Rethinking the Human: A Feminist Comparative Reading of Narjiss Nejjar’s Dry Eyes and Leila Abouzeid’s Year of the Elephant through Irigaray’s Paradigm of Ethical Sexual Difference

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which the notion of the "human" is reimagined in Leila Abouzeid's novella Year of the Elephant (1989) and Narjiss Nejjar's film Dry Eyes (2003). This examination is framed within the feminist critical paradigm of ethical sexual difference developed by Luce Irigaray. In this utopian paradigm, the traditional rhetoric of sexual antagonism between the sexes dissolves in favour of intersubjective, spiritual relationality and co-existence. This paper uses a feminist comparative analysis to examine the relevance of Irigaray's ideas on ethical sexual difference in the works of both Abouzeid and Nejjar. It emphasises how these narratives foreground a symbolic female and feminist ethical consciousness that redefines heterosexual relational dynamics. This consciousness is seen as a transformative process that transcends orthodox textual/sexual politics that often subscribe to subjugation and assimilation. It brings into being a new female and feminist discourse that affirms an ethical "amorous exchange," wherein reciprocal respect, understanding, and recognition of one another's differences can foster a more genuine sense of subjectivity.