Kristevan Abjection in Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero

Abstract

It is evident that the second half of the 20th century witnessed a revolution in women’s studies, which cite women as the core subject of their focus, starting from Simone de Beauvoir until the present. Women’s identities, sexuality, and self-affirmation have been researched in the modern period’s theories and literature. As such, Julia Kristeva’s theories extend to include those of identity formation. Kristeva’s famous essay Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (POH) (1980) discusses the concept of abjection as a means for defining the self and asserting subjectivity. Abjection is a process of expelling and rejecting what is other, what hurts and disturbs the identity. Thus, abjection is considered as a strategy for identity formation as far as it expels things that obstruct the subject from identifying his/her self and acquiring subjectivity. In Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero (WPZ), the heroine suffers from hysterical symptoms which prevent her from developing her identity. This paper will look at abjection and its many forms as bisexuality in the first place; also a reference to prostitution and rejected marriage will be introduced due to its relatedness to abjection in WPZ to indicate the way the hysterical heroine gains her subjectivity through these forms by expelling the things which are considered Other to her.