NAWAL EL SAADAWI AND GERMAINE GREER: LOST AND QUEST FOR IDENTITY

Abstract

Every human being has to live within the framework of National identity, the two crusaders Nawal El Saadawi and Germaine Greer also have their respective identity, but their quest for identity is different. Their quest is a quest for women’s identity in their perspective societies.It has long been accepted that feminism was among the first mediums of expression when the civilizing instinct took root in history from Greek age. By extension, it could be argued that feminism offers a privileged view into subjectivities especially when produced in situations where identities are contested and categorized.El Saadawi and Greer the modern feminist writers, who introduced a new idiom in literature, which composed their autobiographies using historical and social problems to tackle contemporary issues of Muslim and western women, and arguably performed a foundational role, can be read as a paradigm of such privileging. Much has been written, and read about the feeling of loss and quest for identity and a consciousness in their autobiographies. It has variously been argued that El Saadawi and Greer's autobiographies perform a self-analysis of identity that helps the reader reach conclusions regarding life and existential experiences that revolve aroundidentity crisis. However, ina bid into bracket their works under these conceptual categoriesof ‘the identity’. A study of this kind, however, demands a study of the tradition of Muslim and western women who live in different respective societies to understand how El Saadawi and Greer was shaped by a peculiar and particular historicity society, even as they sought to distance themselves from it. El Saadawi and Greer’s claim were to be accepted, it implies that El Saadawi and Greer introduced a new utility and routiness to feminism that transformed it from a detached aesthetic experiment to an existential of an identity.