The Connection Between Surveillance and Ownership
Throughout the telling of her story, Firdaus describes the act of
seeing as akin to an act of possession. One of Firdaus’s earliest memories
as a child is the memory of her mother’s eyes watching her, holding her up
when she struggled to learn how to walk and negotiate the world. For the
young Firdaus, this sense of belonging to her mother and being watched over
by her is very comforting. She feels that being a possession of her mother
is what protects her. Later, though, the act of being surveyed takes on a
very different meaning. When Firdaus grows older, she no longer feels her
mother’s eyes supporting her. From then on, whenever Firdaus senses
someone’s eyes watching her, she feels threatened. When Firdaus first runs
away from her uncle’s house, she encounters a terrifying man who runs his
eyes up and down her body, making Firdaus feel invaded, and as if her body
were not her own.
Firdaus’s life-long struggle is to claim her body as her own. When
Firdaus marries Sheikh Mahmoud, his eyes never leave her dish at mealtimes,
and he watches every morsel of food she eats with jealous intensity. Firdaus
becomes self-conscious about eating. Firdaus describes almost all of the men
she encounters in the same way—they rake their eyes over her body and, in
doing so, act as though her body exists only for them. It is not until she
is in prison that Firdaus learns to feel at ease during other people’s
examinations of her. This is because Firdaus has proven to herself that she
owns herself and that she is in control of her own destiny.
The Nature of Power
For the young Firdaus, the nature of power seems at first to be very
simple: men have it and women do not. Her father has power over her mother.
Her uncle has power over her. When she is married, Sheikh Mahmoud has power
over her. Even men on the street have power over the women they pass, merely
by turning them into objects with their eyes. Bayoumi, who locks Firdaus in
his apartment and lets his friends have sex with her, has power over her. It
isn’t until Firdaus meets Sharifa that her ideas of power begin to change.
Sharifa is a wealthy, independent woman. Rather than allowing men free use
of her body, as married women do, Sharifa uses the power of the desires that
men have for her to her advantage. She teaches Firdaus how to command the
power of her physical appearance. Still, Firdaus doesn’t know what it means
to possess power of her own. She learns that women can have power, too, but
she cannot fully wield her own power while living under Sharifa’s control.
When she sets out on her own as a prostitute, Firdaus finally learns
what it means to have something that other people desire. This is power. She
learns that she can command higher and higher prices simply by denying
people what they want, or exercising the power that she has over them.
Because of this, she feels that money is power. When she possesses money of
her own, she has power over the people who slander her, and she can give
herself a respectable name by hiring a lawyer and suing. Her brief stint as
an office worker only serves to reinforce this idea, and when she goes back
to prostitution, she charges more money than ever and uses her money to
mingle with more powerful people. Firdaus comes to believe that she has
attained real power. But the pimp who claims her proves that this is not the
case. He threatens to defame her or kill her, proving that no matter how
much money she has, Firdaus is still vulnerable to men because she has
something to lose. When she kills the pimp and later tears up the prince’s
money, Firdaus finally proves that she has control over herself.
The Importance of Attaining Respect
Attaining respect does not become one of Firdaus’s goals until Di’aa,
who has engaged her services as a prostitute, points out to her that in
spite of her financial security, she is not respectable. Until Firdaus has
money of her own, the way that the world views her never really enters into
her consideration. This is in part because the world has never paid her much
attention before. She was just an invisible person occupying the role of
daughter or wife. When she finally accumulates some wealth and power, the
world takes notice. Men take notice because, in Firdaus’s world, men don’t
want women to have power over them. By condemning her work as a prostitute
as shameful, they try to minimize her power, though they are also involved
in the exchange of sex and money. For the men in Firdaus’s story,
respectable women are women who are submissive and live under the protection
of a powerful man.
When Di’aa tells Firdaus that she is not respectable because the work
she does is shameful, she is deeply hurt. In an effort to become a more
respectable woman, she gives up her nice apartment and prostitution in order
to work in an office. Indeed, she becomes a “respectable” woman by placing
herself under the power of men again. Firdaus’s relationship with Ibrahim is
a part of this quest for respectability. She’s playing by the rules and, for
the first time, she feels as though she’s met a man she can trust. The
sacrifices she’s made to become respectable seem worthwhile. However, when
Firdaus discovers that Ibrahim was using her for sex, she once again
realizes that “respectability” is a trap that is designed to put women at
the mercy of men. By quitting her job and taking up prostitution again,
Firdaus rejects the pursuit of a “respectable” life in favor of a life of
power and self-determination. Firdaus has come to see that respectability in
her world means playing by someone else’s rules.
