Freedom and Constraint in Saudi Women’s Writings

Abstract

This thesis seeks to examine how freedom and its constraints are represented in selected works by contemporary Saudi women writers. The thesis shows how Saudi women writers represent different forms of freedom through the lenses of genre and feminism. It also demonstrates how Saudi women writers navigate freedom’s social and religious constraints. My central contention is that freedom in Saudi women writings is shaped by the social, cultural, and religious contexts of Saudi Arabia. For all that, Saudi writers engage with Western feminist views, they adapt them to their own particular contexts. Nor do they blame religion – in this case, Islam – for restricting their freedoms; instead, they critique the extreme ideologies that impede their attainment of various types of freedom. These forms of freedom are analysed in depth: the freedom to love in Girls of Riyadh and Hend and the Soldiers; the freedom to move in Daring to Drive and Sixth of November; and the freedom to dream in Fatma and My Thousand and One Nights.