, before eventually exploiting her for their own gain. Nearly all of Firdaus’s relationships seem to be fundamentally transactional, with each party angling for their own personal benefit.
Themes
Firdaus walks through the pitch-black night alone, naked save for a dress so thin that it’s nearly transparent. However, the night does not scare her; her body feels as if it belongs to someone else, with her own true body safely hidden away. A policeman grabs Firdaus by the arm. He asks Firdaus to come to his house, but Firdaus refuses. He says that he’ll pay her, or else he’ll throw her in prison for prostitution, since as a policeman he must “protect respectable families from the likes of you.” Firdaus tries to shake him off, but he firmly leads her to his house and makes her lie in his bed. He takes his clothes off and Firdaus feels the familiar weight bear down on her body. The policeman digs his dirty black fingernails into her skin. When he finishes, he tells her he has no money tonight; he’ll pay her next time.
The policeman’s sexual exploitation of Firdaus, who is obviously a woman in trouble, suggests that men in every profession and every level of society participate in exploiting and oppressing women, even those men whose professional role is to protect others. Even so, the policeman’s claim that he must “protect respectable families” from women like Firdaus indicates that he, and society, are clearly hypocritical, spurning women in Firdaus’s position while also taking advantage of their desperation. Additionally, the policeman’s dirty black fingernails suggests that he is a man Firdaus would never willingly let near her.
Themes
Firdaus walks back into the night, but rain pours and turns the back roads into a stinking mud that smells like rot. She walks to a main paved road, shivering with cold. A car stops and a man gets out and asks her to come in out of the rain. In the cold rain, Firdaus’s nipples show through her dress, and the man presses his arm against them as he helps her climb in the car. The man takes her to his house, helps her into the bathtub, washes her body with warm water and soap and then lays her in his bed. Firdaus feels his “weight press heavily down” on her, but his fingernails are clean and white, and his sweat does not smell bad.
Firdaus continuously moves from one exploitative situation to another, suggesting that men’s abuse of her forms a rhythm in her life to which she tragically adapts. Although this man is helping Firdaus by bringing her out of the rain, he still expects sex for his service, again indicating that at least in this society, any interaction between men and women is inherently transactional, never altruistic. The man’s clean fingernails suggest that he is a member of the sophisticated upper-class, demonstrating that men at all levels of society exploit women.
Themes
Firdaus wakes in the morning in an “elegant bedroom” flooded with sunlight. When she realizes where she is and sees the man standing before her, she dresses quickly and moves to leave. As Firdaus walks past the man, he gives her 10 pounds. Firdaus feels a “veil” lift from her eyes. The money recalls the times she asked her father for money as a child, though he only gave her a coin, a piastre, once. The coin made Firdaus feel empowered to buy whatever she chose—a piece of candy. The 10-pound note feels empowering, too, and Firdaus takes it to a restaurant and orders an entire chicken. She chews slowly, thoughtfully, and notices that the waiter does not watch her plate, does not care whether she leaves food untouched. The eyes that have always watched her, since she was a child, are gone.
Firdaus finds money empowering. Money symbolizes control throughout the book, and ultimately men’s ability to control, as it provides one of the main avenues through which men control women and demand access to their bodies. However, in this instance, the 10-pound note offers Firdaus a small amount of control—more agency than she has ever known in her life. Firdaus’s new ability to eat what she chooses and when, or to leave it untouched, directly defies Sheikh Mahmoud’s earlier treatment of her, and suggests that Firdaus feels free of men’s controlling influence for the first time.
Themes
Firdaus watches the way her waiter furtively avoids looking straight at her 10-pound note, even when she gives it to him to pay for her meal. She realizes that her father, her uncle, Sheikh Mahmoud, and Sharifa all handled money with a nearly religious observance. All of these people (except Firdaus’s uncle when she was young) kept money carefully concealed from Firdaus for her entire life, as though it were some “sacrilegious pleasure,” a forbidden thing, available to everyone else but her. Firdaus almost asks her waiter who decided money should be so “forbidden,” but instead hands him the 10-pound note.
The male waiter’s deference to Firdaus occurs because she has the money to pay for a meal and his services, demonstrating how money can reverse gender roles and put Firdaus in a position of power over men. Her memories of others keeping money from her suggests that those people understood that if Firdaus had money of her own, she would no longer be dependent upon them or under their control.
Themes
From that day on, Firdaus walks with her head high. She looks every man directly in the eye. If he handles money, she does not avoid looking at it, but openly gazes at it. When men approach her, she looks them over and rejects them if their fingernails are dirty or she simply doesn’t like them. If she accepts a man’s offer, she demands double what he wants to pay her. At 25 years old, Firdaus feels for the first time that her life and body belong to her. She offers herself only for large sums of money, which men pay. She makes so much that she takes a beautiful apartment and even hires servants and cooks. Her bank account grows, and in her free time she reads, goes to the cinema, or discusses politics.
Money symbolizes control in Firdaus’s hands as well. Although money was used to control Firdaus, now that she has money of her own, it offers control over her own life. She is able to live as she chooses, be the master of her own home, and reject men for any reason whatsoever. Significantly, Firdaus’s newfound freedom allows her to develop interests that have nothing to do with sex as well, like cinema and politics, which she has not been able to do since she was in boarding school.
Themes
Among Firdaus’s friends is a writer, a man named Di’aa. When Di’aa first comes to her house for sex, she leads him to the bedroom. He wants to spend time chatting instead, but Firdaus insists he’ll have to pay for his time just the same. Di’aa thinks that the whole thing feels clinical, like a visit to the doctor, though “not respectable.” Firdaus tries to cover her ears and block the words out, but they pierce her mind and echo, drowning everything else out. Even after Di’aa leaves, his words follow Firdaus, keep her from sleeping or eating or feeling at peace as she used to. Another “veil” is torn away from Firdaus’s vision and she sees that, despite her money, she will never be a “respected woman” as a prostitute.
Di’aa’s accusation that Firdaus’s trade is “not respectable” is hypocritical, since regardless of whether it’s respectable or not, he himself pays for Firdaus’s services. His complaint that the process feels clinical parallels the men who ask Firdaus if she feels pleasure, even while they sexually assault her—he mistakenly conflates a paid-for encounter with Firdaus as a legitimate, voluntary sexual experience, as if she was doing this for her own pleasure, and not just his. This suggests that men misunderstand both sexuality and the transactional nature of their relationships.
Themes
Firdaus decides to become a new person, to leave her old life behind no matter what it costs her. After much hunting, she manages to find a job with her secondary school certificate for an industrial company. She sits in a small office attached to the chairman’s office and manages his schedule for him. With a much smaller income than before, Firdaus can only afford a small room with no toilet, so every morning she must take her towel to the communal bathroom, and then push her way into the bus to ride to work. In the building where she works, low-level employees like herself must walk past a guard, who checks them in whenever they enter or exit and keeps careful watch that each employee is wasting minutes.
Although Firdaus is a free woman and makes her money through lawful means, the guard’s careful observation of when each employee enters and leaves echoes the same level of control that men exerted over Firdaus in the past—especially Sheikh Mahmoud and his obsession with ensuring Firdaus did not waste anything. This suggests that, although Firdaus is now “respectable” since she is no longer a prostitute, men still maintain a high level of control over her daily life, making such sexism and oppression seem inescapable.
Themes
The higher officials enter and leave as they please, with no one to watch their use of time. They drive their own cars, rather than take the bus. One day, when Firdaus misses the bus, an official stops his car and offers her a ride, though Firdaus knows that this gesture carries the unspoken proposition for sex. She tells him that her body costs more than a ride or a promotion, and the official looks alarmed and speeds away. After three years, Firdaus realizes she was better respected as a prostitute than a low-level female official. Though Firdaus herself never does, her co-workers have sex with their superiors for fear of losing their jobs and with the slim hope that it will merit a promotion or favor.
The higher officials exhibit the same freedom and agency normally afforded to men, a level of independence that Firdaus was only able to enjoy as an independent prostitute. The offered exchange of sex for favors or promotions suggests that even outside of prostitution, relationships between men and women are still transactional. Firdaus’s observation that she had more respect as a prostitute suggests that since men are still bartering with women for sex, they still devalue and dehumanize them.
Themes
Firdaus does not care about keeping such a job and will not let her superiors touch her. Ironically, this makes them see her as a virtuous and proud woman, and they start “vying with one another” for her respect and goodwill. Even so, Firdaus likes her job and office well enough. It is nicer than her own room, and she often stays at the office until late in the evening, or sits in the courtyard alone.
Firdaus’s raised standing for rejecting every man’s advances parallels the way she raises her price as a prostitute whenever she rejects a customer. This suggests that other women, by submitting to the men’s world and trading sex for promotions, ultimately devalue themselves in other people’s eyes.
Themes
One night, while Firdaus sits alone in the dark, she sees a shape in the darkness. Ibrahim, one of the company’s employees, approaches. He sits next to Firdaus and asks why she sits alone. Firdaus thinks his eyes see straight into her. She inexplicably starts crying, and Ibrahim tries to console her but starts crying himself. Firdaus gazes into his eyes and sees two rings of white surrounding pure black circles, as if light flowed through them from some “mysterious source.” She takes his hand and feels the distant memory of a lost pleasure stir deep inside herself. She tries to speak, to recall the memory, but cannot.
Ibrahim’s eyes appear to Firdaus like those of Miss Iqbal and Firdaus’s mother, suggesting that Firdaus perceives him as someone who will bring positivity to her life, someone to trust. Her description of Ibrahim’s eyes and reaction to touching his hands parallels her interaction with Miss Iqbal almost verbatim, suggesting that she falls in love with Ibrahim in much the way she fell for Miss Iqbal, and regards him as a similarly safe and compassionate person.
Themes
Whenever Firdaus sees Ibrahim, she tries to speak but cannot. She listens to him speak at a revolutionary meeting demanding equal rights for lower-level employees, and she applauds wholeheartedly. During work, she finds herself writing his name on her desk, and her friend Fatheya asks her what happened in her life. Firdaus cannot pinpoint the rekindled sense of pleasure, the distant memory of it from her childhood. She thinks back upon the night with Ibrahim, staring into his eyes. In Firdaus’s mind, images of Fatheya, Wafeya, Miss Iqbal, and Ibrahim overlap and blur into each other until she cannot distinguish between them.
Firdaus’s memory of a long-lost pleasure, once available to her but no longer, refers to her clitoris that was taken from her via circumcision as a child. That Firdaus still feels the memory of sexual pleasure from her early childhood experiences with Mohammadain, and the absence of that pleasure in her life now, demonstrates how such a mutilation, a violation of Firdaus’s body and autonomy, has affected her for the rest of her life. This reiterates how oppressive and cruel the practice is.
Themes
Ibrahim becomes chairman of a revolutionary committee and Firdaus devotes all her spare time to working for the committee’s aims. One evening after work, Firdaus misses the bus, but Ibrahim sees her and picks her up in his car. They admit to each other that neither has stopped thinking of the other since they first met. They tell each other everything about their lives, even the things that Firdaus tried to keep hidden from the world and herself. They do this for two more days, baring their souls to each other. The third day, the go to Ibrahim’s house and sleep together, “a warm embrace.” The world glows brighter for Firdaus, but one of her colleagues tells her that she is a fool—there is no such thing as love and Ibrahim’s virtue is just an illusion.
Ibrahim offers Firdaus a ride in his car after she misses the bus, which parallels the company executive’s offer, which she knew was a proposition for sex. Meanwhile, Firdaus’s sexual encounters with Ibrahim constitute the only time in the story she has sex willingly, for her own pleasure (other than her childhood experiences with Mohammadain). Significantly, it is also the only time in her life that she recognizes being in love.
Themes
One day, Firdaus sees Ibrahim across the courtyard. A crowd of people gather around him, and his eyes seem different to her, “estranged.” Ibrahim does not see Firdaus, but someone in the crowd announces that Ibrahim has just gotten engaged to the company chairman’s daughter, which the person says is a great career move Ibrahim him and will ensure that he rises through the ranks. The news crushes Firdaus, and she walks alone into the rain, wandering the streets and sobbing until night falls. She returns to the courtyard and thinks she sees something moving in the darkness, perhaps Ibrahim, but she realizes it is only a brick wall. She leaves through the company gate, turning one last time to check the windows and the doors, to see if one will open to Ibrahim’s face. The door remains closed.
Ibrahim’s engagement to the company chairman’s daughter suggests that he has not only turned his back on Firdaus, but also on the revolutionary spirit that drew Firdaus to him, since he blatantly embraces nepotism to advance his career. This suggests that everything about Ibrahim was fraudulent, including his principles and claims of love for Firdaus. This represents a pivotal moment in the development of Firdaus’s belief that all relationships are transactional, since even her noble lover turns out to be just one more man using her for sex.
Themes
Ibrahim’s betrayal causes Firdaus more pain than she’s ever known in her entire life. As a prostitute, she protected her innermost self and only offered her body for money. As a lover, she laid herself bare, let down all of her defenses and received nothing in return, leaving her more humiliated and ashamed than she’s ever been. She’d wanted to “be saved through love from it all,” but was only betrayed. She considers that her virtue, like the virtue of any poor person, is less an “asset” than a despicable mark of “stupidity” that allows others to prey upon them. Firdaus decides to give up all hope of virtue, since “a successful prostitute was better than a misled saint.” She thinks that marriage, where women sell permanent access to their bodies, is “built on the most cruel suffering for women.”
Firdaus’s beliefs—that virtue is the same as stupidity, that marriage is the cruelest prison, that love is a lie men tell to convince women to have sex with them—are undeniably cynical, without hope for a better world to exist. However, given her experiences, they seem justified. Firdaus’s inability to find any man who is not blatantly misogynistic and predatory suggests that living in a society shaped by pervasive sexism conditions men to be naturally exploitative and oppressive toward women.
Themes
Firdaus walks the streets at midnight, a prostitute once again. With no ties and subject to no man, marriage, or love, she feels absolutely free. Firdaus does not hope or desire, so she cannot be disappointed. If one man rejects her, she can simply take the next one who turns up. A wealthy man picks Firdaus up. As she lies in his bed, she reflects that men like Ibrahim use their cleverness and virtue to get “what other men buy with money.” She sees Ibrahim several times, years later. On the last time he convinces Firdaus to let him come home with her. After they have sex, Ibrahim starts to leave without paying Firdaus, until she demands it. She realizes that he was never in love with her, “but came to me every night only because he did not have to pay.”
Firdaus’s decision to live without desire or hope represents a full shift into her disassociation, allowing her to survive by feeling nothing at all. By being completely detached, she has nothing to lose, and thus is immune to pain and fear. Firdaus’s reflection that men like Ibrahim use their tenderness and principles to get sex, rather than paying for it, suggests that all relationships between men and women are simple transactions, devoid of any real love or concern for each other.
Themes
Firdaus realizes that she’s hated men for years, though managed to keep that fact hidden from herself until now. Most of all, she hates the men who try to “save” her from being a prostitute, who use her low position to try to make themselves feel noble. Firdaus decides that “a woman’s life is always miserable. A prostitute, however, is a little better off.” She convinces herself that this is the life she chose.
The men who try to save Firdaus from prostitution cynically use her position as a “not respectable” woman to elevate their own sense of themselves. Despite any noble pretenses they have, this suggests that they, too, exploit Firdaus for their own benefit, even if there is no sex involved, making their relationships to her just as transactional.
Themes
Firdaus often turns men down, which drives her price even higher. She realizes that men cannot stand being rejected, because their ego tells them it is a rejection of their innermost self. This is especially true for politicians, who cannot stand to be rejected in front of others. One ruler sends his officers to Firdaus over and over, and she always rejects him. They offer money, threaten her with prison, and even try to convince her that having sex with a great politician would fulfill her nationalistic duty. Another ruler has Firdaus arrested when she refuses him, but she hires an expensive lawyer to persuade the court that she is an “honorable woman.” Money buys honor, but Firdaus can only make it by “losing [her] honor.”
Adding to Firdaus’s cynical but realistic view of society, her observations here suggest that ego drives the majority of men’s actions, even when they are in positions of power. Rather than serve the people they govern, the men’s authority serves only their egos. Likewise, Firdaus’s realization that enough money can make a court judge her to be an “honorable woman” suggests that money represents control to such a degree that it can shape morality, law, and how one is perceived in society.
Themes
Firdaus finds no honor in what she does, but she reasons that men control the world, so all women are effectively prostitutes. She is at least free, while a wife is “enslaved.” Firdaus realizes that just like servants or housekeepers, she can buy honor with money. She donates large sums to charities and the local papers publish her picture and praise her as a model citizen.
Firdaus’s description of married life as slavery suggests that, in a world where every relationship is transactional, a prostitute has the advantage of seeing the value of the transaction plainly and clearly. This allows Firdaus to make better decisions about what she will and will not sell her body for.
Themes
Eventually, a pimp named Marzouk approaches Firdaus and tells her he must work for her now, for her own “protection,” though he is the only one to threaten her. Firdaus tries to use her money and connections to get the police to protect her, but she discovers that Marzouk is better connected than she is. When Firdaus finally relents to Marzouk, he rapes her. As he bears down on her, she withdraws into herself and makes her body a “passive, lifeless thing” and remains unmoved, feeling neither pleasure or pain.
Marzouk’s ability to take control of Firdaus demonstrates how, in a male-dominated society, even money cannot protect her from every man. This suggests that, even as a prostitute, Firdaus’s potential is limited by her gender. Society’s pervasive sexism reaches so deeply that it seems Firdaus can never achieve full control over her life.
Themes
Marzouk starts taking the majority of Firdaus’s earnings, and she learns that he is a powerful pimp connected with the police, with doctors, with people in the courts. Firdaus realizes she is no longer free, that her body is merely a “machine” that makes a profit for men. She decides that she will leave, so she packs a bag and heads for the door. Marzouk bars the door with his arm. He says the world is made up of “masters” and “slaves,” and Firdaus as a woman can only be a “slave.” Firdaus glares at him unblinking, filled with hate. For a brief moment, she sees real fear in Marzouk’s eyes.
Marzouk’s description of women as inevitable “slaves” suggests that although Firdaus had money and agency as an independent prostitute, these things were still reliant on her offering her body to men. The fear that Firdaus sees in Marzouk’s eyes hints that men recognize the threat of an independent woman, and that their control over women is tenuous rather than permanent.
Themes
Marzouk overcomes his fear, raises his arm, and slaps Firdaus in the face. Firdaus raises her own arm and strikes him even harder. Marzouk tries to pull his knife from his pocket, but Firdaus takes it from him first and stabs him in the neck, then the chest, then the belly, and then in “every part of his body.” The knife moves in and out of Marzouk easily, and Firdaus wonders why she never killed any men before now. She realizes that fear had been weighing her down for her whole life, stopping her, until the moment she realized that Marzouk feared her too.
Firdaus’s killing of Marzouk is her most significant expression of her own agency and willpower against a man, since she not only resists him mentally by disassociating, but physically by answering violence with violence. Firdaus’s new lack of fear suggests that her own fear of men was based on her perception of their inherent power and dominance, which Marzouk’s fear eliminated.
Themes
Firdaus leaves the house, walking with her held high like a “goddess.” Her fear is gone, and without its weight she feels “light as a feather.” She walks past policemen in the dead of night, but feels no fear since she carries herself like a powerful upper-class woman. A man in an extravagant car asks her to come with him. She states that her price is too high, but he tells her he is an Arab prince and offers her 1,000 pounds. Firdaus knows he is telling the truth, but tells him that she is a princess and demands 3,000 pounds. In the prince’s bed, Firdaus withdraws into herself. As the prince bears down on Firdaus, he keeps asking if she feels “pleasure,” and each time she confirms he grins like a “happy fool.”
Firdaus’s new fearlessness is different than before. While she formerly dealt with fear by mentally retreating out of her body so nothing could affect her mind, now she carries herself as a woman who knows that she is powerful in both mind and body. The act of killing a man, an oppressor, demonstrates her own power to act and overcome against men, against gendered oppression. However, Firdaus’s momentary disassociation under the prince suggests that part of her still believes money will solve her problems and offer her control over herself.
Themes
Suddenly, Firdaus shouts, “No!” When the prince hands her 3,000 pounds, she takes the money and furiously shreds it in front of him. As she tears the money, she tears the final veil off of her eyes, and feels that she is ripping apart all the money she ever received from men, ripping every single man she ever knew to pieces: father, uncle, Marzouk, Bayoumi, Di’aa, and Ibrahim. The prince is shocked, and exclaims that Firdaus must truly be a princess; he’d thought she was only a prostitute. Firdaus tells him that she is not a prostitute, though from the beginning every man in her life raised her to be one.
Firdaus ripping the money symbolizes her rejection of the control men exert over her with their money. Although that money gives her more agency than she previously knew, the fact remains that her freedom comes at the cost of letting men have access to her body. Firdaus’s statement that every man she ever knew raised her to be a prostitute reflects how a society with such entrenched sexism teaches woman that their sexuality is their main asset, something to be traded and bartered over with men.
Themes
The prince says that Firdaus’s father must be a king. Firdaus says that he wasn’t a king, though not so different from one. However, she learned to kill on her own. The prince does not believe that she could kill—he thinks her too “gentle.” To prove him wrong, Firdaus raises her hand and strikes him hard on the head. She tells him that stabbing a knife through his neck would be just as easy, and he would deserve it for spending his hungry people’s money on prostitutes. He is no more than an “insect.” The prince screams “like a woman in trouble” and calls the police to arrest Firdaus as a “killer.” When the police arrive and call Firdaus a criminal, she declares that no woman can be a criminal, but that every single man is one. She states that she is only speaking a “savage and dangerous” truth.
Firdaus and the prince swap traditional gender roles—Firdaus wields power through violence, while the prince screams “like a woman in trouble.” The power that Firdaus exhibits here to act and speak truthfully about corrupt society is arguably the potential power that caused Marzouk’s eyes to flash with fear, the same power that the police now seem to fear as well. Firdaus’s claim that the truth is “savage and dangerous” suggests that pervasive sexism and gendered oppression can only exist as long as the reality of men’s horrific treatment of women goes unchallenged and unacknowledged.
Themes
The police handcuff Firdaus and take her to prison. Someone tells her that she can make an appeal for her life, but she states that if they let her out, she’ll only kill again. Firdaus knows men fear her because she no longer fears them. When she struck out in violence, she ended her fear and learned that such an action is easier than she imagined. Although she was a “successful prostitute,” Firdaus admits that every man she ever met made her want to strike them in the head. Firdaus does not fear death, but men fear her newfound power to tell the truth, because the truth is “simple” and “savage,” more fearsome than her knife. Armed with the truth, she no longer fears “the brutality of rulers and policemen.”
Firdaus’s claim that she’ll keep killing men seems, from her perspective, the only path toward justice since she believes all men are criminals who are complicit in oppressing women. The fact that the police and powerful men fear Firdaus’s ability to speak the truth to the point that they’ll execute her suggests that men often keep women repressed and silent out of insecurity. A woman who is no longer burdened by fear is thus the greatest threat to men’s dominance and ability to subjugate women.
Themes
