The Struggle of The Main Character as Seen In Nawal ElSaadawi’s Woman at Point Zero

Abstract

We know that the abusive of woman in eastern coutries is a tradition. Egypt is one of
country in the world that has the tradition. In Egypt, the women always gets abusive from
their family and society. The novel Woman at Point Zero tells about a woman in Egypt who
always gets abusive from her family and an unknown person. The traits of main character is
a reason of her as the victim of being abusive. She struggles to bring herself away of bring
abusive.
The objective approach of literary work analysis which concern on instrinsic
elements of novel. As a result, the objective are the trait of character, the plot of the story,
setting. The trait of character as the object classified about the characteristic of human
personality in the novel as presented through the describing of action, conversation, situation
of character. Women must revolt against the power center of their culture where men is more
dominance than women in their society, to form their self-consciousness as women, to
demand to be equal with men and to obtain their authority.
The research used close reading. The object is the novel Woman at Point Zero which
is written by Nawal El-Saadawi in 1983. The technique of collecting the data were (a) read
and reread (b) search for detail (c) taking notes and highlighting the data of traits and
struggle (d) classifying (e) analyzing (f) relating traits with struggle.
Finding of the research are, firstly, there are seven traits of the main character : (1)
Naive (2) Vulnerable (3) Submissive (4) Studious (5) Selective (6) Brave (7) Tough. Second,
the forms of women struggle are : searching for protection, looking for a job, killing to
survive. The point from the data is about the women in Egypt get abusive because of
themselves and their tradition. Because of that, the women must be brave and tough to get
their free from abusive that exist in their environment.
Keywords : Abusive, Objective Approach, Traits, Struggle