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Titre: | Challenging stereotypes about arabs and muslims in post 9/11 female american novels : the case of Lorraine Adams’ Harbor (2004), Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs (2009), and Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs (2013) |
Auteur(s): | Benjaballah, Keltoum Chouiten, Lynda(Directeur de thése) |
Mots-clés: | Stereotypes Arabs Muslims Edward Said |
Date de publication: | 2022 |
Editeur: | Université M'Hamed Bougara Boumerdès : Faculté des lettres et des langues |
Résumé: | The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the positive representations of
Arabs/Muslims in three post 9/11 female American novels: Claire Messud’s The Woman
Upstairs (2013), Lorraine Adams’s Harbor (2004) and Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs
(2009).The 9/11 attacks in the United States have completely changed the world by drawing a
strong connection between Islam and “terrorism.” The teachings of Islam are emphatically
said to encourage bloodshed and violence and Muslims/Arabs are systematically called
“terrorists” by Westerners. The post 9/11 has also been heavily marked by Orientalist
discourse which extremely reinforces the superiority of the West and the inferiority of the
East as Edward Said argues in his Orientalism. This period has witnessed harsh depictions of
Arabs/Muslims or anyone who looks like them. More importantly, the stereotypical images
about Arabs/Muslims have gone beyond the abusively disparaging speech or writing and have
reached concrete violence and extreme discrimination in the United States.
Post 9/11 American fiction reproduces and reinforces the stereotypical images about
Arabs/Muslims. Post 9/11 novels such as Sherry Jones’s The Jewel Of Medina (2008), Homa
Pourasgari’s The Dawn of Saudi (2009), John Updike’s Terrorist (2006), and Don Dellilo’s
Falling Man (2007) provide an Orientalist depiction of Arabs/Muslims and take part in the
vilification of these people and their religion: Islam is depicted as a source of violence and
oppression for women and Muslims/Arabs are claimed to be the threatening “terrorist” Other
whose presence among the American people is not only a threat to the national security but a
source of personal trauma and psychic disturbance as well.
In such a context, offering a startlingly positive portrayal of Arabs/Muslims in the
aftermath of the 9/11 events seems to be a challenge. Messud, Adams, and Moore destabilize
the demonization of the so-called “terrorist” Other and substitute to this stereotype portraits of
peaceful Arab/Muslim characters who live with the American people without causing any
harm to them, neither physical nor psychological. Their Arab/Muslim male characters treat
women appropriately and lovingly without any kind of misogyny. Similarly, veiled/Muslim
women in the selected novels appear to be positively portrayed. They are ordinary characters
neither oppressed nor submissive. Unexpectedly, patriarchy which is associated with the East
within the Orientalist discourse and is reinforced in post 9/11 American fiction, appears to be
linked to the West in the post 9/11 novels under study. Messud, Adams and Moore extend the
thread of their positive depiction of both Arab/Muslim males and females to their relationship with the American characters in the novels. This relationship is supposed to be fraught with
psychological disturbance as portrayed in other post 9/11 American fiction; yet, the writers
inject new positive images of peaceful coexistence, with an emphasis on the positive
influence of the Muslim/Arab Other on the American Self. |
Description: | 306 p. : ill. ; 30 cm |
URI/URL: | http://dlibrary.univ-boumerdes.dz:8080/handle/123456789/9968 |
Collection(s) : | Doctorat
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