Male playfulness and feminist irony Ṣāhibat al-dār Šahrazād by Ḥanān Al-Šayḫ

Suffering combined with female subordination, and playfulness combined with male domination are the two semic molecules that run through Ḥanān Al- Šayḫ’s Ṣāhibat al-dār Šahrazād. The link between playfulness and power typified by One Thousand and One Nights is hijacked in a process of ruptures offset by irony as a discursive strategy. Feminist in nature through its focus on the abuses of patriarchal authority, this approach can be attributed to the implicit female author.