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Distant View of a Minaret

 Alifa Rifaat
 

Key Facts

 
full title ·  Distant View of a Minaret
 
author · Alifa Rifaat
 
type of work · Collection of short stories
 
genre · Women's literature, African literature
 
language · Arabic
 
time and place written · Early 1980s, Egypt
 
date of first publication · 1983
 
publisher · Heinemann Educational Books, Ltd.
 
narrator · Varies from story to story. Sometimes first-person narrative, sometimes third-person omniscient narrator
 
point of view · Usually that of a Muslim woman, either a wife, widow, mother, or child struggling against the restrictive norms of Islamic society or the infidelity/inconsideration of her husband
 
tone · Serious, solemn, and/or melancholy
 
tense · Usually present tense
 
setting (time) · Twentieth century
 
setting (place) · Cairo, Egypt, and outlying provinces
 
protagonist · Usually a Muslim woman, either a wife, widow, mother, or young girl, except in “At the Time of the Jasmine,” in which a middle-aged Egyptian man is the protagonist
 
major conflict · Woman vs. the social constructs of arranged marriages, limited freedom for women, and the infidelity and inconsideration of husbands
 
rising action · Varies for each story
 
themes · The importance of love in marriage; the tyranny of husbands; the impact of death on the living; the cost of freedom for women
 
motifs · Daily prayers; religion in daily language; widows
 
symbols · The snake; the canal
 
foreshadowing · Varies by story
 
 
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