This paper examines the father figure in the autobiographies of the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003) and the Israeli novelist Yael Dayan (1939-present). In the early half of the twentieth century, Nablusi women, exemplified by Fadwa, did not have the chance to participate in the political life until the Nakba in 1948. Women subsequently became more independent and could gain more access to the social and political life which was generally monopolized by patriarchs. Tuqan’s A Mountainous Journey (1990) draws an image of the father as a social force of domestication and alienation of the writer's poetic energy. Dayan, unlike Fadwa, enjoyed more freedom to experience life since childhood. Although most Jewish women in the Israeli community obtained more opportunities for personal expression of identity at the time, Dayan was even more privileged because she was the daughter of the famous Israeli leader Moshe Dayan. In her autobiography, My Father, His Daughter (1986), Yael talks extensively about her father’s political position and its influence on her life negatively and positively. This paper, henceforth, sheds light on dominant social and political patriarchal ideologies in the two autobiographies and how they are represented differently; that is, Tuqan’s social father and Dayan’s political father.

Title

International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT)

Publisher

Al-Kindi Center for Research and Development

Publisher Country

Jordan

Publication Type

Both (Printed and Online)

Volume

3

Year

2020

Pages

156-164