Culture of Silence in Alifa Rifaat’s Distant View of a Minaret: Complicity or Complacency?

Abstract

This paper examines the culture of silence that seizes female characters in the face of oppression and neglect sustained by the Islamic cultural milieu in which the literary production is set. Using Distant View of a Minaret, the study employs a qualitative approach which involves literary text analysis in an attempt to unveil Alifa Rifaat’s complicity in the culture of silence that pervades the North African clime where the stories are based. Through character analysis and reactions to issues of patriarchy which receive little or no resistance, the paper discovers that Rifaat’s approach to the myriads of women oppressions by men is that of non-confrontational and silence.With the author’s conformitywith the status quo ante, attention is further concentrated on the culture of silence as a disposition unequivocally promoted by the author. The paper concludes that Rifaat’s approach is a far cry from the radical feminist dispositions of West, South, East, and Central African literary zones. The paper affirms that the author is complicit in the docility that defines women’s reactions to their oppression in the novel. It was, therefore, suggested that Rifaat’s non-confrontational approach should be theorized and localized within the context of the Islamic religious socio-cultural setting. So doing, it will serve as a starting point in the goal of defining the nature and character of women liberation not only in Egypt but other Islamic socio-cultural climes North of the Sahara.