The image of the female body and identity construction between alterity and alteration A sociocritical study of Ṭiflat al-samāʾ by Samar Yazbek

This analysis of Ṭiflat as-samāʾ studies the female body as a symbolic site of power and a battleground for freedom. The author examines Alaouite and Sunni female identities through a corporeity that is a “source” of conflict both with the self and with the other. The Yazbekian body acts as a vehicle for a discourse that betrays social malaise and personal discontent. Sociocultural and religious stigmas are etched onto the female body, which is judged, fixed, idealized, and fantasized.