Comparative Analysis: Alifa Rifaat and Antonia Palacios' Stories

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of the literary works of Alifa Rifaat, focusing on her exploration of women's sexuality and societal constraints within the context of traditional Egyptian culture. The essay examines her famous story, 'My World of the Unknown,' highlighting its themes of female empowerment and challenges to patriarchal norms. Furthermore, it compares Rifaat's writing style and thematic concerns with those of Antonia Palacios, particularly in 'A Gentleman on the Train,' to explore broader literary and cultural perspectives. The analysis delves into the socio-political context of Rifaat's writing, emphasizing her portrayal of women's experiences in a male-dominated society and her exploration of controversial topics such as sex, marriage, and societal expectations. The essay draws on critical sources to provide a nuanced understanding of Rifaat's contribution to feminist literature and her impact on contemporary literary discourse. The essay also highlights the use of symbolism and narrative techniques to convey complex ideas about identity, freedom, and the human condition, making it a valuable resource for students seeking to understand Rifaat's significance in literature.

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Alifa Rifaat is known for her eccentric, controversial way of writing. Being hailed from
Egypt, her style of writing depicts the contemporary style of romanticism and mystic aura of
traditional Egypt. Alifa Rifaat spent her life as an ordinary Egyptian Muslim woman, she doesn't
have a school direction, she talks a vernacular language which suggests her examining is
constrained to the written work open just in Arabic, and the fundamental time she has deserted
her regular Egyptian life is for religious voyages to Mecca and Medina.
My world of the unknown – Analogy:
In her famous writing which has garnered fame and accolade across the world, My World of
the Unknown, Rifaat investigates ladies' sexuality as an approach to undermine persecution.
Her attention on ladies sexuality reached out into the privilege of wedded ladies. Rifaat makes
it clear that a sound sexual coexistence for ladies is a fundamental right in a wide range of
marriage. To her sexuality and sexual flexibility is a fundamental need – so that is cut off from a
lady's life, it's recounting persecution in different parts of her life.
Her writing takes after an anonymous storyteller who has as of late moved out to the farmland,
close by her significant other whose work took them there. The storyteller is a curious lady,

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inspired by watching out for her garden, and arranging her new house's stylistic theme. She
minds her own business, her better half and youngsters infrequently even visit her
considerations. A little while later in the new house, she finds a supernatural soul as snake in
her garden. This snake is a djinn, a soul in the Muslim custom that can go amongst physical and
ethereal space. After observing this snake, the storyteller is hit with a sentiment cherish. She
winds up debilitated and lays around in bed, pondering what has come over her. One night, the
djinn returns presents herself as Love incarnate, and she takes the storyteller as her darling.
Time passes and the storyteller is both frantically infatuated and terrified by her new increased
sexuality. She in the end grasps the snake's affection and can appreciate all parts of her life.
That is until the point when her significant other slaughters another snake in the yard, breaking
the "settlement" with the djinn and constraining her to clear out. The storyteller lives with trust
she will rejoin with the djinn.
Fatimah Rifaat, concentrated her composition on ladies in customary Islamic parts. In her
personal history Fatimah portrays her dad's absence of warmth towards her as a conceivable
base of her investigation of the requirements and wants of men as far as ladies. She proceeds
to relate that through her life she found that "all men look for is joy. Consequently I shout out
for finish and correlative love in every one of my works." Fatimah likewise communicates in her
personal history the requirement for people to just take an interest in intercourse when they
are in a peaceful state, with the goal that climax can be accomplished, which she trusts acts to
reinforce confidence in God.

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Fatimah Rifaat's written work focuses upon the noiseless situation of ladies in a male centric
Muslim society. Her stories fundamentally happen in common Egypt. These stories handle
subjects, for example, sex, passing, marriage, masturbation, clitoridectomy, adore, high school
pregnancy, widowhood, and misfortune alongside other questionable points. Amid this day and
age a lady was viewed as a simply sexual being, and the recompense of opportunity of her
sexuality was dreaded to bring about fitna, or societal tumult. Despite the fact that Alifa Rifaat
endeavored to express through composing the sexual suppression of ladies, her stories and her
life were directed in a conventional Muslim way and she didn't advocate the ascent of ladies
against male controlled society. The majority of Rifaat's female heroes take a surrendered or
begrudgingly tolerating position towards the hardships they look throughout everyday life. For
Fatimah Rifaat, male controlled society is only an unavoidable truth and adequate under
Quranic terms, in any case it is the inverse and in a few cases even a similar sex's absence of
recognition towards religious lessons that goes about as the impetus to a significant number of
the heroes' issues. In her stories a large number of the sexual experiences occur amid the
characters' marriage and there is no example of additional conjugal male-female connections as
this would be considered simply evil under the act of Islam.
A gentleman in the train – Analogy:
"A Gentleman on the Train" is a spellbound story told by the writer which has mesmerized the
world. The story is resolved to a get awestruck. A young woman is keeping an eye out the
window, she thinks by hypothesizing she is in Venezuela, and looking field. There is a good man
sitting inverse her. Clearly as a lone woman she is to some degree fascinated by him. At first the
things she sees out the window are just your standard nation scenes, by then she starts to see a

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surrealistic scene of a sort reminiscent of Picasso's Goya. She close her eyes and watches her
own particular internal parade, that of the all inclusive community who live with her on earth.
Warriors, captains, colonels, high-situating officers, prostitutes and overseers, priests, bums,
presidents and VPs, men in revealed feet and shining boots, the hungry and the fulfilled, men
with glutted stomachs and high society women.
The delineations of the scenes out the window, the real ones and the others are a magnificent
happiness to examine. At first reader will consider that the complexities between the honest to
goodness scene and the Magically Real however the story brings us into another outcast more
significant bend. The man begins to talk with her about what an appalling world they live in,
implying events in the every day paper he is scrutinizing. He proposes maybe they can have a
drink together. She ignores him as he meanders on and the ride gets more odd and outcast.
Flying animals fly through the air and she can see their imperceptible chains. She in like manner
contemplates a man she worships, Jocquin. The man by then asks regarding whether she is
going to Quietzco. He uncovers to her how awesome and stunning a place it is. She soon
genuinely needs to see it, the man uncovers to her the air smells of roses and honeysuckle. The
air is lighter, everything is smooth and unwinding. By and by Delia is under the spell of the man.
She yearns to hear a more prominent measure of Queitzco. She imagines Jocquin will be there
sitting tight for her. The get ready has surrendered each living thing, urban zones, fields, people,
animals. It has moreover left time subsequently and is slowly progressing into the shadows. The
writer has beautifully portrayed the story which reveals about the contemporary time, about
the society, about the culture and how things evolved around her that time. The pain and

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discomfort she experienced has been portrayed and depicted by her writing which has
bedazzled the writer by its sheer efficacy and art of storytelling.
Reference:
My world of the unknown by Alifa Rifaat translated by Denys Johnson-Davis

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Chipman, B. (2018). My World of the Unknown - Global Connections. Retrieved from
https://globalconnections.champlain.edu/2014/11/25/my-world-of-the-unknown/
"A Gentleman on the Train" by Antonia Palacios - Project 196 -Venezuela. (2018). Retrieved
from http://rereadinglives.blogspot.in/2013/02/a-gentleman-on-train-by-antonia.html