¡°A woman¡¯s life is always miserable. A prostitute, however, is a little better off.¡±(p 89) How does this quotation encapsulate the main ideology of the novel?

In this novel, Woman at Point Zero, Nawal El Saadawi portrays the situation and the place of woman in Egypt and perhaps in many other parts of the world by the use of allegory. The brutal experiences that all the women go through in their life in Egyptian society, regardless of their social class or vocation, is shown through Firdaus¡¯ life from her inafanthood till the day of her death. This shows how women¡¯s sufferings are overlooked or rather taken advantage of by the society and how the women are unfortunately enchained in a thought prison to percieve and confront this reality.

Firdaus¡¯ childhood is developed in a small village where she paints the picture of her mother and father thereby beginning her long painful process of fresco of reality . In the family, she has no place to stand which can be seen when she describes herself being abandoned at the chill corner as a baby in the cold winter night, while her mother warms her husband who is already near the oven. A wom...