How Do Gendered Power Relations Produce the Objectification of Women in Al-Ḥubb fī Zamān al-Nafṭ? A Sara Mills Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the discursive construction of gender in Nawal El-Sa’dāwī’s Al-Ḥubb fī Zamān al-Nafṭ using Sara Mills’ Critical Discourse Analysis. It examines how women are positioned as subjects and objects in the narrative and how such positioning reproduces patriarchal power relations. Using a qualitative critical approach, the data consist of narrative passages and dialogues from the original Arabic text collected through close reading. The analysis follows Miles and Huberman’s framework, focusing on subject–object positioning and reader alignment in Sara Mills’ model. The findings indicate that women are predominantly constructed as objects of narration, while their subjectivity remains limited and situational. Although female characters occasionally express awareness of oppression, this awareness does not develop into sustained narrative agency. Consequently, women’s resistance is framed as reflective rather than transformative. The study also identifies symbolic violence through linguistic strategies that normalize restrictions on women’s mobility, bodies, and socio-economic opportunities. Furthermore, the narrative positions readers to empathize with women’s suffering while accepting gender inequality as a naturalized social condition. This study contributes to feminist literary criticism and critical linguistics by showing that gender inequality operates not only thematically but also through discursive mechanisms embedded in language and narrative structure within Arabic literary contexts and feminist ideological reproduction processes.