TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES OF THEME EXPRESSION:

In order to highlight themes that are related essentially to the masculine and the feminine gender relations and identities, Laila Halaby resorts to various techniques and strategies. Among these techniques, we can mention respectively: storytelling, code mixing and switching, cultural traits of national identities, etc Taking into consideration that West of the Jordan is a cross cultural text, meaning a text that investigates a national theme which relates to a double culture and cultural heritage, we can grasp a methodological intelligence and a hybridized composure of the text that is used mainly in order to make it clear for readers of different ethnic backgrounds to understand what the writer wants to highlight in relation to the Islamic gender issues in her text. Halaby wants to show the particularity of the cultural heritage of the different characters mentioned in the text in the way she expresses specific cultural practices that relate directly to the general conception of men and women and their sexual identities. The struggle that the female characters of Khadija, Souraya, Hala and Mawal face in their process of identity development and self construction works in direct connection with the theme of double identity that Halaby depicts in relation to the political issues in the text which is emphasized through its cross-cultural nature. It studies the duality of gender behavior related to the gender identity of men and women. Halaby presents images of women as dissatisfied with their bodies (qtd in. Evelyn 112). It speaks about the original sexual and gender identity of the Arab Muslim religion and gives the deviations relating to them describing them as subversions of the original. Culture and traditions are referred to in the text through the different practices which show the attachment of these characters to their original civilization and culture. This religion is a conservative and a rigid one in which the rule of the father governs most of the social relations including those of gender identities. According to that principle, there is a disbalance of the relations between men and women. From within that frame, cultural intelligibility conceptualizes the masculine and the feminine as relating essentially to the masculine domination in all domains of life wether within the family or outside it. The cultural doubleness (Sollors 15) that most of the characters suffer from is very well seen through the doubleness and dialogism in the gender behavior relative to the characters of the text. Most of these characters try to elaborate reconciliation between their original cultural gender behavior

that is a conservative one and their adopted gender behavior relative to their adopted homeland that is their American second culture and ethics. Storytelling: Storytelling is one of the techniques used by Halaby in order to show her national theme of identity including that of national Islamic gender. This technique is an old method characteristic mainly of Arabs and the Bedouin traditions. It has been a traditional and cultural practice that people used to transmit from one cultural community into another in order to transmit and keep the traditions and the ethics related to the essential Arab culture which is a conservative one and favors the rule of the father and misogynism. In relation to gender, the attachment to the traditions of storytelling shows the attachment to conservatism and misogynism. In storytelling, there is an essential element who is the Hakawati. He always takes the center and people around him listening to what he says, believing it is real. People at the end have to deduce a conclusion. He occupies the role of the teacher who gives lessons. The Hakawati is an oral narrator speaking usually in prose but also in rhyme (about stories) that depicted the adventures of historical figures and fictitious legendary heroes through verbal articulation and extensive mimicry and imitation (Folaron). He is the emblem of the idea of the center which from the gender Islamic perspective has to be the fathers and the males in general. He is the symbol of the governor and the head of society from whom people have to learn rules and to apply it in society. The image of the Hakawati in the book resembles the image of the father figure in society as they are both persons who occupy the center and who give rules. As a matter of fact, the father of Khadija is someone who has violent methods and manners (145). The discursive power that the father figure and the Hakawati achieve wether over the family members or outside it is freely achieved by means of religious arguments. Actually, this power has as a sole objective and aim, manipulation and control: at the heart of discursive thought, we thus discover an element of violence, a subjugation of reality a defense mechanism, a procedure for excluding and controlling, a prearrangement of the phenomena for the purpose of controlling and manipulating them and an incipient system of delusion (Wellmer 60).

Michel Foucault describes the kind of power that the father figure has within the gender system of the text as a procedure of self enclosure in the way it can be understood as a totalizing thinking (Falson 18): for totalizing thinking, to understand something is simply to assimilate it, to absorb it into ones framework of thought, to reduce it to a mere instantiation of ones categories. And this is not simply an intellectual ambition. It finds concrete social and political expression as well in our cultural modernity, in the eighteenth century vision of the total enlightenment, in which the social order will be made over in accordance with reason and human nature in accordance with the dictates of the rational subject. (Falson 18) Since the aim of all postmodernist writers is to deconstruct the beliefs and opinions of modernist thinking which perceives reality upon subjective methods, Halaby, being an ethnic postmodernist writer, mentions the idea of the center as implemented in the male figures of the text with the aim of deconstructing it through creating subversive characters in the text. Using the words of Jacques Derrida, totalizing thought implies neutralizing the other, transforming the other into the same. Derrida conceptualizes the reason which transforms the other into the same as a reason which receives only what it gives itself, a reason which does nothing but recall itself to itself. This describes the reason of the male which entails the norms by which life functions in the Islamic context of the text. The male cogito and mind functions with strategies that aim mainly at suppressing all categories that go counter to its principles. All kinds of behavior that go counter to this thought have to be reduced into one category that excludes all the other deviations: the other side of the claim that there is an all embracing standpoint or set of universal categories in terms of which all thought and action can be comprehended and organized is that we are unable to speak of anything that goes beyond these categories, anything independent and other (Falzon 19). But it is domination with the aim of the suppression of the other, meaning females and women. Khadijas father is a good example that illustrates this point since he tries always to dominate over his family members through violence especially in relation to his daughter Khadija and his wife. This technique of self enclosure is one of the methods and strategies used by Halaby in order to clarify the theme of male violence.

Opposite to this dominating figure of the male, we can perceive another submissive figure of feminine that subsumes this misogyny and patriarchy. Feminine experiences in the text are mostly negative. Halaby depicts reality as it is in which women are explicitly treated as inferior both in mind and in body in comparison with the masculine. The evidence for this argument would be from the text of the Quran and the Sunnah since both set rules according to which the males and the females function in societies. Females seem to be sacrificing their identities and behaving according to the wishes of the males and their social orders. The women in the book try to establish a process of self preservation: there is a process of self preservation and the control of nature as external and social phenomena. The correlate of the unitary self is an objectively imposed systemizing totalizing reason which is thus conceived as a medium of domination over external and social nature as well as the nature within each of us(Wellmer 60). Thus women according to that principle are asked to tame their natures and preserve themselves because they would affect men and evoke their desires leading them to sin. All that belongs to the feminine has to be contained in order to help construct the social identity and being of the masculine. Fragmentation: Fragmentation of the plot is also one of the techniques of postmodern writing and a basic element of the style of the text. West of the Jordan is a book that does not follow any clear plot. The stories in this text seem to be woven and collected one in relation to the other without any logical link or common point. The events of the different stories that are related to the different female experiences do not follow one the other and are not manipulated according to a clear plot that follows logic in the evolution of events. They are not related. They are divided and lead to a division in the plot and a division of identities. All the chapters of the book are not related to one another. We can understand each chapter separately one from the other because each one carries a separate meaning and a different story. The writer uses the technique of collage in order to collect these chapters and make out of them a unified book that speaks about one story although the events are not related: collage, the components of which especially in the forms of quotation, are so varied that postmodernism can be perceived as a symbolic or a conceptual field with distinct force lines (Wellmer 38). The fragmentation of the plot in the text is accompanied with techniques of deconstruction and decentering. The writer tries to elaborate a deconstruction of the

cogito, meaning the totalizing rationality. So, there is no wholeness in the text and its

totality is broken. All of these concepts of deconstruction and decentering are referred to as things postmodern. Ihab Hassan is one of the American postmodernists who describe these postmodern techniques as postmodern moments which elaborate a movement towards an unmaking that connotes deconstruction of meaning: It is an antinomian moment that assumes a vast unmaking in the Western mind, what Michel Foucault might call a postmodern episteme. I say unmaking, though other terms are now de rigueur, for instance deconstruction, decentering, disappearance, dissemination, rejection of the traditional full subject, the cogito of the western philosophy. They express too an epistemological obsession with fragments or fractures, and a corresponding ideological committement to minorities in politics, sex and language. To think well, to read well according to this episteme of unmaking is to refuse the tyranny of wholes; totalization in any human endeavor is potentially totalitarian. Thus, the unity of the text in postmodern thinking becomes to be blown into pieces. It is dispersed and divided. So the text becomes like auto destructive (Wellmer 38), meaning that it deconstructs itself by itself. Through this technique, Halaby aims at rejecting all kinds of totalizing thoughts that aim at establishing authority especially that of the masculine discourse of power. The fragmentation of the unity of the text reflects in other terms a fragmentation in the identity of characters. Most of the characters seem to be lost. Souraya, Hala and Khadija are presented as trying to establish themselves. Their sexual identity is fragmented meaning that they suffer from a duality in their personalities. They try to elaborate reconciliation between their Arab Muslim identity and its ethics and between their adopted cultures. Souraya is a good example illustrative of this principle of doubleness and transgressive gender behavior. Although her name and her family are Arab Muslim, her gender behavior does not correspond to the Arab Muslim norms. On the opposite, it is westernized in the way she has many relations with men and she does not respect the familial and social rules of her community. Souraya subverts the moral ethics of her religion and society. Khadija is also another protagonist who suffers from this duality and doubleness since she is presented as anxious about her true feminine essence. She is presented in a negative image in the text since she subsumes a lot of violence from the other male figures. She is passive and she is a female who

wishes to assimilate herself to the male as she considers being a male a better situation. Farah is also similar to Khadija as she is always deviating between oppressive male figures, wether fathers or husbands. Jean Baudrillard is one of the critics who describe the postmodern revolution as the gigantic process of loss of meaning which implies a deconstruction of all histories, references and finalities (Wellmer 41). The sexual identity of the protagonists of the text is deconstructed and fragmented as is the main construction of text. The idea and conception of Truth is deconstructed. There is no one unity. The text is fragmented into chapters that do not relate logically but are just collected and combined together. Jean Francois Lyotard is also one of the critics who argue that there is no one general unity and no one Truth. He emphasizes the idea of division and metanarratives which goes counter to the idea of grand narratives (42). All of these postmodern elements are very well seen through the text. There is no one story that follows a clear hierarchy and chronological order. The notion of Truth and monologic discourse is deconstructed. The plan is fragmented. The writer aims through these techniques at showing in an indirect manner her refusal of the norms of gender according to which people live. There is an implicit refusal of these social norms that is clearly seen through the types of characters, the nature of events, the style of the text etc The main characters of the text are females. The male characters, although they have important roles, are presented as secondary. This is new and deconstructive of the male discourse, in comparison with the modernist period, which represents the rules and norms in any Arab Muslim context. The rule of the father and the husband is deconstructive and replaced by the rule of the female. Also in the chain of events, we do not notice a real presence of males. The book depicts basically female experiences which relate essentially to gender issues such as motherhood, wifery, etc. In general it speaks about family relationships and ties paying attention to their importance in the construction of female identities. Also in relation to the protagonists, there is not a unique male hero. On the opposite the heroes are women and they are four not just one. By presenting this to the reader, Halaby aims at investigating the idea of division which entails multiplicity of discourses. There is a deconstruction of the notion of monologue. In misogynist texts, we are used to see images of male heroes who always occupy positions of power neglecting through it females and all feminist issues. The multiplicity of heroes in West of the Jordan is a postmodernist technique

that aims at deconstructing the image of the male and decentralizing it. So, the male does no longer occupy the center being the hero of the story. He is on the opposite replaced by four female characters where no one of them occupy the position of the center but each character speaks about a personal experience that is relative to a conservative and a misogynist context. Another technique that is relative to the idea of division and multiplicity of heroes and the fragmentation of the plot is code mixing and code switching. The writer does not use a clear style and a clear colloquium. By contrast, the style of the text is hybridized and it is mixed meaning that it contains more than one colloquium. The style of the text is marked by two linguistic categories: one is specific to the original Arab Muslim culture and the other is specific to the adopted mainstream American culture. Language as it is known carry in it a sign of the civilization and culture of each country. Culture, as Rundell and Mennel define it, implies the following: that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a member of society (15). Again the duality in the style of the text implies a duality in the gender identities of the male and the female characters. These characters while they try to assimilate themselves to the mainstream culture, they try at the same time to stay connected to their original country by keeping faithful to their traditions. In order to avoid moments of unintelligibility (Dasenbrook 161), meaning an inability to decode the text and to understand it from the part of the readers, wether local, meaning those who hold the original culture of the book, or those who are foreigners to it and having difficulty understanding the themes of the text (162), Halaby simplifies the style of the text by including simple cultural scenes and practices. Customs: Customs are also an important element in the text that speaks about gender identities of the characters. Customs are a means through which the writer celebrates the richness of her Arab Muslim culture. There is a focus on the black dresses and rozas that are specific to the mother culture. These customs are a sign of the belonging of these women to the Arab culture. They carry a signification of the male on the female body which means the belonging of the woman wether to her husband or to her father before him. It is a way for women to represent themselves (Green 289) as submitting to the male discourse through being included. Correspondingly, Halaby speaks about the traditional Middle Eastern clothes in West of the Jordan through references to what she calls beautifull embroidered dresses that she calls rozas (15). She mentions also examples of galabya and shalwar (187) as being customs

which women are obliged to wear by morality of religion and traditions as a sign of their admission to the male norms and rules. Likewise, there is juxtaposition and doubleness concerning the clothes and the way women in the community of Nawara behave. The galabya and the black dresses are presented in contrast to the jeans wearings of Hala and the kinds of clothes of Souraya. The latter two female figures are presented as being deconstructive and subversive of the male norms since the jeans are considered as extremely unfeminine dresses (77) which do not respect the norms and rules of the community of Nawara. Also, there is dialogism and juxtaposition between the kinds of clothes that the women of Nawara wear. As a matter of fact, the complicated embroidery on (the rosas) are a combination of both Palestinian and Western stitches and patterns (15). In marriage ceremonies, also women wear either traditional clothes soaked with either embroidery or modern dresses of shiny black material with gold spray or satiny pink that wrinkles (22). So, even concerning customs, there is a coordination between what is traditional specific to the homeland and what is specefic to the adopted culture. Halaby aims at showing the extreme difference that exists between them both, a difference which is clearly seen not only at the level of customs but also at the different cultural levels. So, she does not aim at merely comparing the one to the other but mainly for the aim of showing the huge gap that exists between both cultures at the gender level mainly. Representation: Representation, being one of the techniques of postmodernist writing and expression, is also one of the means that Halaby resorts to in order to depict the situation of women and their relational existence to men. Normally women are not granted space or voice in most of the misogynist texts. Halaby deconstructs this rule and misogynist male discourse by giving women more space. The female experiences presented in the text, although most of them are negative depict true problems from which women suffer. Being a mother, a sister, a daughter or else, a woman has always to obey the rules of the males wether in the family or in society. This is traditional and religious and has entered into the lives of the characters of the text wether men or women. So by deconstructing the traditional male discourse and the ethics relative to it, Halaby shows us her refusal of these norms. By depicting the Arab Muslim versus the American gender habits, Halaby aims at showing us the complete contradiction that exists between the two cultures. The writer aims at putting the reader between two extreme

dualities. The reader would find himself lost and in a position of in-betweeness, unable to have any opinion and position since both cultures represent each one the extreme opposite of the other. This is again one of the techniques of postmodernist writing which favors the idea of loss of meaning and absence of truth. The deconstruction of the grand narratives as relative to the male discourse in the text is one of the major aims of postmodernist writers wether ethnic or other. The multiplicity of meanings owing to the text is related to the multiplicity of the sexual identities owing to the protagonists. Khadija, Souraya, Hala and Mawal are all characters who are presented as depicting some of the experiences they lived in order to show their fantasies and their moral consciousness about the fact of being female trying to realize themselves and to discover their identities. Parody: Using the technique of parody, the writer deconstructs in an indirect manner all the stereotyping images of women which present negative perceptions of the female essence. The whole text is a parody and a subversion of the idea of wholeness and totality. In this way, it carries in itself a self consciousness about (its) cultures means of ideological legitimation (Hutcheon 101). Parody is an essential mechanism of postmodernism. As it is said, it deconstructs in an ironic way what it represents as Hutcheon says it: as a form of ironic representation, parody is doubly coded in political terms: it both legitimizes and subverts that which it parodies. The writer focuses on the way the female characters are represented wether by themselves or through their evolutions and contributions in the plot of the text or the way they are presented through the male perception of them: frequently, it is the male representation of the female that is the focus of the rewriting since in many cases we know the females only through the male representation of them (Hutcheon 101). The following quotation by Mallen illustrates this point of view: The way women appear to themselves, the way men look at women, the way women look at themselves, the way male sexuality becomes fetishism, the criteria for physical beauty- most of these are cultural representations and therefore not immutable but conditioned (101). It follows logically that the female characters of the text are cultural representations of the conception of femininity and different elements such as characters, events, style, etc. As a matter of fact, Souraya is a parody of the conception of woman as a body since she is represented as the extreme opposite of some other female characters such as Khadija.

Parody relates directly to the conception of subversion. All parodic female figures of West of the Jordan are subversions of the original picture of woman which favors the idea of female submission and weakness relative to the male discourse. The latter is directly related to the conception of God as it is Him the symbol of power. Halaby tried also to deconstruct that God image which can be easily deduced from the text, when Khadija depicts a scene in which she faced the television when she was praying together with some of her family members: so, there we were at my uncles house and we were supposed to face east, so we all faced the television, and I thought to myself, are we praying to the television god for my grandmothers soul? (76). There is an implicit mockery of the idea of God which favors the conception of loss of meaning and deconstruction of the notion of Truth and all the social discourses relative to it including that of male misogynism. Television is also one of the postmodern techniques that Laila Halaby resorts to in her depiction of the theme of gender. The writer describes television as the one medium that is consistently referred to as postmodern. Jean Baudrillard defines it as the paradigmatic form of postmodern signification because its transparent sign offers direct sign to a signified reality. This machine has a very important role in depicting reality since it presents some of the images and the scenes which criticize reality in a very spontaneous way. Hutcheon relates the power of television to the power of ideology. It is a discourse. Gerald Graff relates it to the conception of visionary celebration (qtd in. Hutcheon 10).

Conclusion: West of the Jordan is a postmodern book. Many techniques are used by the writer in order to make the process of reading and interpretation clear. The main construction of the text is based upon a duality. This phenomenon can be clearly seen through the psychological construction of characters and especially female protagonists.

General Conclusion: Male and female representations in West of the Jordan are gendered and biased for the purpose of showing the defects of the Arab culture and the gender ethics relative to it in order to help the reader recognize the way the masculine and the feminine gender identities are understood and practiced in a misogynist context such as the one of the text. The female characters are presented to readers through the experiences they underwent during the plot of the text, although it is shattered and divided. We do not notice a clear evolution of the events that end up with a resolution of a given climax. The text is divided into clear chapters that reflect directly the division of the identity of the characters, especially the female ones, and their doubleness. By representing female characters such as Souraya, Um Lubna and Ginna, Laila Halaby did not only aim at representing female experiences in a positive manner, but she, at

the opposite, gave us very negative images of females. She depicted them as behaving in a wrong way, according to the gender norms of the Arab Muslim community in which they are set meaning they are subverting the masculine order. Halaby wanted to show women as subverting their gender national identities through committing sin that is related to the conception of the body. Within that frame, Hutcheon asserts the following: the politics of representation and knowledge.not just about the body, but about the female body, not just about the female body, but about its desires- and about both as socially and historically constructed through representation (143). The writer is evoking within readers a consciousness about the fact that the gender conception is relative and that it changes according to time and place. It is not a fixed conception but it depends on external forces and discourses of power that manipulate the way men perceive the feminine gender identities and the way women perceive themselves: wether the medium be linguistic or visual, we are certainly dealing with systems of meaning operating within certain codes and conventions that are socially produced and historically conditioned (143). Gender is a social knowledge that is variable and not fixed. By contrast, the social knowledge about sexual contradictions between the male and the female is fixed according to the analysis of many critics and sociologists. Cultural gender intelligibility is one of the very important points that Halaby tries to depict and to discuss in the text. She gives examples of characters, especially female ones, showing how unintelligible they are through their gender behaviors to the community of the text. They are refused and rejected because they do not respect the codes and norms of gender intelligibility. This term implies the conformity between the gender behavior relative to men and women, and the identities respective to them, with the demands and the moral obligations of a predetermined social community and generation. There must always be reconciliation between the way the feminine and the masculine behave in society and the way civilized social groups, Arab Muslim and else conceptualize men and women and the gender identities specefic to them. If this does not happen it may lead to disbalance in the social organization and thus, to the subversive behaviors that do not respect the norms. Subversive behaviors mean disrespect of the common rules. They are usually understood from the part of misogynist conservative societies as related to female sinful natures that lead the masculine to commit mistakes as it is usually referred to in the social minds of human communities and mainly the Arab Muslim ones, such as the community of Nawara.

The postmodern ethics of writing and criticism investigate different issues that relate in a direct manner to the issue of Islamic conceptions of the feminine essence. It is a negative perception that underestimates women in general. The principles of female underestimation are clear in the religious texts of the Quran and other texts such as the Sunnah. In the book, the reader can easily perceive the harshness of the Islamic religion in the way the female characters, wether presented as mothers, daughters, sisters or else, are presented to the readers. They are negatively perceived and are always depicted as obeying male oppression wether from husbands or fathers. Indeed, male oppression is necessary in most misogynist societies in order to keep social organization stable and to make women obey the masculine orders. In order to show the importance of masculine power and hegemony in most of the Islamic societies, Halaby gives examples of female subversions of the masculine order showing the bad results relative to it in order to make the reader understand the need in most of the misogynist societies to the masculine authority. As a matter of fact we can mention examples of Souad, the wife of Sameer Samaha and Um Lubna. Both characters behaved in a prostitute-like behavior that led to a disorder in their milieus. Souad is a woman who behaved in a wrong way meaning that she did not help her husband to assume power over her despite his implicit impotency. This is the reason for which her marriage experience with Sameer Samaha ended up with a failure that is relative to the death of Sameer. Um Lubna is also an implementation of the feminine desire in the way she was not able to control her sexual needs. The immoral sexual conducts she had with Abu Khudher explain her hysterical behavior with her daughter as she excluded and rejected her because the latter carried always a symbol of her failure. Um Lubna is presented to the reader as behaving like a mad person in the way she was not able to control her sexual desires. This made her fall in a hysterical manner which, due to the self contradictory nature of this woman, pushed her to behave in a prostitute like manner, meaning having sex out of the context of marriage, which goes counter to her initial state of submissiveness that was clearly perceived through her acceptance of the will of God. As Freud conceptualizes it, the notion of feminine desire, as it is implemented through the character of UmLubna and Souraya, is related to inner stat

es of oppression. It is conceptualized as the coming back of the repressed. It means oppressed desires that stay inside due to the conservative nature of the community of those women (Bernard 527).

Subversion of gender identities is also related to the other characters of Souraya, Hala, Sameer Samaha and his wife Souad. Souraya is the implementation of the conception of woman as a body. She can be understood in two ways: a parody of the notion of woman as a body and an implementation of the powerful feminine desire as constructive of the female authentic identity. At times, she seems to be phantasising about herself as a woman. Phantasy as Sigmund Freud explains it implies the following: The object of phantasy may be considered as twofold. The first and less important object, I think, is the object of finding an outlet for the libido at an older level when faced with a situation to which adjustment is difficult. It is a way of letting off steam as the phrase goes, of emotional catharsis. But the more important function of phantasy is coupled with its . . . function of portraying conflict, that is, its picturing of the two op-posed tendencies that are battling for supremacy . . . The object of the symbolization of the conflict is, therefore, in general, to bring the whole matter into consciousness but in particular to bring that particular element into consciousness which is interfering with the progress of the individual. (Bernard) The process of identity development of the character of Souraya is relative to her conception of her body. Her power is relative to her need to establish herself over others and mainly men. The way she behaves in a contrastive manner to the advices of her mother is one of the methods utilized from her part in order to establish herself. She establishes herself as contrastive to the needs of others. In this way, she manages to be subversive and thus to be out of the traditional mainstream Arab-American culture and ethics. Subversion also includes the character of Sameer Samaha. He is subversive in the way he does not manage to assume power over his wife. By contrast the latter manages to be subversive herself over the character of her husband in the way she was more powerful than him and how she managed to deconstruct the authoritative manipulative figure of the husband. In addition to her, Hala is also the implementation of the deconstructive subversive figure of the father. She refused to obey the rule of her father and thus managed to establish her own identity over him.

The conception of gender is studied from an Arab Islamic perspective in the book since the context is Arab Muslim and the characters are traditional and conservative. The conception of gender in Islam depends on different factors among the most important of which is female obedience versus male authority. Any deviation from the common rules may lead to exclusion and refusal from the mainstream culture that can be expressed through different forms such as criticism. Islamic gender has basic principles, among the most important of which is female inferiority regarding the males, which must not change through time and history. During modern ages this religion encountered various challenges essentially regarding gender and most importantly it encountered westernization and a direct negative effect of the American mainstream culture and values which are contrastive and undermining of the Arab Islamic culture. The bad effect of America concerning the gender issue can be seen mainly through the female characters and most importantly Souraya.

The writer resorts to different methodological techniques and strategies in order to highlight her themes of gender. Among these, she resorts to fragmentation, division of plot and presentation of feminine experiences which are basically negative. She sought also to use different motifs and thematical concepts such as storytelling, customs etcThe absence of total meaning and Truth in the text refers to postmodern ethics of writing that do not celebrate the notion of monologue and Truth and favors metanarratives and the multiplicity of discourses. The text is divided and subdivided into chapters that do not link logically. The identity of most characters is also divided and fragmented. Deconstruction is a basic method and continuous technique that can be noticed through the psychological construction of characters, also through the nature of events.

By utilizing these techniques, Halaby wants to show her refusal of the traditions and ethics of the Arab Muslim community of the text in an indirect manner. There is an implicit rejection and criticism of the conservative Arab Muslim culture and the principles relative to it concerning gender. Gender here is discussed from an Arab Muslim perspective. It changes of course according to other cultures and societies since each culture has its own traditions and values. Many of the critics tried to emphasize this point. It is also related directly to religion. So, gender and religion are two inseparable conceptions. In every culture, wether Muslim or else, gender is a historical situation. It has to be analysed from a historical angle as it is always open to change as long as there are historical

changes. But there is always a common point between all cultures concerning gender ethics which is that women are always badly treated in comparison to men wether as a sex or a gender category, as Shakir puts it: The one constant in every culture is that women are treated badly (120). The conception of sex differences is different from gender differences as the first is natural and biological relative to the body and the second is historical relative to societies and social knowledges about the essential femininity and masculinity.