"Year of the Elephant"

Paper Summary:

The paper analyzes the novella, "Year of the Elephant", written by the Moroccan feminist author Leila Abouzied, which takes place within the town of Meknes, Morocco in the later 1950's, following the successful Moroccan War of Independence against French colonialist power. The paper discusses how, as the story opens, Moroccan sovereignty and a strong national sense of independence, pride, and ethnic and religious identity have finally been restored. The paper further analyzes how the character of Zahra, who, alongside her freedom fighter husband of twenty years helped to bring all of this about, is sadder, more displaced, more disoriented, and less confident than she has ever been. The writer concludes that the major strength of Leila Abouzied's novella lies within the author's depiction of Zahra herself, and her painful, but ultimately triumphant, struggle for a new authenticity, self-confidence, and worth.

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From the Paper:

"Zahra's personal struggle, moreover, is juxtaposed against her vivid memories of the upheaval and chaos of civil war within a nation in which everyone, not just Zahra, seemed to have temporarily lost his or her sense of place. For Zahra herself, though, this personal sense of chaos and severe displacement lingers well beyond the revolution. Zahra's eventual epiphany is that it is what one recognizes lies within one's self, rather than anything external, that creates and maintains authentic feelings of worth. This novella, like the Algerian feminist author Assia Djebar's novel Children of the New World (1962), is clearly both a feminist and an anti-colonialist work."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Abouzied, Leila. The Year of the Elephant. Austin, TX: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, 1989.

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• Research Paper # 93319 : "Gender Roles in Morocco and Algeria"

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