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    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"
    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"
    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"
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    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"

    By Students' Academy

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    The most powerful and interesting story in the collection is “Distant View of a Minaret.” As the story begins, there is a sex scene of a husband and wife in their house. This story has been presented through the perspective and point of view of the wife. Although she is involved in the act of sex, she seems to be uninterested because she has always failed to express her desires for sexual satisfaction.

    This particular story conveys the passive female sexual role. The sexual relationship in marriage in the Egyptian society is pushed by selfish male domination. The female protagonist in the story is like the lone minaret. She continues to exist with her solitude and never raises her voice.

    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"
    Copyright
    Chapter One: Introduction
    Chapter Two: Alifa's Literary Themes
    Chapter Three: Characters
    Chapter Four: Plot Summaries
    Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaja Sharma
    Release dateOct 17, 2014
    ISBN9781311731111
    A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret"
    Author

    Students' Academy

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      Book preview

      A Quick Guide to "Distant View of a Minaret" - Students' Academy

      A Quick Guide to Distant View of a Minaret

      Students' Academy

      Copyright

      A Quick Guide to Distant View of a Minaret

      Students' Academy

      Copyright@2014 Students' Academy

      Smashwords Edition

      All rights reserved

      Chapter One: Introduction

      Distant View of a Minaret by Alifa Rifaat was first published in 1983. It is a collection of fifteen very interesting and informative stories.

      The recurring ideas of sexual frustration, pervasive cultural burden, and death are the most prominent of the themes of the stories.

      Notwithstanding the questions raised by the author about the limits placed on women in Islamic society, she never raises a question of the ultimate validity of Islam. There is element of Islamic faith in each of the stories in the book.

      The most powerful and interesting story in the collection is Distant View of a Minaret. As the story begins, there is a sex scene of a husband and wife in their house. This story has been presented through the perspective and point of view of the wife. Although she is involved in the act of sex, she seems to be uninterested because she has always failed to express her desires for sexual satisfaction.

      This particular story conveys the passive female sexual role. The sexual relationship in marriage in the Egyptian society is pushed by selfish male domination. The female protagonist in the story is like the lone minaret. She continues to exist with her solitude and never raises her voice.

      All other stories in the collection are basically a kind of voice that tends to reveal to the world the plight of women in the society that is heavily guided and dominated by faith and male members.

      Chapter Two: Alifa's Literary Themes

      Alifa Rifaat is considered to be one of the most widely read Arabian writer of short stories. Throughout her literary career, she wrote in Arabic language.

      During the initial period of her literary career, she used to focus more on romance, but having met her translator Denys John Davies, she shifted to social critique and her stories became more revealing and emphatic.

      According to the advice given by Denys, she got convinced to write in more colloquial style of Arabic. Since it was more easily accessible to the Egyptian population, her colloquial style of writing was very well received and greatly admired.

      Her stories and novels have been translated into several languages including German, English, Dutch, and Swedish.

      Distant View of a Minaret and Other Short Stories is her most popular translated work. It has been translated by Denys Johnson Davies.

      Most of Rifaat’s works

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