In the aftermath the 25th January Revolution of 2011, two Egyptian dystopian novels stand out as particularly relevant: Utopia (2008) by Ahmed Khaled Towfik, and The Queue (2013), by Basma Abdel Aziz. Due to the absence of studies that pay attention to how gender relations are portrayed in Arabic dystopian novels, this study focuses on the literary representation of men and masculinities in Utopia and The Queue. This thesis uses narratology and content analysis in order to show that, although patterns of local masculinities are different in both novels, regional and global models of masculinity clearly point out men as controlling, violent and hypersexual, which is supported by multiple institutions, such as the state, media, and the religious establishment. The inclusion of relevant ethnological studies of masculinities in Egypt confirms that the social criticism of the novels include gender relations, and refers to the time in which the novels were written. This study points out the need for recognizing Arabic dystopian fiction as a valuable instrument that carries meaningful and intricate social criticism, as well as the need for the inclusion of gender as a category of literary analysis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-184262 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Viteri Marquez, Elisa Andrea |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för Asien-, Mellanöstern- och Turkietstudier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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