Voicelessness and Gender in Etaf Rum’s A Woman is No Man

Abstract

While there are certain people who are born with a voice but they remain silent; there are other individuals who think that they are free but their community proves them wrong. Isra has no choice but to leave her homeland Palestine and move with her new family to America, the land of freedom and liberty as she thinks. All her dreams and high hopes fade away, when she recognizes that the real world is different from the realm of fantasy which she encounters through reading stories. The dissertation entailed Voicelessness and Gender in Etaf Rum’s A Woman is No Man (2019) seeks to further understand the meaning silence symbolizes in the novel as well as the reasons behind choosing it along with its effect on both genders. It also tries to find out the role education and reading literary works play to break the code of silence, raise awareness, and save women’s lives from cultural and social pressure.