Oldal 41 [41]
OCR
THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF LANGUAGE USE by the male and female characters prior to the engagement, the actual proposal which is done in the presence of as much as possible male members of the groom’s” and the bride’s family,” the dowry (mahr),” the wedding ceremony (zaffeh) including the reading of the first surah of the Koran (fatiha) and the rather clichéd description of the awkwardness of the wedding night for a couple that barely knows each other.” This whole episode and the way it is described implicitly entail the authorial comment that, contrary to prejudice, gendered power relations within the framework of social and religious traditions at the beginning of the 20" century in conservative Nablus, while at the same time recognizing the difficulties that women face, are much more dynamic and negotiable than many outsider—readers would assume. This is further sustained by other references to marriage. Teta in her attempt to convince Midhat to marry, confides to him that before her marriage to Midhat’s grandfather she loved another man, but that she quickly grew to love the husband chosen for her by her family.’° Also the subplot of Hani’s marriage to his much younger cousin Sahar entails an implicit ethnographic comment on marriage: this at first sight misogynist traditional marriage between first cousins is sealed in order to protect the young girl from her uncles and Hani is not as free in his decision as it might seem. The couple develops a lively correspondence while Sahar is still at school. Moreover, as Hani declares himself, marriage changed his conservative position on the role of women in politics and he fully supports Sahar’s political involvement: “Of course, I wasn’t married back then. And marriage does change everything.””’ This means that Hammad does not merely describe Palestinian wedding customs and traditions, but she also intervenes and comments on how gender relations in Palestinian society were (and to a certain extent still are) perceived by outsiders (bear in mind Midhat’s implied misogyny in some of the comments by some of the French characters analyzed above). This ethnographic comment is further developed in the novel by a reversal of the “ethnographic gaze” at marriage and gender relations in France. On the evening of his arrival, Molineu invites Midhat to the marriage of his niece and he comments: “[S]o you will see a French wedding! Marriage ceremonies are the key, really, to a culture. You see a wedding, you understand a society.”’* Additionally, the awkwardness of Midhat’s first night with Fatima is not all that different from Molineu’s wedding night with Ariane, Jeannette’s mother.” Moreover, when Jeannette visits an 7? The Arabic word for this is jaha, but is not mentioned in the text. 73 Hammad: “Ihe Parisian or Al-Barisi”, 328-329. 74 Tbid., 345. 75 Ibid., 346. 7% Ibid., 259. 77 Ibid., 408. 8 Ibid. 11. 7° Ibid., 64-65. a « 39 «
