Saadawi's novel is a feminist's text. The narrator is a pioneer, a feminist in her country of suppression. She is one grain in a salt pinch of

When she breaks the traditions and becomes a doctor she begins a journey to reevaluate her core nature. She even goes into seclusion in nature to find herself. "For the first time there was nobody else with me, and I felt as if I was divesting myself of the covering layers which had accumulated over the long years of my past life" (Saadawi 41). In this line, I believe she is shedding her cultural obstacles that she had to struggle with to become who she really is. "I was confronted by my naked self and I began to examine what I saw in minute detail. I stripped myself bare of medical and scientific knowledge...of people I'd seen and known...and the battles I'd lived through over the years, which had finally led me up a blind ally in my thinking...and I began to feel" (Saadawi 41). In this passage, she is discovering herself all over again away from the time since she was going through puberty. The descriptions of her laughing, stretching and relaxing are her becoming comfortable with herself, searching for a peace within herself. She does not dislike herself or her femininity here, rather she is trying to find a new femininity that she was not aware of existing because of all the cultural restrictions which were mostly imposed by her mother. "My mother had always told me that a girl shouldn't laugh loud enough for people to hear, so my laughter had always faded on my lips before it made a sound" (Saadawi 43). That rule was her culture's idea of a feminine quality, however the narrator then breaks that rule and

The ruling class dictates the ideals of the culture; feminists need to transcend towards the ruling

Some topics in this essay:
Woman Doctor, Feminism Literary, literary feminism, El Saadawi's, Memoirs Woman, memoirs woman, memoirs woman doctor, saadawi's novel, culture book, woman doctor, saadawi 41, equality women, ruling class, american culture,