From Incarceration in the Cube to Self-Reclamation: A Feminist Reading of Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World

Abstract

Feminism in Palestinian literature focuses on the struggle of Palestinian women against patriarchal oppression and colonial occupation, emphasizing resistance, identity preservation, and the reclamation of voice, land, and agency. The paper presents a feminist reading of Susan Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World and examines Nahr’s act of transforming herself from incarceration in The Cube that was an isolated and surveilled space, into a site of agency, resistance, and self-reclamation. Theoretically, the study is grounded in Feminism and draws on the lens of Lila Abu-Lughod’s Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East. The study is qualitative in nature and relies on the technique of textual analysis. It foregrounds the gendered nature of violence and surveillance that shapes Nahr’s experiences as a Palestinian woman negotiating trauma, exile, and political repression. The study contends that Abulhawa subverts conventional representation of female victimization by depicting Nahr’s journey from incarceration to psychological and political empowerment. Nahr challenges the patriarchal and carceral structures and traces her subjectivity. The study also sheds light on Abulhawa’s contribution to feminist prison literature and Palestinian resistance narratives. Consequently, this research reveals that Against the Loveless World reconceptualizes imprisonment not merely as a site of oppression, but as a transformative space where feminist consciousness, memory, and selfhood are reimagined and reconstructed.