Intra-Gender Complicity and the Objectification of Woman in Djebar’s A Sister to Scheherazade

Abstract

This paper considers the inhuman treatment women mete to fellow women using the character representation in A Sister to Scheherazade. It attempts to establish that women contribute greatly to their own oppression in the society by critically analyzing the actions of women characters in the narration. S. L. Barky's explication on the idea of objectification is employed to explain the relationship between female characters in the primary text and to establish the spur of oppression in the text, and by implication, identify the oppressors; whereas Patricia H. Collins's concept of binary thinking is used to describe the intentions of the identified oppressors. The analysis of the primary text reveals various needs of the major characters and how they attempt to achieve such needs of theirs by giving up the protagonist. It reveals further that the deeds of the major female characters in the primary text are the reasons the protagonist suffers. The paper, therefore, concludes that as in the case of the protagonist in the text, the objectified is not only used as a means to an end but is a victim of collective and intra-gender oppression.