Written Homework Assignment #9: Beirut Nightmares
As you read Beirut Nightmares for Monday’s class, please consider the questions below and write a 1-page response (Times 12, one inch margins) to the question assigned to you. Be prepared to share your response in class and to discuss the questions not assigned to you as well.
Questions:
- How does this novel reflect on the act of writing? How does this novel display self-awareness with respect to the issue of literary and ideological commitment? (Clair, Jordan)
- Who are the protagonist’s neighbors (Amin and Amm Fu’ad) and what sort of symbolic role can they be understood to be playing in this text? (Alex, Kathleen)
- Which of the novels that we’ve read thus far do believe feels like kindred to Beirut Nightmares? What feels similar to you, and why? (Kizzy, Rubi)
- Considering cooke’s and Zeidan’s analyses of the evolution of female protagonists in the Arabic novel, where does the protagonist of Beirut Nightmares fit in to them? A related yet slightly different question: would you describe the protagonist as a heroic figure? (Mayed, Becca)
- How do notions of gender and gender-roles play out in this novel? Does it seem reasonable to you to refer to Beirut Nightmares as a feminist novel, or as an example of “women’s literature”? (Toni, Lorenzo)
- How does Ghada Samman critique Beirut – its people, society, and traditions – before the war? Who or what appears to symbolize pre-war Beirut, and how does she see the roots of the Lebanese Civil War in them? (Oakley, Nataliah)