Literary masculinities in contemporary Egyptian

dystopian fiction

Local, regional and global masculinities as social criticism in Utopia and The Queue

Elisa Andrea Viteri Márquez

Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies

MA thesis 45 credits

Master on Middle Eastern Language and Cultures (180 ECTS)

Spring 2020

Supervisor: Tania Al Saadi

Literary masculinities in contemporary Egyptian

dystopian fiction

Local, regional and global masculinities as social criticism in Utopia and The Queue

Elisa Andrea Viteri Márquez

Abstract

In the aftermath the 25th January Revolution of 2011, two Egyptian dystopian novels stand out as

particularly relevant: Utopia (2008) by Ahmed Khaled Towfik, and The Queue (2013), by Basma

Abdel Aziz. Due to the absence of studies that pay attention to how gender relations are portrayed in

Arabic dystopian novels, this study focuses on the literary representation of men and masculinities in

Utopia and The Queue. This thesis uses narratology and content analysis in order to show that, although

patterns of local masculinities are different in both novels, regional and global models of masculinity

clearly point out men as controlling, violent and hypersexual, which is supported by multiple institutions,

such as the state, media, and the religious establishment. The inclusion of relevant ethnological studies of

masculinities in Egypt confirms that the social criticism of the novels include gender relations, and refers

to the time in which the novels were written. This study points out the need for recognizing Arabic

dystopian fiction as a valuable instrument that carries meaningful and intricate social criticism, as well as

the need for the inclusion of gender as a category of literary analysis.

Keywords

Masculinities, Arabic dystopian fiction, hegemony of men.

3

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Tania Al Saadi, Senior Lecturer at the

Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University. Her constant

guidance, direction and support are an inseparable part of this thesis, and her encouragement made

this work all more enjoyable. I would also like to thank Elena Chiti, Associate Professor at the

Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University for her feedback

on the project, which helped me liking the pieces together. I would also like to thank all members of

the latter Department who, through their courses and support, contributed to the present thesis, either

directly or indirectly.

I would also like to acknowledge Lovisa Berg, Senior Lecturer at the Arabic Department of Dalarna

University, for having shared her valuable PhD thesis with me. I am also grateful to Quinta Smit for

her outstanding proofreading of the final text, and Nykhita Torres for her comments and support in

writing this thesis. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to all my family, and especially

my husband Mohanad, and little Adam and Sara, for inspiring me and making this project possible.

4

Contents

Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... 2

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... 3

Contents ....................................................................................................................................................... 4

On transcription and translation .................................................................................................................. 6

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 8

1.1. Outline of the thesis .......................................................................................................................... 9

2. Corpus ............................................................................................................................................... 10

3. Purpose of the study and research questions ..................................................................................... 12

4. Limitations and delimitations ............................................................................................................ 13

5. Previous Research ............................................................................................................................. 14

5.1. Gender approaches to Arabic Utopian, Dystopian and SF ............................................................. 14

5.2. Masculinities in Arabic fiction ....................................................................................................... 16

5.3. Literary theory on Arabic dystopian fiction ................................................................................... 18

5.4. Academia on Towfik’s Utopia and Abdelaziz’s The Queue .......................................................... 18

6. Theoretical framework .......................................................................................................................... 21

6.1. Literary masculinities and the hegemony of men ........................................................................... 21

6.1.1. Literary masculinities .............................................................................................................. 21

6.1.2. Gender relations and masculinities .......................................................................................... 21

6.1.3. Masculinities, power and hierarchy ......................................................................................... 22

6.1.4. Global, regional and local masculinities .................................................................................. 23

6.1.5. Masculinities in the Egyptian context ..................................................................................... 25

6.2. Dystopian fiction and social criticism ............................................................................................ 27

6.2.1. Defining dystopian fiction ....................................................................................................... 28

6.2.2. Brief historical background of the dystopian genre ................................................................. 29

6.2.3. From the utopian to the dystopian and SF production in Arabic ............................................. 29

6.2.4. Some theoretical aspects of Arabic dystopian fiction .............................................................. 31

7. Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 34

7.1. Voice, mood and time ..................................................................................................................... 35

8. Men and masculinities in Utopia and The Queue .................................................................................. 37

8.1. Local masculinities: embodied experiences and immediate interactions. ...................................... 37

8.1.1. A brief summary of Utopia ...................................................................................................... 37

8.1.2. A brief summary of The Queue ............................................................................................... 38

8.1.3. The narrative voice: men’s bodies, men’s experiences ........................................................... 40

8.1.4. Proper names, gender, class and representativity .................................................................... 48

8.1.5. Familiar and social interactions in a segregated society .......................................................... 51

8.1.6. Local patterns of masculinities in Utopia and The Queue ....................................................... 54

5

8.1.7. Concluding thoughts on the depiction of local masculinities .................................................. 57

8.2. Men’s sexuality: control, violence and fertility .............................................................................. 58

8.2.1. Wealthy hypersexualized “manhood” in Utopia ..................................................................... 58

8.2.2. Fertility as virility: men’s sexuality and manhood in Utopia .................................................. 61

8.2.3. Violence and sexual desire ...................................................................................................... 63

8.2.4. Sexual violence against women ............................................................................................... 66

8.2.5. Rape as an embodied experience with a symbolic function .................................................... 70

8.2.6. Concluding remarks on the role of violence against women in the novels ............................. 74

8.3. Men, Violence and State institutions .............................................................................................. 75

8.3.1. Challenging the figure of the hero in The Queue .................................................................... 76

8.3.2. Global hegemonic masculinity in Utopia ................................................................................ 78

8.3.3. Surveillance and state control in The Queue ........................................................................... 81

8.3.4. Gender and the economy in The Queue and Utopia ................................................................ 85

8.3.5. Supporting institutions to the hegemony of men: religion and the media ............................... 88

8.3.6. Concluding remarks on masculinities, the state and other institutions .................................... 91

9. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 92

10. Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 95

6

On transcription and translation

This thesis uses the Arabic original of both novels as primary sources, Yūtūbya (Towfik, 2010) and al-

Ṭābūr (Abdel Aziz, 2013).1 All examples quoted in this study offer a transcription into Modern Standard

Arabic (MSA) following this Department’s formal rules for transcription (Wardini, 2013). As some

passages of the novels come in Egyptian dialect, the transcription will reflect this usage and be marked as

such in a footnote. A table with the MSA transcription system as applied in this thesis is given below, with

some specificities of the Egyptian dialect needed for the purposes of this thesis.

Consonants

Ḍ / ḍ ض ‘ ء

Ṭ / ṭ ط B / b ب

Ẓ / ẓ ظ T / t ت

Ꜥ ع Ṯ / ṯ ث

’J / j (transcribed as ‘g ج

in Egyptian dialect)

Ġ / ġ غ

F / f ف Ḥ / ḥ ح

Q / q ق Ḫ / ḫ خ

K / k ك D / d د

L / l ل Ḏ / ḏ ذ

M / m م R / r ر

N / n ن Z / z ز

H / h ه S / s س

W / w و Š / š ش

Y / y ي Ṣ / ṣ ص

Vowels

ى /ا A / a ـ Ā / ā

Ī / ī ي I / i ـ

Ū / ū و U / u ـ

Diphthongs

aw- ٮو ay- ٮي

Tanwīn

-un ا / -an -in

The definite article (أل) will not be assimilated for those words starting with ḥurūf šamṣiyya and will appear

always transcribed as ‘al-’. Likewise, the article will not be assimilated to preceding prepositions (such as

li- or bi-), or connectors (such as fa- or wa-). The tā’ marbūṭa will be generally transcribed as ‘a’; in the

cases where it appears as construct state in iḍāfa, the tā’ marbūṭa will be transcribed as ‘-at’, which also

applied for words that end with ( اة). As both novels are written in MSA without explicit vocalization, verbal

and declensional endings will be generally omitted; however, if these endings are explicitly vocalized in

the original, they will appear as such in the transcription. The letter hamza will be omitted at the beginning

1 However, in the body of this study, the novels will be referred to in their English title, Utopia (Towfik, 2010) and

The Queue (Abdel Aziz, 2013) to facilitate reading.

7

of the word, but otherwise rendered in transcription as (‘). In some cases, particularly for references to real

places, the standardized version of the name will be provided, not the transcription (such as the Cairene

neighbourhood Shubra). The same can be said about the name of the authors and the novels, which will be

quoted in this thesis as they appear in the English translations of both novels for coherence.

As this thesis is written in English, a translation of the quoted passages will be provided. Although both

novels have a published translation, only the English translation of Utopia (Towfik, 2011) will be used in

this thesis, always referred to in a footnote with the page number. In the cases where the translation is not

completely loyal to the Arabic original, my translation is provided, with no reference or page number. The

translation of The Queue (Abdel Aziz, 2016) has been consulted but cannot be used for the purpose of this

thesis, as it often offers very free interpretations of examples that are precisely valuable for the choice of

words in the original. Therefore, all translations from The Queue are my own, and bear no reference to the

published translation nor page number.

8

1. Introduction

Dystopian and science-fiction novels have become increasingly popular in the Arabic literary scene.

This is reflected by the number of readers, some of the novels’ prompt translations into English, and

the official recognition of their literary value with the most prestigious literary prizes for Arabic

literature. Among these works, two novels stand out as particularly relevant for the aftermath of the

Egyptian 25th January Revolution of 2011: Utopia (2008) by Ahmed Khaled Towfik, considered as

the foundational novel for Arabic dystopian fiction and in the top ten best-sellers in Egypt for years;

and The Queue (2013), by Basma Abdel Aziz, winner of the English PEN Translation Award in 2016.

Apart from their literary value, these novels have been consider as representative of the dystopic tones

that daily life has acquired in Egypt after the revolution, as well as prophetic in identifying the coming

of the Revolution and its bleak aftermath (Alter, 2016; Murphy, 2017).

More generally, dystopian fiction has been characterized by its criticism of existing social or political

structures through depicting fictional societies that offer the readers a glimpse into other possible

worlds where some of the social paradigms can be put to the test (Booker, 1994b). Among the few

academic studies on Arabic dystopian fiction, scholars have focused on how these works criticise

certain social, economic and political structures (Campbell, 2015, Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui, 2016,

Resheq & Majdoubeh, 2019). However, gender relations, sexuality, explicit references to ‘manhood’,

or men’s top position in exerting social control have been generally disregarded.

Although Arabic dystopian fiction has not been approached from a gender perspective until now, such an

approach is not new in Arabic literature. Although this endeavour has focused mainly on the place women

occupy in the narrative, either as authors or as characters (Berg, 2017: 23), several studies on literary

masculinities in the last decades have aimed to examine men’s place in gender relations, how men and

women construct masculinities, as well as the main factors that influence the conception and enactment of

masculinities in certain contexts (Ghoussoub and Sinclair-Webb, 2000; Aghacy, 2009; Massad, 2009; al-

Jurf, 2014; Berg, 2017: 23). Moreover, Egypt has also been the focus of valuable ethnographic works that

aim to offer a nuanced description of masculinities in the Middle East, as a reaction to the “strong tendency

toward depicting Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern men (often lumped together and assumed to be the

same) as terrorists, suicide bombers, and oppressors of women” (Ghannam, 2013: 5).

In this context, masculinity studies offer a complex theoretical framework aimed at de-naturalizing men

and masculinities, which are usually unquestionably taken as universal or natural (Hearn, 2012: 42).

Embedded in feminist theory, masculinity studies recognize that masculinities are plural, hierarchical,

historical and located in space (Robinson, 2015: 59), a collective endeavour that usually places men at the

top of the hierarchy by hegemony. This is reflected in the omnipresence of men in the most powerful

positions in society and state institutions, men’s appropriation of violence and the economy. By focusing

on the position of men in these fictional societies, from the embodied experiences of characters to the

9

institutional practices that influence gender relations, this study aims at approaching gender relations

by focusing on the position of masculine subject in the fictional societies of Utopia and The Queue.

Following previous studies on Western literature that have shown how men and masculinities occupy

an unquestioned hegemonic place in dystopian fictional societies (Patai, 1982), this study focuses on

the literary representation of men and the embodiment of socially constructed notions of masculinity, far

away from the assimilation of male experience as a universal experience. Approaching Egyptian

dystopian fiction from a gender perspective can offer us an insight into how these narratives interact

with the prevailing gender structures depicted in relevant ethnographical works. At the same time,

this thesis recognizes gender as a site for social criticism in dystopia, at the same level with other

much more explored systems, such as the economic and political systems. This study also intends to

contribute to the growing field of studies of masculinities in Egypt, as well as offering a starting point

for literary feminist criticism of science fiction and dystopian fiction, which has had a limited scope

for literary works written in Arabic.

1.1. Outline of the thesis

After introducing the subject of research in Chapter 1, both Utopia (Towfik, 2010) and The Queue (2013)

will be briefly presented in Chapter 2, together with some details about the novels and their authors.

Chapter 3 will present the research question and the aims of this study, followed by the limitations and

delimitations of this study in Chapter 4. After this preliminary information, Chapter 5 presents a

comprehensive review of previous research, with the aim of situating the study of literary masculinities in

Arabic dystopian fiction somewhere in between works of literary criticism from a gender perspective, and

research on masculinities in Egypt from a social science perspective. This choice is motivated by the lack

of previous works on the subject of this thesis, which needs to find its space within the relevant related

disciplines.

As explained before, this thesis integrates two theoretical frameworks, which are established in Chapter 6.

First of all, 6.1. touches on masculinity theory and gender studies, while 6.2. covers literary theory on

dystopian fiction as a literary genre. Chapter 7 explains the methodology of this thesis, narratology and

discourse analysis, leaving the ground ready for the analysis of Utopia and The Queue in Chapter 8. This

chapter is organized thematically, following the analysis of the portrayal of local (8.1.), regional (8.2.) and

global (8.3.) masculinities. This thesis ends with the conclusions and suggestions for further research in

Chapter 9, and the bibliography in Chapter 10.

10

2. Corpus As dystopian works written in Arabic remain mostly understudied, and almost untouched in terms of

gender, I chose two of the most quoted novels in academic and media articles dealing with dystopian

literature in Arabic, namely Towfik’s Utopia (2008) and Abdelaziz’s The Queue (2013) (Alter, 2016;

Leber, 2017; Murphy, 2017). Both authors are Egyptian, live in Egypt, and write in Arabic. Both novels

are set in fictional societies that point at a hypothetical future for Egypt. In Utopia, Egypt in 2023 has been

divided between the rich living in gated communities while outside the poor fight for survival. In The

Queue, the aftermath of a failed uprising against the ruling class brings an even more absolutist power, the

Gate, a windowless building where citizens need to acquire permits and certificates to satisfy even their

most essential needs. Both novels are translated into English, which allows non-Arabic speakers reading

this thesis to go back to the novels and follow the arguments. Having been translated into English also

illustrates their reach and acceptance, not only among Arab readers, but internationally.

An interesting aspect of these novels is their timing, especially in terms of how popular revolutions are

positioned inside and outside the narrative. These novels are separated by a five-year gap (2008-2013),

with the real-world 25th January Revolution precisely in the middle (2011). Utopia (2008) ends with a

popular uprising against the rich ruling elite, while The Queue (2013) begins with mass demonstrations

against the Gate’s oppressive control over citizens. By focusing on two works, one written during the lead-

up to the Revolution of 2011, and the other written in its aftermath, this study is able to cover a wide

spectrum of experiences around popular movements. As these revolutions, both in real and fictional worlds,

aim to shake up existing structures in society, the present selection offers a glimpse on the position of

gender relations during dissenting movements against the ruling elites, which in turn strive to maintain

their tight control during these periods.

Although widely acclaimed dystopian works have been written in other Arabic speaking countries, Egypt

has been widely recognized as the centre of Arab cultural production in the last century. Moreover, Egypt

is considered the centre of production of Arabic science fiction (SF), both for amusing and canonization

purposes (Snir, 2000: 281). Since dystopian fiction is generally considered to be new in the Arabic literary

panorama, SF works have been considered as its predecessors. Again, Arabic SF appeared in Egypt and

became most popular there. Consequently, most of the research, both in European languages (accessible

to me) and Arabic, treat Egyptian works of fiction. On the studies of masculinity, Egypt also stands out as

one of the most studied countries. Again, the availability of secondary sources pointed at Egypt as a good

starting point for the study of gender relations and masculinities in Arabic dystopian fiction.

Ahmed Khaled Towfik2 (1962 - 2018) was trained as a physician at Tanta University’s Faculty of

Medicine. He was a prolific writer, with more than 200 titles, including original works of fantasy, horror

2 Although his name is transcribed Aḥmad Ḫālid Tawfīq in MSA, I have preferred the transcription chosen for his

published books in English translation for coherence, as Towfik himself seems to use this spelling as well.

11

and science fiction, and translations from world literature. With these works, most notably his SF short

stories Fantāziyā, as well as two other series of thriller/fantasy short novels, Mā Warā’ al-ṬabīꜤa and

Sāfārī, Towfik acquired moderate fame (Khayrutdinov, 2014: 191).

However, it was only after Utopia, first published in 2008 by Dar Merit, that Towfik was considered a

‘real’ novelist. Since its publication, Utopia has been a bestseller in Egypt (Jacquemond, 2013: 152), yet

the novel has also attracted a lot of criticism, as can be seen in the literature review. Utopia was translated

into English in 2011 and published by the Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.3

Towfik was also an acclaimed literary critic that dedicated a significant part of his life to claiming a place

for SF in Arabic literature (Barbaro, 2013: 27). In conclusion, Utopia, which Towfik categorized as a

“post-apocalyptic dystopia” (Morgan, 2012), represents the culmination of his life-time career.

Basma Abdel Aziz4 (b. 1976) holds a MS in neuropsychiatry and has spent many years working in El-

Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence in Cairo. This centre “offers direct

psychological and medical aid to victims of police harassment in the streets and victims of torture in prison,

particularly to women or others whose harassment or torture displays a gendered or sexualized dimension”

(Amar, 2011a: 310). According her brief biography in The Queue’s original version, she worked in a

psychiatric hospital in Cairo for some years, and then came to be the president of General Secretariat of

Mental Health in Egypt. She is the author of two collections of short stories, a psychological study on the

effect of torture called Mā warā’ al-taꜤḏīb (‘What hides behind torture’), and another title called Iġrā’ al-

sulṭa al-muṭlaqa (‘The temptation of absolute power’). She has also participated in graphic exhibitions as

a visual artist. Her previous books have awarded her several prizes in Egypt.

Abdel Aziz is an author committed to the political cause, and in many of her articles and interviews she

speaks vocally about the relationship between her novel The Queue and the 25th January Revolution. She

is considered to be a young author, especially when compared to Towfik. Although both writers have very

different backgrounds, there are also commonalities. For example, both Towfik and Abdel Aziz are doctors

by profession. The age gap, their experience as novelists, and their interest in literary criticism separate

them. Nevertheless, the fictional societies depicted in the selected novels seem to converge in present-day

Egypt, which allows for a combined reading of both novels as relevant examples of contemporary Egyptian

dystopian fiction.

3 The edition of the Arabic original used in this thesis is the 2010’s edition of the novel, also published by the

Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation. 4 Again, I chose the transcription offered in her translated book of The Queue (Abdel Aziz 2016) instead of MSA

transcription Basma ꜤAbd al-ꜤAzīz for the same reasons as stated above.

12

3. Purpose of the study and research questions

This study focuses in the literary representation of men and the embodiment of socially constructed notions

of masculinity, in a context of dystopian fiction and social criticism. First of all, this study touches on a

theme widely neglected, as focus has primarily been on the emotions, feelings or bodily matters of women,

in which men remain associated to culture and public life, somehow “diss-embodied” (Ghannam, 2013:

4).

Secondly, this thesis aims to position men and masculinities within the wider gender relations of the

fictional societies, which involves investigating how culture and institutions (including the state and its

security forces) support or challenge the dominant position of men in the gender hierarchy of these fictional

societies.

Thirdly, this study intends to contextualize key elements of social criticism in Utopia and The Queue by

relating to relevant ethnological studies of masculinity in Egypt. Finally, Due to the scarce research on

Arabic dystopian fiction, the present study also points at the need of formulating a theoretical framework

for this genre in Arabic literature.

The research question is: Where are men and masculinities positioned in the wider gender relations

presented as social criticism in the fictional societies of two contemporary Egyptian dystopian works, The

Queue and Utopia?

The following questions would then help guiding the analysis:

- What are the main factors that determine men’s positionality in the gender hierarchy of the fictional

societies?

- What are the main institutions that influence men’s position in the fictional societies?

- Does the position of men described in the novels relate to relevant contemporary studies of

masculinity in Egypt? Can gender relations be considered part of the social criticism of the novels?

13

4. Limitations and delimitations

As will be explained in the next chapter, Arabic dystopian fiction remains understudied. Therefore, this

thesis lacks of a comprehensive theoretical framework on the subject of study, which is compensated by

an overview of other related literary genres that have received more scholarly attention, such as SF. As the

study of literary masculinities has taken very different approaches, this thesis’ choice of theory aims to

make the utmost out of these rich literary works, as seen fit by the author. Nonetheless, although my choices

are not unequivocal or exclusive, every step along the way is profusely explained and follows recognized

and established theories on the field of masculinities and gender studies in general.

Due to this thesis’ focus on novels written in Egypt some years before and after the 25th January Revolution

of 2011, the results of this thesis cannot be generalized as characteristic of Arabic or Egyptian dystopian

fiction. Hence, further research with a wider corpus is needed to construct a theoretical framework for

dystopian fiction in Arabic literature. Moreover, dystopia has become a genre in many other platforms and

art forms, such as cinema or television. However, the term ‘dystopia’ points here to the literary genre as

defined in the theoretical framework, and does not involved with other recognized expressions of dystopia.

As a researcher, I need to recognize my own subjectivity when analysing and interpreting these two

dystopian novels. This aspect is two-fold, as a non-native speaker of Arabic approaching two dystopian

novels in this language; and as a white heterosexual woman approaching the study of masculinities.

However, debates about positionality in scientific research do not invalidate certain researchers’ results

due to their distance or affinity with the subject of study, but just warn against claims of wider

generalization and eventually, universality. As stated above, this study claims none.

14

5. Previous Research The analysis of masculinities for Arabic dystopian fiction is until now unexplored. Therefore, this section

aims to position the present analysis among relevant and related fields of research. First of all, due to its

proximity with dystopian literature (as shown in 6.2. of this thesis), relevant gender analysis of Arabic

utopian literature and SF will be presented. Secondly, we will look at how the field of studies of

masculinities in Arabic fiction have explored men’s position in literature, and how these works relate to

the present thesis. Thirdly, due to the lack of a theoretical framework for Arabic dystopian fiction, we will

approach the few academic works that focus on dystopia in Arabic in order to explore what are the

meanings associated to it. Last but not least, a review of relevant articles about The Queue and Utopia will

be provided, allowing the reader to look for different approaches and readings of both novels.

Another gap identified in the study of masculinities or wider gender relations in dystopian fiction written

in English, is that academia mostly focuses on the place women occupy in these novels, or solely on the

utopian and dystopian production by female authors.5 That being said, some valuable examples of critical

feminist readings of Western Utopian fiction can be found.

The most relevant for this work is Patai (1982), who points out that one of the foundational novels of

contemporary dystopian fiction, Orwell’s 1984, contains a strong masculine voice that is unable to question

the generalization of “male behaviour” as “human behaviour.” (Patai, 1982: 686) Although critical towards

many social, political and economic conventions, the masculine values relating to power in Orwell’s time,

such as dominance and control, were naturalized even by this otherwise very critical author. This article is

very relevant in showing how the masculine is naturalized in describing social processes in dystopian

literature and literary criticism, as well as for its thematic proximity to some of the elements present in

Utopia and The Queue.6

5.1. Gender approaches to Arabic Utopian, Dystopian and SF As explained above, this section contains a few examples of how masculinities have been studied in one

classical Arabic utopian work, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, and in some contemporary Arabic SF novels with

dystopian elements. It is worth mentioning that a general interest in SF has been noticed in some academic

sources in Arabic, which offer very detailed analyses of how characters are constructed in Arabic SF (al-

Shārūnī, 2000; ꜤAsāqila, 2011). Unfortunately, none of these works take gender as a category of analysis,

which severely limits their applicability in this thesis.

5 For example, Snodgrass (1995) dedicates a long entry to “Women in Utopia”, in which she looks at how women

are represented in the most representative Western utopian and dystopian texts. She concludes that women, until the

1980s, only had stereotypical roles, and then acquired a more active role but still with incomplete characterization.

However, it does not contain any reference to any of the major utopias in Arabic. 6 Overarching social control and domination are shared in both novels. In fact, Orwell is mentioned in Utopia

(Towfik, 2010: 78).

15

Malti-Douglas (1996), in a chapter called “Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān as a Male Utopia” analyses the most famous

work by Ibn Ṭufayl (1105–1185 CE) from a gender perspective.7 She focuses on the elimination of the

‘problem’ of sexuality, by removing female characters and eventually isolating the male protagonists, Ḥayy

and Absāl, in an isolated island. Sexuality and motherhood are presented in negative terms, also made

apparent by the use of metaphors and word choice. The elimination of women and sexuality in this utopian

work contrast with the presence of a dominant type of men’s sexuality in Utopia and The Queue. Finally,

Malti-Douglas refers to the brother-sister relationship as very powerful in Arab culture, which is also

echoed in Utopia.

Campbell (2018) makes a compelling attempt at offering a literary theory for Arabic SF that could be

comparable to the multiple works on Western SF available nowadays.8 In his analysis of foundational SF

novels, he pays attention to gender in relation to the “double estrangement function” 9 that he sees

characteristic of Arabic SF, and treats themes like post-colonialism and patriarchy. In the following

paragraphs, some of Campbell’s observations about four classical Arabic SF works with dystopian

elements will be discussed, with a focus on gender.

Firstly, his analysis of Muṣṭafā Maḥmūd’s al-‘Ankabūt [‘The Spider’ 1965] and Rajul Taḥta al-Ṣifr [‘Man

Below Zero’ 1966], shows how the main characters’ perfect worlds are still based on the subjugation of

women (Campbell, 2018: 158), or patriarchy in gender relations where “exploitive patriarchy still exists

even after the collapse and reconstitution of human society into a global socialist utopia” (Campbell, 2018:

171). This is relevant because Campbell considers these two novels as the first works that can be called

both Arabic and SF: “a hybrid text, with a hybrid sensibility, that estranges and critiques its own society

from within while at the same time maintaining critical distance from the colonizer it emulates in terms of

genre and, from certain perspectives, with which it appears to identify” (Campbell, 2018: 183).10

Secondly, Campbell’s analysis of Ṣabri Mūsā’s al-Sayyid min Ḥaql al-Sabāniḫ [‘The gentleman of the

Spinach field’ 1987] points out the importance of gender, sexuality and reproduction in its recreation of a

benevolent futuristic society. In this novel, the rulers intend to liberate women with the use of artificial

wombs, and their upbringing far away from their biological parents. At the same time, several references

point out to marriage as an institution that does not allow progress (Campbell, 2018: 209).

Finally, the most extensive analysis on gender relations is the chapter called “Male Gaze as Colonial Gaze”,

7 As mentioned in the introduction of the book, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān is, together with the Quran and Thousand and One

Nights, the most published and translated book of classic Arabic literature (Conrad, 1996: 3). 8 Other academics have opened the path for the study of Arabic SF, most notably Barbaro (2013) and Snir (2000).

However, it would be Campbell the one who uses gender as a category of analysis, thus making his work more

relevant for this thesis. 9 Although explaining Campbell’s theoretical framework for Arabic SF is outside the scope of this thesis, we can

briefly mention that for him Arabic SF contains two levels of critique, and therefore the double estrangement.

According to him, Arabic SF has “a level of political or social critique and another level where it examines the slow

speed or lack of scientific/technological development or social/moral change within contemporary societies.”

(Campbell, 2018: 114) 10 Here Campbell refers to the debate about the origin of SF as a distinct genre in Arabic literature, which would come

from the influence of Western SF.

16

on Aḥmad ꜤAbd al-Salām al-Baqqālī’s al-Ṭūfān al-Azraq [‘The Blue Flood’ 1976] (Campbell, 2018: 219).

This chapter presents a complex analysis of the behaviour of the novel’s male protagonist, ꜤAlī, in relation

to women in a context of postcolonialism. Although Campbell does not use masculinity theory directly,

‘Alī’s masculinity is indirectly defined by his behaviour towards his female assistant. In Campbell’s view,

the whole novel refers to the contradiction that Arab male intellectuals display towards women, as public

defenders of women’s rights, and keepers of tradition in private (Campbell, 2018: 238).

5.2. Masculinities in Arabic fiction The analysis of masculinities in Arabic fiction counts with several works that draw from gender theory in

order to structure their arguments. Due to the contents of Utopia and The Queue, only works about

heterosexual men are considered for the purpose of this thesis, which excludes some very valuable

contributions to the field of masculinity studies.11 For example, Aghacy’s (2009) work on Middle Eastern

masculinities in literature after 1967 presents a complex theoretical framework that recognizes the

importance of relating masculinities and femininities to wider gender relations, as well as the need to

unnaturalize masculinity in order recognize its internal ambivalences and contradictions (Aghacy, 2009:

2). Although she does not include Egypt (she focuses instead on Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and

Iraq),12 some of the themes and stances that she takes do contribute to the present thesis, such as her chapter

on how the state’s oppressive practices influence masculinities, which is also one of the objectives of this

thesis.

Another comprehensive study of literary masculinities based on masculinity studies is Berg (2017), who

focuses on the way female Syrian authors have formulated masculinities in their work in the last half of

the twentieth century. Berg’s use of Connell’s ‘hegemonic masculinity’, together with her attention to

narratological elements and content analysis, makes this study very relevant for this study. As this is a PhD

thesis, Berg relies on a large number of secondary sources, which although relevant to the study of literary

masculinities in the Middle East, go beyond the scope of the present thesis, and have therefore not been

included in this study.

Arab academia has also contributed to the study of the representation of masculine characters in Arabic

literature. A good example of this is al-Jurf (2014), who presents a multi-sided analysis on the

characterization of men in Syrian literature, paying attention to their economic and political position, their

11 Such as Massad (2009). In Massad’s work on homosexuality in the Middle East, he dedicates two chapters to

analyse sexuality in the Arabic novel. Although his reflections about men’s sexuality are very vivid and persuasive,

his work is aimed at homosexual sex and other ‘perversions’. However, some of the reflections on how the novel

questions certain processes in society have been taken from Massad’s work. Some other works that deal with male

homosexuality are summarized in Berg (2017: 36). 12 Aghacy (2009) focus on the effect of the multiple armed conflicts that plagued these countries from 1967 onwards

on how masculinity is constructed and perceived. However, Egypt has been relatively free of armed conflict since the

peace treaty with Israel in 1978, and therefore brings about a different context for the construction of masculinities.

17

psychological characterization, as well as time, place and language. Her results show that there is a

difference between how female and male authors position men in their novels, with male authors relying

mostly on male characters that try to hold on to the ”traditional meanings of maleness” (al-Jurf, 2014: 361).

Al-Jurf’s study shares many categories of analysis with the present thesis, despite the differences between

both theoretical frameworks.

The second example is Nājī’s (2006) Ṣūrat al-rajul fī al-qaṣaṣ al-nisāՙā, (“The image of men in female

authors’ short stories”), a valuable multidisciplinary project that historizes female authors’ portrayal of

men in Egyptian short stories over the twentieth century. She strives to situate these images of men in their

historical and cultural place, and recognizes that men and women interchange their roles as

dominating/subsidized depending on various factors, such as the colonial experience, class and other social

components, linking oppression with state practices as well (Nājī, 2006: 90).13 Nājī relates to how social

relations are embedded in power relations, where the ‘dominating/traditional man’ possesses the people

under them, especially women. However, she does not link her work to any theory of masculinities, nor

does she pay attention to the hierarchical relationships among the different kinds of men represented.14

Other articles reviewed focus only on the position of women towards certain types of men, which in turn

tells us something about the masculinities portrayed in those texts. For example, Cooke’s (1994) “Naguib

Mahfouz, Men, and the Egyptian Underworld” looks more at the role of women (especially prostitutes) in

building masculinities than those masculinities and men themselves. In turn, Bahoora (2015) analyses the

role of the prostitute in three pieces of Iraqi literature included in the renewal movement for the

modernization of the country in the 1940s and 1950s. Although these texts do no analyse masculinities per

se, they will help in situating men in relation to the character of the female prostitute in Utopia.

Other compilations deal with different issues and case studies, sometimes mixing ethnographic work with

the analysis of fiction. Ghoussoub and Sinclair-Webb (2000) explores institutions and practices associated

with masculinities in specific contexts, analysing the construction of identities and narratives of

masculinities in the modern Middle East. Another relevant study is Joseph’s (1999) ethnographical volume

on the self-construction of identities within Arab families, which contains two chapters on the analysis of

masculinities in the work of three prominent Egyptian novelists, mostly around the relationship between

fathers and sons. For the purposes of this thesis, Joseph’s chapter on brother-sister relation will be of

importance in analysing the family institution in Utopia.

13 Nājī identifies several patterns of male representation: “al-rajul al-sayyid” (‘the master’), representing the

dominating/traditional man (mostly incarnating father and husband characters), “al-rajul al-maqhūr” (‘the dominated

man’), “al-rajul al-miṯāl/al-ḥulm” (‘the ideal man / the dream’), “al-rajul al-mājin” (‘the libertine man’), and “al-

rajul al-ḥabīb/al-jasad” (‘the loving man / the body’). Although not exactly, her categorization reminds to the

hierarchical relations of Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity (Connell 2005: 76-80). 14 Despite the introduction of power relations, the focus of the study remains on how women writers express their

personal experiences and worlds in representing the male character, their “Other” (Nājī, 2006: 8), in their stories.

18

5.3. Literary theory on Arabic dystopian fiction The interest for dystopian fiction written in Arabic is fairly new for both Western and Arab academia. As

a result, very little material could be found on the matter, and a historicized theoretical framework is still

missing. The only material about Arabic dystopian fiction as a recognizable genre is a brief article in al-

Jadid magazine where Bakker (2018a) compares the relatively old Western tradition with the new

phenomenon that dystopia seems to be for the Arabic literary scene. She selects four works for analysis

(one of them is The Queue) and concludes that thematically these are best categorized as works that focus

on total surveillance and domination by totalitarian regimes. Together with her BA thesis (Bakker, 2018b),

Bakker is one of the few to recognize dystopian fiction as a separate genre in Arabic literature in need of

further research.

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, research on Arabic SF has shown that dystopian themes are

integral parts of foundational Arabic SF novels (Campbell, 2018; Barbaro, 2013; al-Shārūnī, 2000; Snir,

2000). Therefore, this thesis draws from ꜤAsāqila’s (2011) study about the construction of characters in

three foundational novels of Arabic SF for the analysis of proper names. As will be shown in 8.1.4. of this

thesis, proper names will prove definitory for characterisation in Utopia and The Queue, reflecting certain

trends in the novels’ gender relations.

The terms ‘utopia’ and ‘dystopia’ have also been used in the analysis of the psychological dimension of

the migration process in two short stories, one by Lebanese writer Ḥanān al-Šayḫ, and another by Egyptian

writer Bahā’ Ṭāhir (Al Saadi, 2011). In her article, Al Saadi shows that migration creates a sense of utopia

and dystopia, where the homeland and the foreign country are idealized and vilified in an endless circle,

influenced by powerful feelings, such as nostalgia. In this way, utopia and dystopia are also used as

personal perceptions of different realities, going beyond its general theorization as a literary genre.

On the previous line, Chiti (2016) explains how real life is perceived as dystopia in present-day Egypt,

which is reflected in the wide availability and popularity of this genre. Chiti conceptualizes ‘dystopia’ as

a time disruption, where another possible (and better) future failed to come, leaving a sense of incredulity

(or perceived fictionality) towards real life. Moreover, she pays attention to how fictional and non-fictional

cultural productions in Egypt contribute to make the current reality legible, which situates the corpus of

the thesis in a privileged position due to dystopian fiction’s clear link to social criticism.

5.4. Academia on Towfik’s Utopia and Abdelaziz’s The Queue

There are a significant number of articles that analyse Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia, both within the

broader context of Arabic SF, and specifically in the context of the Egyptian Revolution of 25th January.

One of the most striking points is that none of the articles mention masculinity, gender or sexuality as a

defining element of the novel. That being said, many other elements are examined in the literature reviewed

19

below, which provide complementary readings of both novels, as well as valid points for the present work

that will be integrated in the body of the analysis.

The most comprehensive analysis of Utopia is Campbell’s (2015), which contains many references to other

SF or dystopian books connected to this work. He concludes that “Utopia [is] less as the tale of two

psychologically realistic characters and more as the tale of the class” (Campbell, 2015: 541). This point is

relevant for the present analysis, especially in terms of how men’s sexuality is depicted, which will refer

to generalizations on what ‘real manhood’ is section 8.2. of this thesis. However, Campbell’s main reading

of the novel as an allegory does not line up the conclusions of this thesis, which tries to distance itself from

allegories and rather focus on what the characters actually say and do. Moreover, his argument that Jābir,

one of the main male characters, represents the Egyptian intellectual class that has historically failed to

support the majority of the Egyptians in attaining social change (Campbell, 2015: 549), will clash with the

conclusions of these thesis, as well as with the study presented below.

In analysing Utopia, Resheq and Majdoubeh (2019) use Baccolini and Moylan’s framework of “critical

dystopia”, which is a sub-genre of dystopia where the “subjects’ ability to fight for changes is another

focus of the narrative, not only the oppressing practices of the authorities” (Resheq and Majdoubeh, 2019:

177). In turn, they consider Jābir as a self-willed outsider within an oppressive system, stressing that

dystopia offers spaces for change, far away from the ending marked by the oppression of the individual.

Greenberg (2019) tries to position Towfik’s work post-2011 in the wider panorama of Arabic SF and

touches on few elements of Utopia that are related to the analysis of masculinities, such as how Arabic SF

is conceived as “disembodied poetics” (Greenberg, 2019: 175), and the role of the body in these narratives.

Besides, he reflects on how the growth of Arabic SF is part of “the kind of critical dystopic reflections on

late capitalism that have been endemic to world literature for over a century”, and how most science fiction

works take place in invariable dystopian futures, far away from the realism of the 1950s (Greenberg, 2019:

170).

Morgan (2017) presents a relevant analysis of Utopia that draws a direct link between Towfik’s novel and

one of the most representative dystopian novels of all time, Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). The

analysis of the pharmacological aspects of the novel shows how medicalized solutions are given to the

bleakness of people’s lives, both rich and poor, in the use of “philogistine” (a newly invented drug),

“libidafro” (the drug that guarantees perennial sexual prowess to men), combined with all other pre-

existing drugs. His insight of the use of drugs in the construction of masculinities will be of use when

talking about bodies and sexuality in the present thesis.

In their analysis of Utopia and Tower of dreams, another novel set in Egypt which is also said to be

prophetic of the Revolution, Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui (2016) examine the position of Cairo as an urban

setting for these SF works. They also pay attention to the time in which the narratives are said to take place.

For example, the action in Utopia takes place in 2023, fifty years after the peace agreement between Egypt

and Israel, which is extremely symbolic for the international landscape depicted in the novel (Madoeuf &

20

Pagès-El Karoui, 2016: 364). Another valuable element is the analysis of space, for example in the sharp

binary between the gated community and the rest (Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui, 2016: 365).15

In his short article, Khayrutdinov defines the novel as post-modernist due to its use of the unreliable

narrator (Khayrutdinov, 2014: 191), and recognizes how the novel is “influenced by the respective

European tradition while being socially relevant to the problems of today’s Egypt as well” (Khayrutdinov,

2014: 190). Last but not least, Rooney (2013) uses Utopia to suggest that the 25th January Revolution is a

movement against neoliberalism and the gated community, and can be read together with the August riots

in the UK the same year. Although her arguments are a bit far from the scope of this thesis, it is a good

example of the international projection of dystopia, and how wider economic systems can conflate in

seemingly distant events.

The Queue and Utopia are mentioned together in Murphy (2017) as mature works of dystopian fiction in

connection to the Arab Spring. Although this article is merely informative, it points at the defamiliarizing

function that “Biroil” has in Utopia, “in relation to the novel’s otherwise almost mimetic use of realism,

as ‘the low income inequality of contemporary Egypt is only exaggerated, not invented” (Murphy, 2017).

Significantly fewer academic articles have been written on The Queue. The most relevant is Milich’s

(2019), with a thorough analysis that covers much of the references to social criticism present in the novel,

and highlights multiple details that point at the relation between The Queue and present day Egypt. His

narratological analysis of the novel shares many points in common with this thesis regarding the general

atmosphere of control and surveillance of the novel. However, his focus remains on trauma and

psychological tools of dehumanization, complementing the present analysis outside the focus on gender

and masculinities.

The second academic article on The Queue is Moore (2018), which makes a complicated theorisation of

time in Abdel Aziz’s The Queue and Hamilton’s The City Always Wins. She reaches a similar conclusion

as Chiti, where “Egyptian dystopian fiction might more accurately be defined as dyschronotopic: the future

collapses backward into a nightmarish present reality, rather than functioning as a cautionary horizon”

(Moore 2018: 195).

Unlike academics, journalists have written various articles about The Queue, but they mostly discuss

superficial aspects of the work. For example, in an interview, Abdel Aziz (2016b) speaks about how she

came up with the idea, and how that connects the novel to Egypt at the time in which the book was written.

In another panel, Abdel Aziz reflected on the lack of individual heroes against an anonymous all-powerful

authority in her novel (Leber, 2017).

15 The proliferation of these compounds, and the fact that one of them was called ‘Utopia’, were one of the inspirations

the novel, according to Towfik in an interview (Morgan, 2012). As for people who have not been in Egypt, this

practice can seem common and out of the ordinary. However, Abaza (2016) explains how the constant advertisement

of luxurious villas can be alienating for many that live in a complete opposite reality. Abaza’s description of the

present in Cairo is full of loss and desolation, a very dark description of Egypt’s present as “nightmarish dystopia”

(Abaza, 2016: 240). On the other side, Pagès-El Karoui 2013 sustains almost the same theories, but provides more

background on the novel.

21

6. Theoretical framework

6.1. Literary masculinities and the hegemony of men

6.1.1. Literary masculinities This study focuses in the literary representation of men and their embodiment of socially constructed

notions of masculinity, in a context of dystopian fiction and social criticism. Hence, the present thesis will

adopt masculinity studies as its main theoretical framework, due to its versatility and its theoretical stances.

This approach does not single men and masculinities out of the wider gender relations, but sheds light upon

otherwise unexplored terrains, contrary to the tendencies described in Chapter 5 of focusing gendered

analysis solely on women.

The study of men and masculinities has its origins in feminist studies, and despite its humble beginnings,

it has seen a rapid growth since the mid-1980s to becoming more institutionalised today (Robinson, 2015:

58). Masculinity studies have developed side by side with feminist, women, and queer studies, and has

come to understand masculinity and femininity as plural, historical and located in space (Robinson, 2015:

59). From the 1990s, masculinity is seen as a social construction, fluid and open to change, where men’s

behaviour and practices cannot be described as “natural” or “problematic”, “but as social constructions

that need to be explored, analysed and indeed in certain aspects, such as the use of violence, changed”

(Morgan, 1992: vii, as quoted in Robinson, 2015: 63).

Among the multiple theories and theorists of masculinities, the present thesis will take on Connell’s own

revision of his foundational book, Masculinities (Connell, 2005), complemented by Hearn’s re-thinking of

Connell’s ‘hegemonic masculinity’ into the ‘hegemony of men’, which allows for a more flexible

framework to analyse key social processes and relations that build and reproduce men’s hegemonic control

in a particular society (Hearn, 2004). As will be discussed in 6.2., several literary studies suggest that the

societies depicted in dystopian novels do reflect a criticism of the society at the time and place the novel

was written (Booker, 1994a; 1994b). Therefore, as masculinities refer to a specific time and place, relevant

ethnographical works carried out in Egypt will be used in order to verify that gender relations are included

within the social criticism of Utopia and The Queue.

6.1.2. Gender relations and masculinities As Connell’s puts it, defining “masculinity” can be very challenging: “’Masculinity’, to the extent that the

term can be briefly defined at all, is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which

men and women engage that place in gender, and the effect of these practices in bodily experience,

personality and culture” (Connell, 2005:71). She places the knowledge of masculinities within the analysis

of gender relations, which are made and transformed as a political and historical process that affects the

22

structure of society. From her point of view, masculinity is not a coherent object that can be systematically

studied to produce generalizing science, but an aspect of broader gender relations.

The previous argument coincides with Butler’s performative theory, where “gender is in no way a stable

identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed [sic]; rather, it is an identity constituted in

time –an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (Butler, 1998: 519, emphasis in the

original). Therefore, there is no ‘sex’ or ‘gender’ to be expressed or replicated through gender

performances, no script to be followed that corresponds to an ‘essential’ or ‘natural’ way of gender

performance, which is key to de-naturalize men’s position in society.16

As masculinity and femininity are inherently relational concepts, they only have meaning in relation to

each other, “as a social demarcation and a cultural opposition” (Connell, 2005: 43). In her study of low-

income masculinities in Cairo, which will be presented in 6.1.6., Ghannam affirms that “[a]cquiring a

masculine identity is not simply an individual endeavour but is deeply connected to the recognition granted

by others” (Ghannam, 2013: 3) Therefore, this thesis will look at masculinity as a collective project built

on the interaction between multiple actors, both individual and institutional.

Masculinity studies have also adopted “intersectionality”, a main component of contemporary feminist

studies. This term was coined by the American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 in an attempt to

develop a black feminist critique to the tendency of treating gender and race as two different categories of

analysis in previous scholarship. In her work, she explains how different forms of social inequality

(categories of race, ethnicity, nation, gender, skin colour, and class) interact and overlap in the embodied

experiences of black women through the intersection metaphor, thus allowing for their experiences to

emerge from the shadows (Richardson, 2015: 13). However, not all categories have received the same

attention in the studies of masculinities. For example, Hearn (2004) points at other possibilities in the study

of men and masculinities, such as age, vitality and transnationality. Therefore, this analysis would look

into which categories intersect in the construction of masculinities with an attention to detail, beyond the

classical attention to class, race and gender.

6.1.3. Masculinities, power and hierarchy The most influential concept in masculinity studies (and also the most criticized) has been ‘hegemonic

masculinity’ as a model to explain how heterosexual men are placed at the top of the hierarchy and benefit

most from patriarchy by hegemony (Robinson, 2015: 65). In their last revision of the model, Connell and

Messerschmidt (2005) came with a re-formulation of hegemonic masculinity that offers valid tools for this

16 ‘Sex’ refers to the “physical attributes associated with biological reproduction”, while “gender” as a social

construction is “based on sexual differences, but it is not identical to them” (Rizzo, 2014: 2). Theories that make

sense of gender take into consideration the social, economic and personal implications that this classification between

male and female has, as well as question certain social arrangements that have been traditionally justified as being

natural (Richardson, 2015: 20).

23

thesis, such as the idea of multiple masculinities, the concept of hegemony itself, and the interplay between

local, regional and global masculinities, as we will see below. Firstly, as masculinities are multiple, they

do relate to each other in hierarchical terms. Secondly, using Gramci’s theory of hegemony serves to de-

naturalize the “domination of ‘commonsense’”, highlighting “the importance of consent, even if that is

provisional, contingent, and backed by force” (Hearn, 2011: 92). Thirdly, the hierarchisation of

masculinities at a global level allows us to de-naturalize men’s place in culture, the state and international

relations, as will be discussed below.

However, I would agree with Hearn’s claim that, for the purposes of this study, it would be more precise

to examine men’s identities, discourses, and individual and collective practices, instead of the term

“masculinities”, which can sometimes be used to describe very different processes (Hearn, 2011: 91).

Hearn thus prefers to talk about “the hegemony of men”, which “addresses the double complexity that men

are both a social category formed by intersectional gender systems and collective/individual, often

dominant, agents” (Hearn, 2011: 92).

For this purpose, the focus of the analysis will be on what elements “set the agenda” in the differentiation

between men, women and children, as well as “which men and which men’s practices – in the media, the

state, religion, and so on – are most powerful in setting those agendas of those systems of differentiations”

(Hearn, 2004: 60). Therefore, the present thesis will operate at the level of the individual and his/her

embodied experience, as well as that of certain institutions that have a key role in creating or reproducing

certain gender relations, as well as gender differentiation (Connell, 1987:120).

6.1.4. Global, regional and local masculinities The historical and contextual nature of the study of men’s practices and representations of masculinities

has been stressed multiple scholars. Research has brough about many examples from different times and

geographies that depict how masculinities are always located in time and space, and are always subject to

change (Connell, 2005; Robinson, 2015). Although offering a history of masculinities is beyond the scope

of this thesis, it is important to consider some of the thoughts emanating from Connell’s historization of

masculinities. In the first place, the Western concept of masculinity as a way of “doing gender” in a

culturally specific way is only few hundred years old, “built on the conception of individuality that

developed in early-modern Europe with the growth of colonial empires and capitalist economic relations”

(Connell, 2005: 68). As the studies of masculinities proliferated, definitions of masculinity have taken the

Western cultural standpoint for granted, which is extremely relevant for studies of masculinity in other

parts of the world, or historically retrospective (Connell, 2005: 68).

Another point is the impact of the unprecedented growth of North American and European power, together

with the emergence of global empires and a global capitalist economy had on the formation of the modern

gender order as a whole. This process, which has roughly taken four hundred years includes “the unequal

24

encounter of gender orders in the colonized world” (Connell, 2005: 185). Connell sees North

American/European masculinity as hegemonic (Connell, 2005: 200). Consequently, the construction of

regional and local masculinities in the Arabic speaking countries is mediated by the colonizing experience,

the entrance into modernity and the unequal relations between countries in the global market.17 Although

a post-colonial reading of the novels is beyond the scope of this thesis, the relationships between local,

regional and global masculinities as defined below will serve to place the social criticism of the novels in

a wider framework.

The concept of hegemonic global, regional and local masculinities was re-formulated by Connell and

Messerschmidt, in an attempt to focus on the pressure that global institutions exert on regional and local

gender orders (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005: 849). According to this framework, local patterns of

masculinity refer to what can be observed in face-to-face and immediate interaction; regional masculinities

refer to the level of culture and the nation-state; and global masculinity is about what can be observed in

world politics, and transnational business and media. Without entering in a post-colonial analysis, no study

of gender relations can disregard the implications of the colonial experience, reflected in the hierarchy that

positions certain ways of being men at the top, and others at the bottom.

For example, in her study about Islamist and Muslim masculinities, Gerami agrees with Connell’s

argument in that the model of global hegemonic masculinity present in global media in the Middle East is

“invariably white, Christian, heterosexual, and dominant” (Gerami, 2005: 450). According to her, this

picture reaches the Arab world through the Internet or satellite channels in the shape of Western politicians,

military leaders, or simply film heroes.18 Gerami dates the pre-eminence of Western masculinity as

hegemonic back to the colonial expansion, following Connell’s explanation above. According to Gerami,

the omnipresence of national figures, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser for Egypt, accompanied the construction

of national masculinities, as “[w]ith the ideal of nationhood and a centralized state came the ideal of one

national leader subsuming regional or ethnic masculinities” (Gerami, 2005: 451). However, according to

her study, these national masculinities would still remain secondary to global masculinity.

Although this thesis does not work with hegemonic masculinity per se, it is necessary to adopt an analytical

framework that considers how local, regional, and global masculinities (also applicable to femininities) are

interconnected (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005: 850), influencing local systems of gender differentiation

that contribute to the hegemony of men in a certain place at a certain time. Therefore, for the sake of

coherence, this thesis will focus on the elements that enable the hegemony of some men, also at a regional

and a global level, still following Hearn’s framework of the hegemony of men explained above, but with

17 For detailed analysis of role of colonialism in the construction of the gender order in Egypt with a focus on

masculinity, see Jacob (2011). 18 Gerami engages with Islamist and Muslim masculinities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which in

my opinion is a problematic assumption due to the diversity of the region in terms of its religious, linguistic and

ethnic diversity. However, some references to the case of Egypt, a country with a clear Muslim Sunni majority and a

well-defined model for masculinity in former president Gamal Abdel Nasser (Abdelmoez, 2018: 200), are useful to

place local Egyptian masculinity in the regional and global picture.

25

attention to relevant studies of regional and global hegemonic masculinity in the Middle East.

6.1.5. Masculinities in the Egyptian context Egypt is the country with the largest amount of ethnographic research in the region (Deeb and Winegar,

2012: 539), and this includes studies on masculinities; however, some of these studies portray men as

essentially patriarchal, and violent, as well as economically and sexually frustrated, with little attention to

wider forces and institutions that have an influence in men’s performance of masculinity (Amar, 2011b).

That being said, Amar (2011b) points to the risks of the problematization of Middle Eastern masculinities,

which has been used by intelligence services and the security sector in order to justify foreign intervention

in the region, military or other. At the same time, he gives some theoretical and methodological suggestions

that would allow for a more nuanced, contextualized and historicized study of masculinities in the Middle

East. Although this study does not follow literally any of Amar’s suggested paths for intervention, it does

share the aim of giving a contextualized and historized account of how masculinities are represented in

dystopian fiction, far away from the discourses of ‘men in crisis’ criticized in his work.

Due to the large number of articles and books that look at gender and masculinities in this country, only

the works with a direct connection with this thesis have been selected. Accordingly, the first and most

relevant study is Ghannam (2013), an ethnological study of men living in al-Zāwiya al-Ḥamra, a low-

income area in northern Cairo. 19 Ghannam’s insights into the lives of men and women in this

neighbourhood describe how class and gender constructions affect embodied performances of masculinity.

Theoretically, Ghannam’s work builds on Connell’s and Hearn’s stances explained in the previous

sections, which makes this study an extremely relevant example of how these theories have been applied

in ethnological work in present-day Egypt.

Thematically, Ghannam discusses certain aspects of men’s performance of masculinities that will appear

in the present thesis. First of all, there is a focus on the body, and how it affects gender performance as

men age, grow up, go through sickness or die. As men have historically been equated with mind, reason

and culture, this approach also serves to open up more space to question patriarchy (Ghannam, 2013: 171).

At the same time, it unmasks how “patriarchal structures, market forces, and medical systems intersect to

regulate and discipline the male body to produce an economically productive and politically obedient

subject for low-income Cairene men” (Ghannam, 2013: 134). Moreover, she also points to the importance

of employment in the construction of masculinity (Ghannam, 2013: 3) and hints at the importance of

government institutions, intelligence surveillance and police violence in the construction of masculinity.20

Secondly, Ghannam offers local concepts and terminology on masculinity that resonate in both Utopia and

19 Shubra, the neighbourhood of Cairo where most of Utopia takes place, borders with al-Zāwiya al-Ḥamra both West

and North. 20 However, she does not elaborate on impact that police control and surveillance has in gender relations. Therefore,

other studies that do tackle this issue will be mentioned in chapter 8.3. together with the analysis.

26

The Queue. For example, she mentions ‘manhood’ as “al-rugūla” 21 in Egyptian dialect, as measured by

men’s attitudes or “mawāqif”, which means that being a “real man” is reflected in his ability “to respond

to the shifting social expectations, new possibilities, and emerging challenges as well as to embody the

proper norms in the appropriate context” (Ghannam, 2013: 85). In addition, she also associates “al-rugūla”

with existing social categories in Egypt, such as al-baltāgī, ‘the thug’, and gadaꜤ, ‘a proper man’, which

also influences the social construction of masculinities in the fictional societies of Utopia.

Thirdly, Ghannam recognizes the contradictions and negotiations that men follow in order to pursue the

illusive coherence of gaining social recognition as a “real man” (Ghannam, 2013: 7). This shows that being

a man is far from a following a static or predetermined notion of masculinity, and that men adapt, modify

or even contradict themselves in trying to be recognized as proper men. Moreover, Ghannam uses an

intersectional approach with a focus on gender, class and race. She suggests that gender and class do have

a great impact on the construction of masculinity, whereas race (in this case referring to the colour of the

skin, which in Egypt indicates one’s place of origin) seems to play a less relevant role.

Last but not least, Ghannam also focuses on the role of women in the making of men, despite a tendency

in masculinity studies of representing women as irrelevant, as objects in need of sexual or social control,

or as an oppositional category against which define manhood (Ghannam, 2013: 87). According to her,

women play many important roles in the making of men, by conforming to social norms in order to

contribute to their male relatives’ standing; by offering emotional and material support; or by giving direct

instruction on how becoming and being a man (Ghannam, 2013: 28). Hence, the role of women in the

making of masculinities will be an element of the present analysis, as an intrinsic part of the wider gender

relations that are criticized in these dystopian novels.

In addition to Ghannam (2013), other articles depict aspects of today’s Egypt that can shed light on the

construction of masculinities in the novels. For instance, Abdelmoez (2018) explores the narratives of

English speaking Egyptian professionals and audiences about manhood and masculinities. On one side,

this study illustrates how respondents link manhood to “compulsory heterosexuality”, men as providers

and protectors of the family, as well as the sole possessors of power (Abdelmoez, 2018: 221). On the other

side, manhood was related to the military, as the provider and protector of the nation, and specifically to

Gamal Abdel Nasser as an example of the “ideal man” (Abdelmoez, 2018: 200). Abdelmoez’s results are

useful in establishing the first connections between men, the state and the military in Chapter 8.3., as well

as in inquiring if the values attached to manhood in his study hold true for Utopia and The Queue.

In a more complex ethnological study, Abdallah 2014 presents a very relevant account on how the

21 The word in MSA “al-rujūla” is normally translated as “manhood, manliness, masculinity, virility” (Werh, 1980:

329; Balbaaki, 1995: 579), and shares the triliteral root of the word “man”, rajul, and “men”, rijāl. However, the

adaptation of the word ‘masculinity’ with all its theoretical complexity is an unfinished task until today. Mahadeen

(2016) for example defends the use of “al-marjala” instead of “al-rujūla”, as it allows for plural form, “marājil”, and

“incorporates bodily, affective, socially constituted, symbolic, and performative dimensions of masculinity”

(Mahadeen, 2016: 452). However, as this word does not appear in any of the novels, contrary to “al-rujūla”, this

thesis will make use of this last term for the sake of consistence.

27

economic situation, together with experiences of police and state control, left many men feeling

‘emasculated’ and uncertain about their position in society. In this context, the Islamist political parties

were seen as a possibility to recuperate traditional patriarchal masculinity, and translated in the effective

vote of many disenchanted men to these Islamist parties. The effects of poverty on men’s self-perception

of masculinity will be relevant in the analysis of both novels, as they present this phenomenon in direct

and indirect ways.

In another article, Abdallah (2015) presents a study about male tourist workers in Dahab, a tourist city in

the Egyptian Sinai, where low-income young men try their luck economically, emotionally and sexually.

Abdallah discusses how the neo-liberalist policies of the Egyptian government make it difficult for men to

provide for their families, something generally considered as one of the requisites of manhood. The

interlink between men’s sexual experiences, their economic situation, and the surveillance of the state, also

appears in both novels’ fictional societies, which is key to understand the novels’ social criticism.

Another relevant article by Treacher (2007), “Postcolonial subjectivity: Masculinity, shame, and memory”,

looks at how certain feelings and emotions overlap in the colonized-colonizer relation for the case of Egypt

and the failure of the Revolution of 1952. She explores colonized men’s “shame” to trace how the dream

for a better future died soon after the revolution failed to build a different Egypt. Treacher’s article engages

with Chiti (2016), already reviewed in Chapter 5, in examining how two dreams for social change died,

the Revolution of 1952 and the 25th January Revolution of 2011. In both cases, an unexpected future that

can be characterized as dystopia came, where the revolutionary dreams of social justice and/or political

inclusion were crashed by military regimes.

6.2. Dystopian fiction and social criticism

As explained in Chapter 5, Arabic dystopian fiction is still in need of a comprehensive study and a body

of critical theory, as has been recently formulated for Arabic SF.22 For the purposes of this thesis, a short

theoretical framework of dystopian fiction will be offered, together with a short genealogy of dystopian

fiction in Arabic literature. Concretely, we will be looking at how dystopian fiction has been linked with

social criticism according to Booker’s studies on twentieth-century European (Eastern and Western),

Russian, and American dystopian novels (Booker, 1994a; 1994b). This wide theoretical framework allows

for a preliminary characterisation of Utopia and The Queue as dystopian fiction. At the same time, the

analysis of the masculinities can find its place as an intrinsic component of the social criticism contained

in the novels, according to Booker’s theory.

22 Campbell argues that while “Western SF has a robust and extensive body of critical theory [...] Arabic SF (ASF),

by contrast, has comparatively little, mostly as a result of the comparatively recent development of the genre and its

marginal status with respect to canonical literary fiction” (Campbell, 2018: 77). Further research can clarify if

dystopian fiction shares the same features that have left it understudied until the present time.

28

6.2.1. Defining dystopian fiction

There are various definitions of the word ‘dystopia’ available in multiple sources. Apart from subtle

differences, there is consensus among these definitions that dystopia is commonly used as antonym of

‘eutopia’ (also known as “utopia”), and that it “denotes that class of hypothetical societies containing

images of worlds worse than our own” (Clute & Nicholls, 1993: 360). Generally, dystopias are almost

always set in the future, and aim to point at the way the world is going (Clute & Nicholls, 1993: 360).23

However, there are some disagreements about the boundaries of this genre, and whether it touches or

overlaps SF and political satire. For example, Stableford states that “[a]lthough many societies described

in satire are implicitly dystopian, the term [dystopian] is usually reserved for earnest images of a future

where the forces of technological determinism have made civilization hellish” (Stableford, 2004: 99).

On the other side, some authors do not see the use of technology as a prerequisite for including dystopian

political satires fully into the genre. Instead, the term ‘dystopian’ comes to include all works that explore

alternatives to current societies, as well as the potential abuses that supposedly utopian alternatives can

bring if they are fulfilled (Booker, 1994a: 3). Booker’s emphasis on the social criticism function of

dystopian fiction is based on his detailed analysis a large number of dystopian foundational works from

the twentieth century. In his books, Booker links dystopian fiction to the philosophical, economic, social

and political contexts in which they were written, showing that dystopian fiction functions mainly as a

criticism of the time in which they were written. Hence, for the purposes of this thesis, we will work with

Booker’s definition of dystopian fiction as those literary works that warn “against the potential negatives

consequences of arrant utopianism”, while engaging in social criticism by “defamiliarization” (Booker,

1994a: 3).24

These two elements are key to categorise Utopia and The Queue as dystopian fiction. First of all, Utopia,

both in name and content, refer to the utopian tradition with a warning of what could happen if the perfect

and beautiful walled compounds of rich people in Egypt become independent from all the imperfect and

ugly poverty that surrounds them. This novel also uses defamiliarization, as it focuses its “critiques of

society on imaginatively distant settings”, offering a fresh look on social or political problems that might

otherwise be naturalized or taken for granted (Booker, 1994a: 3). It is obvious that The Queue also uses

defamiliarization with the creation of a fictional all-powerful governing body, the Gate, in order to reflect

on other aspects of society, such as surveillance and government control.

23 This argument is shared by some Arab critics of SF, who see SF as mainly dealing with prediction of the future

and guidance, and consider that SF addresses the future, rather than estranges the present (Campbell, 2018: 103). 24 This term has its origin in the Russian formalism, who saw ‘defamiliarization’ as the main technique that separated

literary fiction from nonfiction. Booker also mentions a link to Bertol Bretch’s ‘alienation’, linking new literary

currents to social and political changes in the real world (Booker, 1994a: 3). It is also related to science fiction’s

‘cognitive estrangement’, as will be commented a bit later.

29

6.2.2. Brief historical background of the dystopian genre

A lot of theory has been written about Western dystopian fiction, and this section provides a brief historical

overview to explain how dystopia surfaced as a distinct literary genre separating itself from utopian

fiction.25 Classical utopian fiction was customarily set in geographically far-away places; however, by the

eighteenth century, a major shift was perceived when authors stopped talking about a better place (utopia),

and began to set their plots in a better time (euchronia), a shift which was influenced by the concepts of

progress and modernity (Clute & Nicholls, 1993: 1260; Stableford, 2004: 365). At the end of the nineteen

century, dystopian images started proliferating, which in the twentieth century adopted different positions

towards contemporaneous issues, such as automatization, or political ideologies, such as nazims, socialism,

or capitalism, for example (Stableford, 2004: 100). Another shift, this time in the twentieth century, was

defined by Abraham Maslow as “eupsychia”, a society designed to ensure psychological health and the

maximization of opportunities for self-fulfilment” (Stableford 2004: 365). Although by the twentieth

century futuristic dystopia overcame utopia as a suitable means to point out the shortcomings of present

societies, the utopian genre still survived throughout the last century with feminist utopias (Easton and

Schroeder, 2007: 56). Nonetheless, the current popularity of dystopia when imagining other possible

societies has to do with the superior melodramatic potential of dystopia over utopian fiction (Stableford,

2004: 100).

Nowadays, dystopian fiction is categorised as belonging to the amalgam of genres and subgenres of

“speculative fiction,” which also includes SF and fantasy. In these genres, fictional societies are a way to

imagine other possible realities, not bound to the realism of contemporary or historical novel (Clute &

Nicholls, 1993: 424), which can help us understand reality in a different way. Speculative fiction provides

alternate or futuristic worlds where it is possible to try other models of family, religion, or political

institutions that don’t need to be plausible, but serve to make us question our own believes.

6.2.3. From the utopian to the dystopian and SF production in Arabic As was mentioned before, there is no chronology of dystopian fiction for Arabic literature. However, some

works on SF and utopian fiction in Arabic literature are valuable to make a brief survey of the origin of the

dystopian themes that populate some twenty first century novels. As explained for Western dystopian

fiction, both Barbaro (2013) and Campbell (2018) recognize the importance of the Arabic utopian tradition

as a precedent to the current production of SF (and dystopia) in Arabic. It is important to mention that,

25 As tracing the origins of what is now considered the utopian tradition is outside the scope of this thesis, it will

suffice to say that this genre is considered as old as Plato’s Republic, and that dystopian elements are seen even in

Aristophanes’ response to Plato’s utopianism (Booker, 1994a: 5). For a detailed account of the authors and the works

that are included in each phase, together with the philosophical, historical and political contexts that made them

possible, see Booker (1994a; 1994b) and Clute & Nicholls (1993).

30

while they do not trace the origins of dystopian fiction in their works, both scholars find dystopian themes

in Arabic SF, which points at a similar relationship between the two genres, as found in literary criticism

for Western SF and dystopian fiction.26

First of all, we must clarify that there are different opinions about the relationship between utopian,

dystopian fiction and SF, as they happen to overlap in many instances. For example, Clute & Nicholls state

that “[i]t can be argued that all utopias are SF, in that they are all exercises in hypothetical sociology and

political science. Alternatively, it might be argued that only those utopias which embody some notion of

scientific advancement qualify as SF, as the latter view is keeping with most definitions SF” (Clute &

Nicholls, 1993: 1260). As we will see below, this is also the case with Arabic SF and dystopian fiction, as

both genres overlap in some works. This is especially relevant in the case of Utopia, which is sometimes

referred to as a SF work and others as dystopian fiction. Moreover, its author, Ahmed Khaled Towfik, is

one of the recognized pioneers of SF for the young and a reference of Wester SF translations.

The utopian genre in Arabic has been mentioned as a precursor for Arabic SF, as both contain “the topos

of travelling, the non-place, the escape from reality, and the construction of the perfect city” (Barbaro,

2013: 50). Scholars have also described how the utopian genre distances itself from reality, often to criticize

it in an open manner and avoid the problem of censorship, which is an issue in several Arab countries

(Barbaro, 2013: 45; Campbell, 2018: 67). However, not all utopian works have received the same

consideration. While some medieval utopian works have been considered as part of the classical literary

cannon, such as al-Farābī’s (872-950 CE) Arāʼ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila (‘Principles of the Opinions of the

Citizens of the Ideal City’) and Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, by Andalusian philosopher Ibn Ṭufayl (1105–1185 CE);

modern utopian works in Arabic have been disregarded by critics for being deeply marked by ideological

discourses (Toelle, 2007: 220).27

Classical Arabic utopias had their grounding in the Islamic conception of the perfect society, with the

government of the Prophet Mohammad of Medina as its referent (Barbaro, 2013: 44). As a result, most

utopian (and some SF) works resort to the past in search for the perfect society, not the future. It was not

until Faraḥ Antūn (1874–1922), with his al-Dīn wa-al-‘ilm wa-al-māl: al-mudun al-ṯalāṯ (‘Religion,

Science, and Capital: The Three Cities’), that utopia was placed in the future.28 Since then, the utopian

format would lose its momentum, as it happened in the Western tradition, and would produce only few

representative works up to the 1960s.29

26 Another debate is if the origin of all these now recognized genres, such as utopian, dystopian and SF originated in

Arabic due to the influence of Western works that reached the Arabic speaking public in translation, or indeed

originated also indigenously through the multiple antecedents that are found in the Arabic literary tradition. As this

debate is complex and beyond the scope of this thesis, this historical background won’t enter into these questions,

focusing instead on the main trends identified by Barbaro (2013) and Campbell (2018). 27 For a historical travel to the utopian tradition in Arabic, see Barbaro (2013: 42-54) and Toelle (2007). 28 This work portrays a socialist organization of society, and it is considered as the most complex and achieved Arabic

utopian text until the moment (Barbaro, 2013: 48). 29 Indeed, sources only mention Aḥlām al-Falāsifah (1926) [‘The Philosophers’ Dreams’], by the Egyptian Salāma

Mūsā, which is set in a prefect Egypt in year 3015, al-Riḥla al-Marrākišiyyah aw mir’āt el-masāwi’ al-waqtiyya. al-

31

The other genre linked to Arabic dystopian diction is SF, as mentioned before. In the chronology

established by Barbaro and Campbell, some foundational works are mentioned as presenting clear

dystopian themes.30 Therefore, we can mention here some of the trends noticed for Arabic SF, without

entering in a detailed analysis of these works, which is beyond the scope of this thesis. To begin with, all

authors that aspire to make Arabic SF part of the literary cannon use utopian or dystopian themes in their

novels (Snir, 2000: 280). These attempts at canonization come from the disregard of literary critics, who

have not seen SF as ‘serious literature’ until very recently.31 In spite of this, SF and futuristic stories have

proven very popular for the public, especially collections such as Milaff al-mustaqbal, created by Nabīl

Farūq and published in Cairo.32 These collections provide affordable and exciting readings set in a familiar

scenario for the Egyptian public, just for entertaining purposes (Barbaro, 2013: 57).

Likewise, dystopian works seem to be more popular among the masses than with academia and critics.

That being said, in the last decade critics and institutions of canonized literature have shown some signs

of a wider acceptance of SF and dystopian fiction. For example, the prestigious literary magazine al-Fuṣūl

dedicated a full number to SF in 2007, which is a sign of the growing prestige of the genre (Campbell,

2018: 103). Although such a development is yet to come for Arabic dystopian fiction, some works

considered as dystopian or pertaining to speculative narrative have been awarded important literary prices.

As an example, in 2014 Aḥmad SaꜤadāwī’s Frānkištāyn fī Baġdād (‘Frankenstein in Baghdad’) won the

International Prize for Arabic fiction (also called the ‘Arabic Booker’), and in 2016, Moḥammad RabiꜤ’s

ꜤUṭārid (‘Otared’) was left as one of the finalists.33

6.2.4. Some theoretical aspects of Arabic dystopian fiction

As we have seen, defining dystopian fiction as a separate genre can be an arduous task. In the case of

Arabic dystopian fiction, this extends even to how to refer to it in Arabic. For example, Towfik prefers the

Saif al-maslūl ‘ala al-mu’rid ‘an sunnat al-rasul (1930) [‘The Marrakeshian trip or the mirror of time calamities. The

naked sword against any who opposes the tradition of the Prophet’], by Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Mu’aqqit al-

Marrākišī, and al-Bu’d al-Khāmis (‘The Fifth Dimension’), by Egyptian writer Aḥmad Rā’if (Barbaro, 2013: 50;

Fernández Parilla, 2006). 30 Scholars have found the shift from utopia into dystopia in the sequel of previously mention al-Riḥla al-

Marrākišiyya. As this work proved very successful at the time of publication, his author, Muḥammad ibn ꜤAbd Allāh

al-Mu’aqqit al-Marrākišī, composed another novel: Ahl al-Safīna (1935) [‘The People of the Ship’]. In this work, a

group of Arabs embark on a ship to see the wonders of the world. However, they meet with a bigger European boat,

and the conflict unties. Some critics see in this text a warning about the perils behind following Western influence in

fragmenting Muslim society (Campbell, 2018: 71). 31 For more information about the literary cannon for Arabic literature and how this is changing in the twenty first

century, see Jacquemond (2013). 32 This collection is the most popular, but not the only one. For more information about SF and fantastic popular

novels, see Barbaro (2013: 58). 33 Both novels have been included in the current dystopian trend for Arabic literature (Alter, 2016).

32

term “naqīḍ al-yūtūbya” (Barbaro, 2013: 27, literally ‘the contrary of utopia’ or the ‘anti-utopia’), while

others refer to it as “al-dīstūbya”, “al-yūtūbyā al-ḍidd” (‘the anti-utopia’) or “al-madīna al-fāsida” (‘the

defective city’) (al-Qamāh, 2018).34 One of the main Arab literary critics of SF, al-Shārūnī, explains that

utopia (“al-madīna al-fāḍila”) is as old as the idea of “paradise”, as a compensation for worldly life,

whereas dystopia (“al-yūtūbiyā al-ḍidd”) refers to the idea of hell, “for those who did not follow the

instructions of society in their worldly lives” (al-Shārūnī, 2000: 185). He examines some utopian works,

from Plato’s Republic until twentieth-century literary works, and concludes that all utopian cities (“al-

mudun al-fāḍila”) have indeed a dark side, which makes them in the first place cities of warning (“mudun

al-taḥḏīr”) (al-Shārūnī, 2000: 189). Moreover, al-Shārūnī concludes that by reaching to the perceived

utopian society, a dystopian situation is unchained (al-Shārūnī 2000:16), which is similar with Booker’s

definition in 6.2.1.

Apart from theorists of Arabic SF, some interest outside academia can also be felt in some cultural

publications, particularly in linking dystopian fiction with the situation of some Arab countries after the

popular upheavals of 2011. For example, al-Qamāh (2018) situates the origins of the term ‘dystopia’ in

Greece, and follows its emergence in Europe as a literary genre. After this historical retrospective, she

turns to how the situation in the Arab world, with so many inequalities, feels like a real life dystopia. Some

other scholars will take the same path in linking dystopia to the present time of Egypt, outside of the

fictionality of some literary works that appeared in the last ten years.

One clear example is Chiti’s (2016) article about how dystopia can serve to theorize time as “present” in

Egypt in the five years after the 25th January revolution. She mentions that whereas the international

critique focuses on the science-fictional features of the dystopian novel Otared, Egyptian readers remark

the plausibility of the plot in Egypt’s current circumstances (Chiti, 2016: 279). She further mentions how

George Orwell’s 1984 became an omnipresent view in any library or bookstall in Cairo in the last few

years, signalling a rupture in time linearity, as Egyptians see their present in 2016 related to a novel written

in Europe in 1949 (Chiti, 2016: 280). As the time of the 25th Revolution was perceived as a “materialized

utopia”, its post-revolutionary reality is perceived as a materialized dystopia (Chiti, 2016: 285). However,

literary fiction chooses the future for its plots most probably due to the importance of avoiding censorship,

as mentioned already when talking about Arabic SF. According to Chiti, this disruption of time that feels

like a real dystopia is product of the immense shifts that took place in such a short time, creating the sense

that there was a better future that never came.

As has been explained above, dystopia has become more popular after 2011, with the uneven results of the

Arab Spring. Nonetheless, it is clear that some themes appeared already before that time. Hence, despite a

34 Each option reflects a different linguistic strategy in the creation of neologisms. For example, “al-madīna al-fāsida”

comes as the opposite of al-Farābī’s “al-madīna al-fāḍila” (‘the Ideal City’). Both options, “naqīḍ al-yūtūbya” and

“al-yūtūbyā al-ḍidd” maintain the word “utopia” as a loan; while “al-dīstūbiya” comes as a transliteration of the

English term.

33

generalized sense that dystopian fiction is a very new phenomenon, its relationships with SF and Arabic

utopian tradition speaks of a continuum of social criticism in literature that goes way back in time.35

Without extending this chapter much more, we need to recognize “the centrality of political life in the

fiction of the Arab East and the precedence of collective over private issues” (Aghacy, 2009:7) that are

characteristic of realistic literature, and which seems to find a continuum in dystopian works.

35 For example, Massad argues that “fictional writing provides accounts of society that no other mode of

representation has been able to provide during the colonial or postcolonial era” (Massad, 2007: 272).

34

7. Methodology This thesis adopts masculinity studies as the theoretical framework that can help situate men in the wider

gender relations depicted in Utopia and The Queue. In order to do so, central tools in narratology will be

key to understand what mechanisms in the narrative influence the position of men and women in the novels.

However, are gender theories, emanating from social sciences, applicable to literary texts? Is narratology

a valid method to approach gender studies? Despite their different origins and purposes, it seems that

narratology and gender studies have worked well together in the last decades, illustrated by the myriad of

studies where both intersect, as explained in Chapter 5 of this thesis. We can briefly say that narratives are

widely recognized as performing multiple functions in creating and sustaining “our understanding of

ourselves, others and the world around us” (Page, 2006: 1). At the same time, gender is considered as

another primary axis in identity processes, social relationships, and macro-level structures of power (Page,

2006: 1).

Another complicated question has been if narratology can indeed claim universality or not.36 As a method

emanating from the Western literary tradition, narratology has been applied on literary works of the five

continents by now. While giving a comprehensive response to this question is beyond the scope of this

thesis, we can briefly say that the concepts proposed by Genette seem to have a very wide applicability.

Therefore, narratological tools will be used here not in pursuit of a universal typology of narrative texts,

but as the necessary instruments to describe how these novels and their fictional societies are constructed.

The choice of narratology as a means of deconstructing narrative texts comes from the need for “a

fundamental epistemological structure that helps us to make sense of the confusing diversity and

multiplicity of events and to produce explanatory patterns for them” (Fludernik, 2009: 2). This structure

was first created by Gérald Genette, whose foundational book Narrative Discourse (1980) is still

considered as narratology’s main reference. In Fludernik’s opinion, “Genette’s typology succeeds

admirably in making useful distinctions, in terminology which is both readily remembered and precise”

(Fludernik, 2009: 103).

Although the relationship between narrative theory and interpretation might appear controversial, a

systematic and formal analysis of narrative has helped theorists in the analysis of content, as “descriptive

narratological categories also provide them with ideas that are decisive for their interpretive textual work,

and most literary theorists would argue that the precision of narrational terminology is helpful in arriving

at clearer interpretations of texts” (Fludernik, 2009: 9). This claim will be validated in the present analysis,

as concepts such as the narrative voice become intimately related to how gender relations are depicted in

the novels.

36 Narratology, from its inception, is “concerned with universal aspects of narrative, with the basic options available

and with narrative instances and categories which can be found in (almost) all texts” (Fludernik, 2009: 88).

Narratology therefore claims universal validity (Fludernik, 2009: 9).

35

However, classical narratology did not show any interest in contributing to the deconstruction of gender

relations in narrative texts. This need was spotted by certain scholars that adapted narratological tools in

order to introduce gender as a category of analysis, in what came to be known as feminist narratology. For

example, Warhol & Lanser (2015) bring together different examples of how literary theorists explore “the

many ways in which narrative represents, structures, and constitutes gender and sexuality, as well as the

ways these concepts inflect narrative itself” (Warhol & Lanser, 2015: 3). A good example of this is Berg

(2017), which uses narratology with the aim of discussing of how gender is presented and used within texts

(Berg 2017: 66). Therefore, this thesis will make use of Genette’s narratological concepts and analytical

tools, but with the feminist application of defining the position of men in the story and the narrative.

Besides, although the present thesis departs from a detailed narratological analysis, for the sake of

coherence and conciseness, only the elements that are key for the construction of masculinities will be

mentioned here.

7.1. Voice, mood and time In his Narrative Discourse (1980), Genette is concerned with the three meanings of ‘narrative’, each one

of which acquires a new term in order to avoid polysemy: “narrative” refers to the discourse or statement,

“story” to the events, and “narrating” to the act (Genette, 1980: 25). In this thesis, narrative and story will

be the two main emphases of the analysis, as the narrating instance is almost never mentioned in Utopia

or The Queue. Therefore, this thesis is an analysis of the narrative discourse in both novels, defined as the

“study of the relationships between narrative and story, between narrative and narrating, and (to the extent

that they are inscribed in the narrative discourse) between story and narrating” (Genette, 1980: 29).

Initially, the narrative voice stands out as a defining element to understand how gender relations are

described in these novels. For this purpose, the distinction made by Genette between voice and mood is of

utmost importance. As Fludernik summarizes, voice is concerned with who speaks, who is the narrator.

Genette offers the term “homodiegetic” for narrators that are at the same time characters in the story, and

“heterodiegetic” for narrators that are not part of the fictional world being narrated (Fludernik, 2009: 98).

Mood then refers to whose perspective is being narrated, also known as focalization. A narrative can

present zero focalization, when nothing seems to constrain the narration, i.e. the classical omniscient

narrator (Prince, 2003: 31). If the narrative is focalized, it means that the narration is ‘filtered’ through one

of the characters, whose perspective would delimit what is narrated and known through the narration.

Internal focalization offers both external physical elements, as well as thoughts or feelings, while with

external focalization, thoughts and feelings are left unknown (Prince, 2003: 32).

This differentiation is key for understanding who is presenting the story, and whose perspectives are being

narrated or silenced. Besides, understanding the relationship between the focalized (the object of

focalization) and the focalizer (the subject or holder of the point of view) says much about the power

36

difference between them is used to create hierarchy in the gender order depicted in the novels.

Understanding how the characters are constructed and through which point of view (focalizer), also allow

us to see what mechanisms portray some characters as “real men”, for example, and not others.

Genette’s theorization of order, duration and frequency to describe the relationship between the passing of

time in the narrative against that of the story, is also an effective tool to examine how some processes are

altered by the use of repetition, ellipsis and jumps in time. Although these categories seem in principle to

be disconnected from gender issues, their use and manipulation helps create the fictional society where

gender relations take place within the story. Due to the multiple concepts defined by Genette to help

describe these relations, terms related to time will be defined when needed in the body of the analysis.

37

8. Men and masculinities in Utopia and The Queue

8.1. Local masculinities: embodied experiences and immediate interactions.

This chapter aims at defining the narratological elements that contribute to the construction of

masculinities in both novels, and how they influence the characterization of the male characters and

their experiences in their immediate surroundings. The embodied experiences of men and women

occur within a given social setting. As such, studying their practices within that social setting can tell

us a lot about the specific places where masculinity is constructed. By focusing on embodiment, we

allow for the body to emerge as inseparable from human experience, and also as a main element in

the performance of gender. At the same time, the effects of the performance of gender can also appear,

as bodies sometimes ‘suffer’ the effects of certain types of masculinities or femininities.

The importance of the body in men’s experience cannot be underestimated: bodies and their materiality

matter, as bodies can allow certain practices, and disallow others, mainly in the realms of sports, labour

and sex (Connell 2005b: 58). At the same time, the male body has been also used to back essentialist views

of masculinity where “true masculinity” is rooted in arguments that set certain practices as “inherent in the

male body” (such as having an incontrollable lust, or being prone to violence), or “expressing something

about the male body” (such as the belief that men do not naturally take care of babies) (Connell 2005: 45).

Masculinity studies have thus tried to offer new conceptualizations of men’s bodies as diverse and subject

to change as they age, and are affected by drug intake or social processes (Connell 2005: 57). Another

focus has been on how the bodily performance of masculinity becomes vulnerable when certain bodies

cannot sustain it, for example in case of physical disability or sickness (Connell 2005: 54). The role of the

body, and how it affects and it’s affected by gender performance will be a subject of inquiry in the present

analysis, especially regarding sexuality and injury.

On the other hand, focusing on the immediate, face to-face interactions in the construction of gender

relations will allow us to examine the main elements of local patterns of masculinity in both novels.

In this chapter, the narrative voice, the perception of the male body, the use of proper names, familial

and social interactions, and local patterns of masculinity, will be examined in both novels, followed

by a brief conclusion on the main features of local patterns of masculinities in Utopia and The Queue.

However, before continuing, what follows is a brief summary of the novels.

8.1.1. A brief summary of Utopia In 2023, Egypt has been divided into two extremely unequal parts. A minority of rich people live within

the walls of Utopia, a private compound defended by retired US Marines in the North Coast of Egypt.

Outside Utopia’s walls live the poor masses, the ‘Others’, who control the rest of the territories and live in

38

a state of complete material deprivation. A 16-year old son of a rich merchant, ʿAlā’, is already bored of

his life in Utopia, which he spends mostly engaging in casual sex with different women and taking

phylogistine, a very powerful hallucinogen drug popular at that time.37 In his quest for adventure and

meaning, he decides to step out of the walls of Utopia in order to ‘hunt’ one of the Others as a trophy and

proof of his manhood. A young woman with whom he has intermittent sex, Jirmīnāl, accompanies him on

his adventure.

Dressed as any of the Others, ʿAlā’ and Jirmīnāl are able to arrive safely to what once was one of the most

populous neighbourhoods in Cairo, Shubra.38 Appalled by the unbearable poverty and decrepitude of the

place, ʿAlā’ rushes to kidnap a prostitute, Sumayya, so that he can return to Utopia as quickly as possible,

with a proper trophy. However, while hitting Sumayya ʿAlā’ is caught by the young boys controlling the

prostitutes. As an angry group of men closes the circle around ʿAlā’ and Jirmīnāl accusing them of being

infiltrators from Utopia, Jābir, a young Other, steps in and saves their lives.

Jābir then takes ʿAlā’ and Jirmīnāl under his protection and lets them stay in his shack. While he leaves

ʿAlā’ behind to work at a chicken processing plant to make a living for himself, Jābir runs back home

intending to rape Jirmīnāl, thus taking revenge for the Others’ miserable situation. However, Jābir is unable

to rape her, and is unwilling to kill them. At the same time, while Jābir is arranging their escape and despite

his hospitality and protection, ʿAlā’ rapes Jābir’s sister Ṣafiyya, threatening to kill Jābir if she utters a word

about what happened.

Jābir then takes ʿAlā’ and Jirmīnāl back home through a secret network of tunnels that connect the desert

to the interior of Utopia. However, ʿAlā’ does not renounce his quest and kills Jābir upon arrival to Utopia,

severing one of his hands as a trophy. Although ʿAlā’ comes back victorious from his hunt, something has

changed on the part of the Others; the novel ends with hordes of armed impoverished people ready to storm

the rich compound of Utopia.

8.1.2. A brief summary of The Queue The novel takes us to an unnamed country where a new governmental institution, the Gate, has been

exerting power for a number of years after the failure of the ‘First Wind Gust’, a popular uprising that

demanded a more inclusive form of governance. From the beginning, the Gate dictated numerous rules

regarding every aspect of people’s lives, and required citizens to acquire multiple permits and documents

to access jobs, housing or medical care, among others. After some years, new disturbances known as the

37 Although the real name of the privileged protagonist remains unsure, as will be mentioned below, he will be referred

to as ʿAlā’ in this thesis in order to facilitate reading. Another option is offered in Murphy 2017, “Ibn Murād” (“son

of Murād”), as the name of his father is clear in the narrative and is a common way of referring to someone in Arabic.

As will be discussed later, his complete rejection of his father as less than a man discourages this choice. 38 The correct transcription in MSA of the neighbourhood is “Šubrā”. However, as it is very distinct neighbourhood

in Cairo and it is well-known in its transliteration as “Shubra”, the former will be maintained for coherence and better

recognition.

39

‘Disgraceful Events’ erupted and were met with violence by the Gate’s security forces. Since then, the

Gate has remained closed, and a long queue has formed outside the building with people in need of permits

and documents required to live their daily lives. The crowd becomes so big that the end of the queue

reaches far away neighbourhoods. The Gate remains closed for months, and the queue becomes a parallel

world, with its own rules and social codes.

Yaḥyā, a 38-year-old sales representative, is injured by a bullet in his hip during the Disgraceful Events.

He is hurriedly taken to a private hospital, where he is assisted by Dr Ṭāriq, who makes an X-ray of his

pelvis in order to determine the damage, and then decides to operate to extract the bullet. However, as Dr

Ṭāriq is preparing for surgery, a colleague informs him of a new regulation from the Gate: the extraction

of a bullet can only be performed after obtaining a permit from the Gate, dutifully signed and sealed.

Alternatively, the bullet can be extracted in the public Hospital, al-Ajwā’.

Yaḥyā is thus transferred to al-Ajwā’ Hospital, but ends up running away after hearing strange reports in

the media: according to the Gate, there were no bullets fired; people were affected by the heat and went

mad, others died of a heart attack, and some committed suicide on the spot. Most importantly, there were

no bullets extracted in al-Ajwā’ Hospital. Fearing for his life, Yaḥyā decides to leave the hospital and try

to get a permit from the Gate in order to remove the bullet in Dr Ṭāriq’s hospital. This would also allow

him to prove that the Gate did fire live ammunition against citizens, as he is the only one alive that still

carries such an evidence. Despite his continuous deterioration, Yaḥyā takes a place in the queue

accompanied by his inseparable friend, Nājī, and counting on the help of his girlfriend and co-worker,

Amānī.

At the same time, Dr Ṭāriq becomes obsessed with Yaḥyā’s case, and spends the days reading his medical

file, which contains much more than medical information: his personal and professional background is

recorded, as well as details about his friends and activities. When Yaḥyā and Amānī visit him asking to

start the surgery before obtaining the permit, Dr Ṭāriq refuses fearing for his career. Since his health is

deteriorating, Yaḥyā asks him for his X-rays in order to strengthen his case to the Gate. Nonetheless, Dr.

Ṭāriq not only fails to mention that a high ranking military doctor already came for all the copies, but also

misleads them by telling them that the X-rays are either with Ms. Alfāt, the Head Nurse not present in the

hospital at that time, or at the general registry of al-Ajwā’ Hospital.

Yaḥyā’s and Amānī’s quest for the X-rays will fill most of their time. Yaḥyā finally finds Ms. Alfāt with

the help of Īhāb, a journalist that realises the value Yaḥyā has in proving that bullets were used during the

Disgraceful Events. However, Ms. Alfāt says she never had Yaḥyā’s X-rays, and then disappears, just like

many other citizens whose whereabouts remain unknown. As Yaḥyā’s health further deteriorates, Amānī

ventures into al-Ajwā’ Hospital, heavily guarded by the Gate’s security forces, only to find out that the

information about the injured during the Disgraceful Events is locked away on the fifth floor, to which no

one has access. In a blunt move, Amānī decides to try her luck on the fifth floor, but she is caught by

security, interrogated by a military doctor, and detained underground for three days. When she finally gets

40

out, she is no longer herself. She is continuously nervous, afraid and worried. She loses her job, and her

relationships with others suffer.

Throughout the months that Yaḥyā spends in the queue, Dr Ṭāriq continues to read his file daily, interested

in how the symptoms progress, which indicate that Yaḥyā’s condition is worsening. He also observes that

the file receives daily, almost hourly, updates, all written by an unknown hand. As he cannot overcome his

obsession with and remorse towards Yaḥyā, he visits him in the queue and offers to perform the surgery in

Nājī’s house, which is accommodated to receive the injured Yaḥyā. However, when he takes Yaḥyā’s file

the next morning, there is no update from the previous night, only a sentence stating that Yaḥyā spent 114

nights of his life in the queue. Dr Ṭāriq, for the first time, takes a pen, and proceeds to write on Yaḥyā’s

file.

8.1.3. The narrative voice: men’s bodies, men’s experiences The narrative voice in Utopia stands out as the narrative element that has the deepest impact on how

masculinities are portrayed. The book is narrated through the internal focalization of the two main

characters, ʿAlā’ and Jābir.39 Although they both start as narrators of their respective worlds, in part three,

four and five their voices will eventually interlace, meet and collide, when both narrators reproduce their

conversations and convey each other’s words, either in direct or indirect speech.40 As narrators, ʿAlā’ and

Jābir speak in the first person when talking about themselves, and only describe thoughts and feelings that

their owns.41 Both narrators sometimes speak in the second person masculine, but it is not clear to whom

these expressions are directed.42 Although the narrating instance is not mentioned, Jābir seems to be

conscious of the narrating process, which he links to bitter memories:

“Li-hāḏā ataḏakkar... li-hāḏā umarrir maḏāq ḥayātī Ꜥalā lisānī kamā yumarrir al-mar’ maḏāq

al-nabīḏ al-murr baꜤd mā faraġat al-zujāja” (Towfik, 2010: 66)

‘That is why I remember... That is why the taste of my life traverses my tongue, the same way

39 Internal focalization is a “kind of focalization whereby information is conveyed in terms of a character’s

(conceptual or perceptual) point of view or perspective” (Prince, 2003: 45). In Genette’s terminology, they are

homodiegetic narrators (Genette, 1980: 50); however, the use of ‘focalization’ will allow later for a clearer analysis

of the voice in The Queue. 40 Direct speech (or direct discourse) quotes a character’s utterances or thoughts “in the way that the character

presumably formulated them” (Prince, 2003: 20), as opposed to indirect speech (or indirect discourse), where a

character’s utterances or thoughts “are integrated into another utterance or thought [...] which involves a tag clause –

‘he said that’, ‘she thought that’” (Prince, 2003: 43). 41 The representation of thought has been a mainly concern for narratology (Fludernik 2009: 79). In Utopia, there are

many stances which cannot be identified “unambiguously as either narrative discourse or speech representation or

representation of thought” (Fludernik, 2009: 85). 42 For example see Towfik (2010: 16) & Towfik (2010: 57).

41

bitter wine traverses a man after the bottle is emptied.’43

Parts one, three and five, which bear the tittle “al-Ṣayyād” (‘The Hunter’), are narrated by ʿAlā’, a 16-year

old boy whose life has been limited by the walls of Utopia (Towfik, 2010: 12).44 He describes his physique

and tells us about his life at the very beginning of the novel, in an example of repeating narrative that helps

transmit the boredom that he feels with his life.45 The only thing that differentiates him from all other

people is his fondness of reading.46 In front of the mirror, ʿAlā’ approves of his image as an attractive and

virile young man: purple turf hair style, shaved on the sides in Mohawk style, skulls and voodoo icon

tattoos on his chest, coloured teeth, white contact lenses, and a fake injury on his forehead. He also wears

shorts that are specifically designed to make men appear “akṯar fuḥūlatan” (Towfik, 2010: 11) (‘more

virile’).

The previous description presents a Halloween-like appearance that is said to be mainstream for young

men and attractive to women. The foreign elements of his appearance point to a change in bodily

appearance from present day Egypt.47 There is a reference to US elements, such the Mohawk style, and the

description of tattoos portrays young males as aggressive, which foes along with the consideration of him

as ‘The Hunter’. The use of fake scars also contrasts with the multiple real scars on the bodies of the male

Others. Another difference is observed in the care with which rich men groom themselves, and the

carelessness of the Others’ when it comes to physical appearance.

The narrator of parts two and four, which are called “al-Farīsa” (‘The Prey’), is Jābir. It is ʿAlā’ who

describes him as a man in his 30’s, skinny, with tousled hair, showing signs of malnutrition but physically

strong, his face full of stitches like in Frankenstein movies, wearing glasses that had been soldered thousand

times, and a cornea that looked melted, like a white paste (Towfik, 2010: 91). For ʿ Alā’, the defining bodily

features that characterise both of them is the hair, the face, and the marks on the skin, which in both

descriptions come to look very similar. While ʿAlā’ needs to wilfully change his appearance to get scars,

coloured teeth, and white eyes, Jābir is described as equally disguised, but out of poverty and injury. As

43 My translation. The word for man mentioned in this sentence, mar’, the general Arabic term for man, which relates

to the pre-Islamic and early Islamic concept of “muru’a”. According to Roded, “muru’a came to mean a number of

positive qualities ranging from chastity and good nature, to dignity and compassion, to good conduct and urbanity”

(Roded, 2006: 58). 44 Contrary to the conception of free-time out of work as the good life present in utopian fiction, ʿAlā’ presents a

complete opposite image of how he lives free “of the realm of necessity”, in Marxist terms (Patai, 1982: 857). What

in other works is presented as an opportunity for human creativity, in Utopia is reduced to boredom, which seems to

‘justify’ violence, sadistic sex, drug abuse and homosexual practices, among others. For ʿAlā’, the rich have achieved

their utopian total segregation from the poor, which brought a completely dystopian future upon everyone in society. 45 Repeating narrative refers to frequency in narratology as “the relationship between the number of times an event

happens and the number of times is recounted”. Hence, repeating narrative is recounting n times what happened once

(Prince, 2003: 36). 46 ʿAlā’ explains how reading is not common in Utopia, and that he has read almost all books available in his

surroundings (Towfik, 2010: 13). 47 Just as one example, Ghannam explains how in today’s Egypt “facial scars could be interpreted by others not only

as signs of defeat but also as signs of criminality and troublemaking” (Ghannam, 2013: 61).

42

the story advances and ʿAlā’ remains at Jābir’s mercy, ʿAlā’ tries to further separate himself from Jābir by

commenting on how Jābir has wax in his ears and ulcerous toes out of pathetic sandals, while

simultaneously linking Jābir’s appearance to that of the Others:

“Bi-raġmi hāḏā kullihi yamšī ka-al-bašar wa-yatakallam ka-al-bašar.. bi-raġmi hāḏā kullihi lam

yartami ʿinda qadamayya mutawassilan lī kay aqṭaʿ ḏirāʿahu …. bi-raġmi hāḏā kullihi yaṣfaʿ

Jirmīnāl wa-yuhaddidunā … mā aḥmaq hā’ulā’ al-qawm wa-mā ašadd saḏājatahum.”

“In spite of all of that, he walked like a human being and talked like a human being. In spite of

all of that, he didn’t throw himself at my feet begging me to cut his arm off. In spite of all of that,

he had slapped Jirmīnāl and threatened us. How stupid these people are, and how extremely

naive!” (Towfik, 2011: 95)

The body, especially when related to sexuality, is central to ʿAlā’’s experiences, whereas his emotional

palette is limited to feelings of fear, disgust, and arousal, emotions with a very physical character. During

his narration, ʿAlā’ offers a particular moral landscape where inhuman, unfair, and violent behaviour is

valued in order to maintain the status quo between the rich and the poor, which puts into question his

reliability as a narrator.48 ʿAlā’ displays a clear opposition towards social change, and never shows

compassion for the Others, only disgust:

“Lastu mustaꜤiddan laḥẓa li-al-taḫallī Ꜥan hādā kullihi, lākin kaḏalik lā abtaliꜤ fikrat wujūd kull

hādā al-faqar [...] lā aꜤrif kayf waṣala al-amr li-hāḏā al-ḥadd lākin lā budda min an

yastamirr..” (Towfik, 2010: 108)

“I wasn’t prepared for a moment to abandon all that but, at the same time, I couldn’t stomach

the idea of all this poverty existing [...] I didn’t know how things had got to this point, but I

knew it had to continue” (Towfik, 2011: 92).

As Morgan argues, some of ʿAlā’ reactions outside the reader’s moral framework could be those of a drug

addict.49 Indeed, bodies in Utopia, both rich and poor, are under the influence of drugs. ʿAlā’ mentions

48 An unreliable narrator is a “narrator whose norms and behaviour are not in accordance with the implied author’s

norms” (Prince, 2003: 103). Fludernik adds that an unreliable narrator “may give a distorted picture of (fictional)

reality as a result of being obsessed by certain ideas,” or may reveal her/himself as immoral or dishonest (Fludernik,

2009: 27). 49 In his article, Morgan argues that the main protagonist of the novel are drugs, and that ʿAlā’ displays a behaviour

such of a drug addict: “Alaa is in a permanent state of Huxleian ‘Not-self’, possessing neither awareness of his

behaviour nor that of those around him, whether under the influence of hallucinogens or not” (Morgan, 2017).

Although proving or refuting this point is beyond of the scope of this thesis, some elements do point at the centrality

43

how he frequently uses drugs, alone or in groups, and is said to carry philogistine in his trip to Shubra

(Towfik, 2010: 88). In the use of drugs, clear differences in terms of class are noticed. For the rich in

Utopia, multiple drugs are available, sold by the Marines that protect the compound. Among them, the new

philogistine seems to be the most sold and appreciated, as it is new and simply applied on the skin (Towfik,

2010: 14). However, the poor in Shubra get poor quality drugs or adulterated philogistine. Drugs play an

important role not only as recreation to fight monotony and suffering, but as enablers of certain types of

masculinities in this fictional society, as will be explained in 8.2.

On the other side, Jābir defines himself on the basis of emotion and education. He has recognizable moral

values and maintains a more coherent discourse throughout the novel, since his words and actions do not

contradict each other. In the event that he does exhibit contradictive behaviour, Jābir tends to explain the

reasons for doing so.50 He describes himself as cultured and respected by his peers despite not being able

to fight: “anā ḍaꜤīf jiddan” (Towfik, 2010: 72) (‘I am very weak’). In contrast to ʿAlā’’s euphoric attitude,

Jābir maintains a sober attitude of predetermination from the beginning of the novel. For example, Jābir

starts by saying that he knows he will die soon:

“AꜤrif annanī sa-amūt baꜤd yawmayn fa-lā taqul al-Ꜥaks... lā tukarrir al-hurā’ wa-illā ṭaꜤantuka bi-

maṭwātī. DaꜤnī aḥlum marra aḫīra” (Towfik, 2010: 57)

“I know I’m going to die in two days from now – don’t tell me otherwise. Don’t repeat this idle

talk, otherwise I’ll stab you with my knife. Let me dream one last time” (Towfik, 2011: 47).

For Jābir, his bodily experience is attached to his emotions. This is encapsulated in the first sentence of

Jābir’s narration: “qarniyyatī al-ḥabība... wa ḥulm mā baꜤd al-jins” (Towfik, 2010: 57 & 119) [“My

beloved cornea – and a dream of something beyond sex.” (Towfik, 2011: 47 & 103)] His dream is described

some pages later, when he explains that sex had become the easiest thing to get:

“Lākinnani bi-raġmi hāḏā ẓallaltu aṣbū li-šay’ āḫar... aṣbū li-mā baꜤd al-jins... al- šay’ allaḏī

yajꜤaluka baꜤd ifrāġ šahwatika taẓall jālisan jiwārahā tuṣġī wa-rubbamā turabbit Ꜥalā ḫaddihā

al-asīl bi-anāmilika” (Towfik, 2010: 74)

“But in spite of that, I continue to aspire to something else. I aspire to something beyond sex. To

that thing that leaves you lying beside her, after your lust is depleted, paying attention to her, and

of recreational drugs in the social criticism of the novel. For example, there is a clear link to the present-day Egypt in

the extract inserted in the middle of the main narrative about the number of drug users in Egypt, and the relationship

between drugs and crimes such as raping women and killing fathers (Towfik, 2010: 90). 50 For instance when he explains that he adulterates phylogistine to sell it to the Others (Towfik, 2010: 80).

44

perhaps caressing her smooth cheek with your finger” (Towfik, 2011: 60).

What Jābir looks for is not romantic love, but “Ꜥāṭifa ġāmiḍa” (Towfik, 2010: 74) (‘an unintelligible

affection’). As his cornea and the dream beyond sex come always in the same sentence, his most prominent

physical feature, his white like-paste eye, is associated to the unattainability of affection in Shubra, an

affection that has no name. This impossibility is exemplified by how one of the thugs, al-Sirjānī, managed

to injure him in order to gain control of the girl Jābir was interested in, probably to prostitute her (Towfik,

2010: 67).While Jābir’s desire for affection is hampered by the world he lives in, ʿAlā’ has no interest in

emotional bonding. This is exemplified by him saying that there is no any real reason why he prefers

Jirmīnāl over other women, and that “laysa al-ḥubb ṭabꜤan” (Towfik, 2010: 15) [“It isn’t love, of course”

(Towfik 2011: 9)].

The relationship between the masculine and the narrative voice in The Queue is filtered through its multiple

characters, who give different versions of the same fact depending on whose vision of the world is

presented. The novel is narrated generally by a heterodiegetic or non-focalized narrator that can get into

the minds of different characters, describe the characters’ past, and even reveal what they hid in their

speech to other characters.51 Among all, Dr Ṭāriq occupies a privileged position, as he is the only one who

has access to classified information and can confirm, beyond rumours, that the Gate is registering people’s

every movement. This contrasts with how the rest of the characters present incomplete accounts, as they

base their knowledge on other people’s opinions, rumours, and even practice self-censorship for certain

issues.

This mixture of voices is supported by multiple dialogues, both in direct and indirect speech. Dialogues in

direct speech appear in Egyptian dialect, with its different variants indicating regional origin and social-

class.52 Moreover, the presence of other unusual narrating elements such as laws and regulations,53 letters,54

announcements on television,55 a fatwa,56 newspapers,57 radio broadcastings,58 or religious lessons, 59

highly contributes to the feeling of noise, confusion and uncertainty in every stage of the novel. At the

same time, it serves to point out how most of the communication devices mentioned above convey the

51 For example, when Šalabī is boasting about his cousin and decides not to mention a few shameful details, as will

be analysed in 8.2.4. 52 For example, when the woman from the South explains her story (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 18). Dialogues are also used

as mimic in key points of the narrative, such as when Amānī and Yaḥyā meet Dr Ṭāriq to ask him for the X-rays

(Abdel Aziz, 2013: 69). Summary parts and indirect speech appears in MSA, for example in the words of the man

wearing the jilbāb towards Um Mabrūk (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 37). 53 Such as the regulation about bullet extraction and with some colleague’s comments (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 57). 54 Amānī’s letter brought to Yaḥyā by Um Mabrūk (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 24). 55 About the Gate’s services (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 129) and about the extraction of bullets (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 133). 56 Condemning the boycott of the Violent telephone company (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 153). 57 Containing information about the foreign conspiracy (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 187). 58 Giving voice only to supporters of the ruling class (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 13). 59 These lessons by the man wearing the jilbāb will be commented in 8.3.5., as they contain many references to the

gendering project of Islamist masculinity.

45

Gate’s official version of reality, which normally contradicts the characters’ experiences in daily life.

Contrary to Utopia, where the narrators eagerly disclose details about themselves, silence in The Queue

leaves many sides of the main characters unknown. There are also graphic silences, such as Document No.

5, in which ‘The Gate’s response’ appears as a back frame with an empty space inside. The Queue’s open

end, where Dr Ṭāriq becomes the only person who has a complete picture of Yaḥyā’s life after the injury,

either through his personal experience or through reading the always updated medical file, is the perfect

example of how silence dominates the narration. The narrative is then influenced by the power of the state

and its institutions in constructing “the truth” or “the reality,” with all its implications for gender relations,

something that will be further explained in 8.3.5. of this thesis.

The main protagonist of The Queue is Yaḥyā; however, no details are given about his physical appearance.

Instead, Yaḥyā’s injury and pain are the main focus of his bodily experience. As the story advances, Yaḥyā

tries to continue with his life despite of it. Narrative time serves as the major tool to make the deterioration

of Yaḥyā’s body the protagonist of the novel.60 Time moves slowly and remains elusive during most parts

of the narrative. This is especially acute at the beginning, where the main focus is put on the personal

stories of side characters despite Yaḥyā’s urgent need for treatment. The narration follows a chronological

order, interrupted with multiple analepses that tell us about the past of the different characters.61 However,

the absence of temporal connection between chapters, and the imprecise and scarce reference to exact dates

or periods of time, contribute to stretching the waiting time in the actual queue.62 However, attention is

always re-focused on Yaḥyā’s body and its injuries at the beginning of each part, as they always start with

a page of Yaḥyā’s medical file.

The silence about Yaḥyā breaks a little as the novel advances and his actions start defining him as a person.

One of the few direct references to his personality is when his friends think that he is not like the rest:

“huwwa šaḫṣ min nawꜤ āḫar, rajul ṣalb Ꜥanīd” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 135) (‘he is as a different kind of person,

a steadfast and stubborn man’). Yaḥyā’s injured body stands as the only weapon against the Gate, based

on his wish to survive and remove the bullet inside his belly to prove the Gate’s violent practices against

citizens:

“Fa-huwa bi-raṣāṣatihi tilka dalīl ḥayy lam yatimm dafnuhu ḥattā al-ān, wa-iḏā najaḥa Ꜥalā al-

ḥuṣūl Ꜥalā al-taṣrīḥ fa-sawfa takūn sābiqa mudhiša, fa-munḏu ẓaharat al-bawwāba lam yaṣdur

Ꜥanhā abadan miṯla hāḏā al- taṣrīḥ, ammā iḏa fašala fa-innā ḥayātahu hiya al-ṯaman al-mubāšir

60 Time in The Queue is the main argument of Moore (2018) around the concepts of ‘achrony’ and ‘robbed time’ in

the aftermath of the 25th January Revolution. 61 An analepsis (pl. analepses) is “an anachrony going back to the past with respect to the ‘present’ moment” (Prince,

2003: 5), a flashback. Analepses have certain extent (the time covered by the analepsis) and reach (how back the

analepsis goes in time, with respect to the “present”). 62 For example, the episode where some demonstrators interrupted the life of the queue is suddenly ended by “faqad

aṣbaḥa nahār min bayn al-nahārāt wa-hum ġayr mawjūdīn” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 106) (‘Then there came the day

when they were not there’)

46

wa-al-waḥīd” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 123)63

‘He and this bullet are the living proof that has not been buried yet. If he would manage to get

the certificate, it would be a surprising precedent, as since the Gate appeared, no such permits

have been issued before. While if he fails, his life will be the only and direct price to pay.’

At this point of the narrative, Yaḥyā also displays complex and contradictory emotions:

“Inṣarafa wa-ra’asuhu yakād yanfajir ilā qitaꜤ ṣaġīra, ḏikrayāt tarrud ilayhi wa-tatalāšā wa-

tatruk lahu ḫalītan min al-mašāꜤir al-mutanāqiḍa kaṯīran min al-ka’āba wa-al-malal, wa-baꜤḍan

min al-ya’s wa-al-raġba fī al-kumūn, ṯumma tawqan ilā al-ḫalāṣ wa-istiꜤādat al-ḥayāt kamā

kānat bi-daqā’iqihā al-muḥzina wa-al-saḫīfa wa-al-mufriḥa.” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 109)

‘He left with his head about to explode to small pieces, as memories came and vanished, leaving

him with a mixture of contradictory feelings, from depression and boredom, to hopelessness and

the wish of possibility. Then, a yearning to escape unscathed and return to life as it was, with its

minutes of sadness, absurdness and joyfulness.’

Throughout the novel, Yaḥyā is said to always have painkillers with him, to help him move around and

bear the waiting time in the queue (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 22).64 His suffering makes him groan and avoid

movement (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 22), feel heaviness (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 17), find drops of blood in his

underwear after urinating (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 115 & 130), and finally find that the bleeding is no longer

related to urination, but has become continuous (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 182 & 234). He knows from Dr Ṭāriq

that bleeding is the worst possible development for his health (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 115). Yaḥyā, however,

is more preoccupied with his emotional and psychological pain than with his physical pain.

Hence, The Queue links physical pain with psychological suffering, not only in the injured Yaḥyā. For

instance, Dr Ṭāriq is unable to sleep knowing that Yaḥyā’s medical file contains much more than medical

information and is updated daily by the Gate’s intelligence services (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 161). He even

needs to use sedatives in order to calm himself from the anxiety he feels as a result of Yaḥyā’s case (Abdel

Aziz, 2013: 230). For Amānī, her detention period and its aftermath is described as a physical, sensorial

and emotional vacuum or dark hole, as signals the name of the chapter “lā šay’” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 173)

(‘Nothing’).

Amānī’s detention and silence deeply affects Yaḥyā as well, as he “yaḥmil dāḫilahu wizr taꜤarīḍihā li-al-

ḫatar, wa kaḏalik wizr ma yūqin annaha lam taḏkurhu ḥattā al-ān” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 184) (‘carries inside

63 This argument with slightly different words will be repeated a few pages after, in Abdel Aziz (2013: 135). 64 However, there is no mention of any other recreational drug, thus depicting a very sober social environment.

47

of him the heavy burden of having had put her at risk, as well as the heavy burden of what she obviously

has not mentioned until now.’) Yaḥyā’s intuition that she suffered experiences that she is unable to share

in detention triggers feelings of helplessness and guilt. He was not able to help himself or avoid harm for

his girlfriend. Nonetheless, there is no questioning of Yaḥyā’s masculinity, by himself or by others; instead,

his powerlessness is associated to the Gate’s absolute control, as Nājī tries to make him see:

“lam yaꜤtarif Yaḥyā yawman annahu mujarrad fard wāḥid ḍaꜤīf, wisṭa mujtamaꜤ lahu ḍawābiṭ

wa-qawāꜤid aqwā min al-ḥākim nafsihi, wa- aqwā min al-manfaḏ wa-min al-bawwāba” (Abdel

Aziz, 2013: 202)

‘Yaḥyā would never admit that he was nothing more than one weak individual in a society with

rules and restrictions stronger than the ruler himself, stronger than the reception window65 and

the Gate.’

Furthermore, The Queue also points out how both Yaḥyā and Amānī long for affection but to no avail,

since Yaḥyā’s injury has made physical contact painful and undesirable. Yaḥyā tries to ignore the dark

implications of his symptoms by imagining his wedding with Amānī in the front of the queue. Then he

longs for:

“ṯumma ḥuḍn dāfi’ ṭawīl wa-Ꜥāmir al-iltiṣāq, yuꜤawwiduhumā – huwa wa-Amānī - Ꜥan al-salām

al-jāff, alladī ṣāra iḥdā qawāꜤid al-liqā’ al-saḫīfa munḏu iṣābatihi” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 116)

‘and then a warm, long embrace, with complete adherence [to each other], which would

compensate –him and Amānī– of the dry greeting that became one of the rules of their absurd

encounters since he was injured.’

Amānī also imagines that Yaḥyā is beside her in bed, where she can feel the sound of his breathing, and

smell his body. In her case, the dream turns into a nightmare, as she suddenly associates this image with

the funeral of Um Mabrūk’s daughter by seeing Yaḥyā wearing the gravedigger’s uniform and bleeding to

death (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 232). As it becomes more and more difficult to touch each other due to Yaḥyā’s

fragility, physical bonding and affection become a dream that can only come true after surgery. However,

Amānī’s psychological deterioration leaves this desire in a delicate position at the end of the novel, as she

disappears from Yaḥyā’s life after convincing herself that the bullets were fake, as proclaimed again and

65 The word “al-manfaḏ” means “passage, opening, gap” (Balbaaki, 1995:1126) and refers in the novel to barred

windows where citizens need to submit their petitions to the Gate, together with the supporting documents (Abdel

Aziz, 2013: 73).

48

again by the Gate. She even tries to convince Yaḥyā of this, to no avail (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 240). After all,

the ongoing deterioration of Yaḥyā’s body continued to serve as proof challenging the Gate’s narrative.

8.1.4. Proper names, gender, class and representativity The homodiegetic narrators of Utopia give a focalized version of the story, and therefore of the fictional

society depicted and the gender relations embedded in them. The fact that two young men, wealthy ʿAlā’,

and destitute Jābir, share the narrative voice, enables two different versions of the fictional society to be

presented. Consequently, the narrative voice influences how women and men are represented in the novel,

for instance in the consideration of characters’ proper names and their significance. Since names are one

of the main signs of gender in a given society, we will start by analysing the extent to which proper names

have a meaning beyond designation in Utopia and The Queue, especially in terms of the intersection

between gender and social class.

In the study and criticism of Arabic literature, proper names have been said to carry distinguishing

characteristic of the characters’ personality, and sometimes used to mark a contrast.66 In Utopia, proper

names give clues about some of the main features of the characters and/or their socio-economic status.

However, the novel starts by denying the importance of proper names in the voice of ʿAlā’ when he says:

“daꜤnā min al-asmā’... mā qīmat al-asmā’ Ꜥindamā lā taḫtalif Ꜥan ayy wāḥid āḫar?” (Towfik, 2010: 12)

[“Let’s not talk about names. What’s the value of names when you’re no different from anyone else?”

(Towfik 2011: 6)] For ʿAlā’, proper names inside the rich compound do not carry out their function of

differentiating between people; nothing does. Hence, his own name will remain uncertain during the whole

narrative.

Explaining how ʿAlā’ manages to keep his name to himself helps explain how proper names in Utopia are

intimately related to social class. First of all, none of the other characters calls him by his name, contrary

to Jābir. Then, when Jābir asks for their names in their first encounter, he reacts with incredulity after the

rich boy says that his name is ʿAlā’. Their dialogue is reproduced here:

“«Mā ismuka?» Qultu bi-lā iktirāṯ: «ʿAlā’» Ibtasama fī ḫubṯ wa-qāla «ṭabꜤan law ḥasibta annanī

sa-uṣaddiq laḥẓa wāḥida annaka ʿAlā’ fa-anta tarā fī wajhī ġabā’, lākin lā yuhim... lā qīma li-

al-asmā’ illā fī jaꜤlika taꜤrif anni uwajjih laka al-kalām... sa-naftariḍ annaka ʿAlā’ wa-li-takun

hiya Mahā. ʿAlā’ wa- Mahā.. jamīl»” (Towfik, 2010: 92)

“’What’s your name?’ ‘Alaa’ I told him indifferently. He smiled maliciously and said, ‘Of course,

if you thought that I’d believe for one moment that you are Alaa, then you take me for an idiot.

66 Proper names of characters have been an object of analysis in different schools of literary theories, and sources in

Arabic pay a lot of attention to it. See ꜤAsāqila (2011: 120).

49

But it’s not important. The only value in names is in letting you know that I’m talking to you.

We’ll assume that you’re Alaa, and she can be Maha. Alaa and Maha. Nice.” 67 (Towfik 2011:

75)

As Jābir points out, these typical Arabic names, ʿAlā’ and Mahā, in his ears sound more appropriate for

poor people.68 As the story develops, it becomes clear that proper names mark the divide between social

classes, as well as between men and women. While men and women of the Others bear typical Egyptian

Arabic popular names (for example Farīd, ʿAwād, Ḫalīl, and Ṣafwat for male, and Ṣafiyya, ʿAza, Najāt,

ʿAwāṭif for female), most women inside Utopia have uncommon and non-Arabic names (for example

Jirmīnāl, Lārīn, Sūzān, Kātī). Women’s names in Utopia are so uncommon in Arabic that most of them are

written between quotation marks, unlike other recognizable Arabic proper names. On the other hand, men

in Utopia mostly have common Arabic names (such as Sālim, Murād, ʿAlāwī, ʿAdnān), with only one

exception (Rīrī).

The choice of foreign or invented names for women living inside Utopia, together with the tendency of

flattening the characters for the representation of current social groups or certain archetypes,69 leave these

rich women almost totally unknown. ꜤAla’ is the narrator who refers to them, with a narrow focus on his

lovers and his mother, Lārīn. It seems that these women enjoy complete sexual freedom, do not hold any

known profession, and are not burdened with household chores.70 This uniform image is completed by

ʿAlā’, as he says that women in Utopia “yatašābahna fī kull šay’” (Towfik, 2010: 15) [“look all the same”

( Towfik 2011: 9)]. He even goes so far as to suggest that inside dull Utopia there is no difference between

nationalities or between people, and that: “lawlā baqāyā al-šahwa fī ʿurūqika la-mā ʿarifta al-ḏakar min

al-unṯā” (Towfik, 2010: 12) (‘If not for the lust remaining in your veins, you wouldn’t differentiate the

male from the female.’) The class connotation of female names is again made explicit when ʿAlā’ makes

fun of female traditional names of the Others, saying that they belong only in old TV shows (Towfik, 2010:

34).

As we have seen, names reclaim their importance to mark class and gender, despite the characters’

dismissals. The main characters’ proper names also say something about their personalities. On one side,

ʿAlā’ relates to the idea of being high, in a prominent place, while Jābir means the person who “mends,

67 Note that proper names in the published novel have been simplified in transcription, as shown in this example. 68 Jābir’s reaction also points at an argument that will be explained later in the analysis, which is the relationship

between the rich in Utopia and foreign countries, such as the US and Israel. Therefore, he associates Utopia to more

exotic proper names, as will be the case of women’s names. 69 As it can be understood from the summary of the novel and the construction of the characters, Utopia and The

Queue present flattened characters, with no attention to detailed or complex physical or psychological

characterization. It is worth mentioning that Arabic SF presents also this tendency (Campbell, 2018: 10). This thesis

will try to clarify how the use of flattened characters affects the portrayal of gender relations in both novels. However,

further research is needed to declare flattened characters as a main characteristic of Arabic dystopian fiction. 70 The distribution of the workforce is analysed in section 8.3.4., where it can be seen that maids in rich houses is a

common profession for women-Others.

50

remedy, helps the poor”.71 For the other characters appearing in the story, a clear hierarchy is marked: male

names are mostly traditional Arabic, despite Jābir’s first reaction, while female names sound foreign (for

the rich), or old-fashioned and ridiculous (for the Others). As will be explained in 8.2. and 8.3., rich and

poor men in Utopia will claim their superiority in terms of masculinity by exerting violence and control

over others, mainly women. Therefore, the preliminary examination of proper names stands as the first

sign of how the power relations between rich and poor men and women will look at the regional and global

level.

In The Queue, proper names, and the absence of them, also have a symbolic attachment to some of the

characters. Looking first at the characters who do have names, we see that they are all common Egyptian

names, which does not make anyone stand out from the group. Yet, the names of the three main characters

reflect the character’s purpose at the time of the narrative: Yaḥyā is a name which is derived from the root

denoting living and life, symbolizing his quest to remain alive against all odds. Nājī, his best friend, means

“saved”, while Amānī, means “wishes”. 72 There are also two characters that bear no name, but appear

throughout the narrative as ‘the man wearing the jilbāb’ and ‘the girl with the short hair’. No background

story is provided for them, and their characterisation ends with what we know from their names, pointing

at the flattening of characters for wider social representation.

These two characters wage their particular battle against each other in order to gain credibility for their

cause while in the queue. On the one side, the man wearing the jilbāb displays his gendering project based

on conservative religious discourse to try to influence the behaviour of the women in the queue, as will be

explained in chapter 8.3.5. of this thesis. On the other side, the girl with the short hair challenges his

gendering discourse and also intensifies her activities, for example by reading the news to those who cannot

read, and commenting on issues of public interest in Um Mabrūk’s coffee shop (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 194).

Hence, the presence of only two unnamed characters, one a conservative religious man, and the other a

young woman showing her hair, are good examples of how gender relations are at the forefront of the

fictional society created by The Queue.

Contrary to Utopia, the number of female and male characters in The Queue is almost the same, and there

is no difference in how the heterodiegetic narrator focuses on their past, present, wishes, opinions, or fears.

Therefore, in the next chapters we will look more closely at the words and silences used by different

characters, and their actions and attitudes in order to shed some light upon how gender relations are

represented in this novel.

71 The meaning of the names was taken from almaany.com: for ꜤAlā’ see:

https://www.almaany.com/ar/name/%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A1/. For Jābir see:

https://www.almaany.com/ar/name/%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1/. Consulted last 30th March 2020. 72 All proper names are referred to in Almaany.com. For Yaḥyā see:

https://www.almaany.com/ar/name/%D9%8A%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%89/. For Nājī see:

https://www.almaany.com/ar/name/%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%AC%D9%8A/. For Amānī see:

https://www.almaany.com/ar/dict/ar-ar/%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A/. All accessed last 30th

March 2020.

51

8.1.5. Familiar and social interactions in a segregated society

Although the family does not appear to be an issue of direct concern in Utopia, relations of kinship are

present and do contribute to the construction of gender differentiation in the novel. First of all, the main

characters appear free from parental control: whereas Jābir refers to his sister as his only family, ʿAlā’

explains that his parents do not exert control on him despite his young age (Towfik, 2010: 14). ʿAlā’ insists

that this sense of independence is common for all youngsters of Utopia, as everyone uses first names rather

than māmā or bābā (mam and dad) to refer to their parents (Towfik, 2010: 100). While Lārīn lets ʿAlā’

call her “Lārīn” so she can be his friend, she demands that ʿAlā’ calls his father bābā, instead of Murād,

because “hunāka ḥudūdan yajib allā tatajāwazahā” (Towfik, 2010: 25) (‘there are limits that shouldn’t be

trespassed’). Although she does not say so explicitly, she considers ʿAlā’ calling his father Murād rather

than bābā to be disrespectful. By admonishing ʿAlā’, she is restoring Murād’s position as the head of the

household, as superior to ʿAlā’ and worthy of his respect. In his narration, ’Alā’ interprets their behaviour

differently, and he continues to challenge his father Murād as a way of measuring himself against him and

affirming his sexual superiority over him, as will be explained in 8.2.2.

On the side of the Others, Jābir regards his sister Ṣafiyya as the most valuable thing he has, someone to

care for and protect. At the same time, Ṣafiyya holds a symbolic value for Jābir, which is represented by

her name, which means “pure”.73 According to Joseph on the brother-sister relation in the Arab world,

“love and power are parts of the same dynamic” (Joseph 1999: 132), and this can be observed in their

relationship. Ghannam adds that “part of the assertion of young men’s authority and status as men is

strongly linked to their ability to control the mobility of younger female relatives, usually sisters”

(Ghannam 2013: 66). In the case of Ṣafiyya, Jābir is able to limit her movements out of love, while

simultaneously providing for her:

“ṯamata šay’ wāḥid fī ḥayātī ẓalla naẓīfan aw najaḥtu fī an ajꜤalahu kaḏalik [...] li-hāḏā anā

ḥayy.. lan amūt wa-atruk Ṣafiyya tasruq aw tahizz ridfayhā bā’iꜤa al-silꜤa al-waḥīda allatī

tamlikuhā” (Towfik, 2010: 74)

“There is one thing in my life that has remained clean or that I have succeeded in making it that

way. [...] That was why I was alive. I wouldn’t die and let Safiya to steal or shake her behind,

selling the only thing she has to sell.” (Towfik 2011: 61)

Brother and sister display a connective relationship based on love, anticipating each other needs,

responding to them, and taking each other’s feelings as their own. Apart from diligently attending to the

73 See Almaany.com in: https://www.almaany.com/ar/name/%D8%B5%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9/. Retrieved last

30th March 2020.

52

household chores, Ṣafiyya shows her affection by cleaning up an unconscious Jirmīnāl so that Jābir could

rape her, as will be explained in 8.2.5. She even says out loud to Jābir:

“ḫuḏ raḥtak74.. inna jildahā amlas ka-jild al-aṭfāl... anta tastaḥiq al-rāḥa.. šaqyān.. taḥtāj ilā šaꜤr

naẓīf wa-jild amlas.. ḫuḏ raḥtak.. fa-li-yaġsil jamāluhā adrān rūḥika” (Towfik, 2010: 133)

‘Go ahead... Her skin is smooth like children’s skin. You deserve some ease, you poor thing. You

need clean hair and smooth skin. Go ahead... Let her beauty wash away the filth of your soul.’

As explained in the theoretical framework, men and women play a role in the construction of masculinities

and are part of gender relations. Among the mechanism by which masculinities are shaped is ‘homosocial

relationships’, that is relationships among men. In Utopia, both ʿ Alā’ and Jābir belong to a group of friends,

tasked with supporting and defending each other. In the case of ʿAlā’, it is from his friends that he gets the

inspiration to go out to hunt a human being (Towfik, 2010: 16), and once he is back with his trophy, it is

to his friends that he narrates again and again the details of his adventures (Towfik, 2010: 167). In the case

of Jābir, his peers are his main resource of survival and protection, as will be explained in 8.1.6.

Homosocial relations also appear key in the analysis of rape in section 8.2.5. of this thesis.

However, ʿAlā’ and Jābir are never able to relate to each other despite their common interests, such as

reading. Although at the beginning ʿAlā’ calls Jābir “al-fatā munqiḏunā” (Towfik 2101: 90) [“the young

guy, our rescuer” (Towfik 2011: 72)] and accepts the fact that they will have to trust him, ʿAlā’ starts

feeling resentment and distrust towards Jābir very quickly, as he thinks that Jābir “yudḫir lanā maṣīran lā

aꜤrif mā huwā” (Towfik, 2010: 91) [“he had a fate in store for us. I didn’t know what it would be” (Towfik

2011: 75)]. ʿAlā’, who left Utopia looking for adventure, agency and autonomy, finds himself dependent

on Jābir. Not only does Jābir control his movements, but without Jābir, ꜤAlā’ cannot get back to Utopia,

thus halting ʿAlā’’s quest for manhood.

This novel is packed with references to the Others’ men and Utopia’s men as inherently different, primarily

with regards to sexuality, which will be analysed in 8.2. Generally speaking, ʿAlā’ and Jābir come to

symbolize the two halves of Egypt, which have become so far separated that mutual understanding has

become impossible. In representing the wider social class, both ʿAlā’ and Jābir’s individual positions are

inevitably equated to the position of the entire social group to which they belong. For instance, when ʿAlā’

considers Jābir as stupid (Towfik, 2010: 174), as someone who does not understand the rules of the game,

he relates it directly to all the Others, who did not do anything to protect what was theirs in the past.

In The Queue, the family does not appear to be a priority neither. It is important to note that Milich (2019)

74The expression “ḫuḏ raḥtak” is in Egyptian dialect and has been transcribed as such.

53

also comments on the absence of the family in the novel, and how the only family presented, that of Um

Mabrūk, “breaks apart under the strain of exploitation and dehumanization (both daughters die eventually)”

(Milich, 2019: 156). On the same line, it is worth mentioning that the role of the family as a controller of

gender performance seems completely overtaken by the Gate and the conservative religious discourse, as

will be explained in 8.3. of this thesis.

Although the main characters appear to have no relevant kinships in the novel,75 it is possible to identify a

number of familial themes, such as the role of the working mother and the institution of marriage within

the conservative religious discourse. As a low-income working mother, Um Mabrūk displays the most

entrepreneurial attitude in the novel, as she cares for her family single-handedly despite her own physical

problems and pains.76 She takes on several remunerated jobs and also carries out the household chores, as

her husband only frequents coffee shops looking for hashish and pills (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 28). Moreover,

she is highly mobile, uses public transportation and moves around the city freely. When at one point she

cannot get to her jobs anymore, she even starts up a café for the people in the queue in order to continue to

support her family economically. Moreover, as all her kids are sick, she needs to navigate the intricacies

of the public health care system, which is not sympathetic to her requests.77 However, as she does not know

how to read and write, she is never completely self-sufficient, and relies on other people for accessing

institutions and public services. In her story, we see how the family becomes a substitute for quality public

services.

In the story of Īnās, marriage is represented as protection. With her parents abroad and her sister married

to an welcoming brother-in-law (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 214), Īnās is left unprotected against the state of

poverty that will no doubt hit her after she challenged the official view of reality in public. Īnās then attends

the religious lessons offered by the man wearing the jilbāb, after he approached her several times offering

comfort and guidance in religion. In her situation, Īnās sees his marriage proposal a follows:

“Irtiyāḥan li-wujūd šaḫṣ bi-jānibihā, fī wisiꜤihi taḥammul al-mas’ūliyya, wa-yumkinuhā an

tastanid ilayhi Ꜥinda al-šadā’id wa-al-miḥan” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 214)

‘soothing to have someone by her side, with willingness to carry responsibility and to whom she

could lean on in times of hardship and ordeals.’

Īnās’ embracement of the gender differentiations conveyed by the man wearing the jilbāb is marked by

75 For example, Amānī lost her parents much before the narration time, and Yehya’s parents are never mentioned. 76 Although she appears throughout the novel, two chapters are specifically dedicated to her (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 24-

30 & 77-85). Her name literally means “mother of Mabrūk” (‘meaning blessed, lucky, auspicious’), which contrasts

with her self-perceived lack of fortune. 77 It is worth mentioning that all government employees that meet any of the characters in The Queue are male, and

treat citizens with contempt.

54

her clothing. Throughout the novel, she gradually puts on additional pieces of cloth little by little “bi-ḥaīṯu

lā yuẓhir min jasadihā ayyat taḍārīs aw maʿalim” (Abdelaziz 2013: 210) (‘until no undulations or marks

of her body are noticeable). The concealment of her body reaches its peak when she actually leaves the

queue, after her wedding to the man wearing the jilbāb. What we infer from her story is that Īnās firmly

believes that a woman like her cannot sustain the disciplining policies of the Gate. With limited support

from her family, she feels unprotected. After her marriage, she no longer requires the Gate’s permit to

return to work and earn a living, as the gendering discourse of her new husband warns her against the

participation of women in public life, as will be analysed in 8.3.5.

Social relationships and comradery in The Queue are presented as social obligations, something that can

benefit or penalize any member of society. Firstly, Yaḥyā is considered as being socially unhealthy in his

medical file due to his sharpness in dealing with others (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 119), a feature that will indeed

cause him some minor problems in the queue.78 Then, Dr Ṭāriq’s voluntary isolation from his colleague

doctors is seen as an abnormality (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 10). Both men choose to keep some details of their

lives for themselves, which is penalized by society. However, this penalization contrasts with the

atmosphere of control, which imposes distance and silence from others, as explained in 8.3.3 of this thesis.

In this oppressive atmosphere, protection and support against the Gate also seem to dominate homosocial

relationships. For example, a network of support is created around Yaḥyā when Īhāb promised to help him

in his attempts to remove the bullet and show the truth of the Gate’s repression (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 123).

These networks, apart from the gender segregation preached by the man wearing the jilbāb, allow for the

participation of women, and are therefore not strictly homosocial.

8.1.6. Local patterns of masculinities in Utopia and The Queue In Utopia, there are several references to the baltāgī and the gadaʿ79 that Ghannam (2013) also identifies

in the Egyptian social landscape. In Shubra, left in a state of complete insecurity and an institutional

vacuum after the government dissolved, the figure of the baltāgī is prevalent and common among the

Others. Simultaneously, baltāgī is also a category known by the rich, as illustrated by the following

quote from ʿAlā’:

“Wa-naẓartu fa-iḏā bi-rajul ḍaḫm al-juṯṯa ašyab al-šaꜤr yaqif jiwār Ꜥāmūd nūr mā’il.. fī ḥizāmihi

madya Ꜥimlāqa wa-fī qabḍatihi sayf iṣṭanaꜤahu min sūstat sayyāra.. aꜤtaqid annahum yuṭliqūn

Ꜥalayhi ism ‘al-singa’... lahu Ꜥayn tālifa tuġaṭṭīha saḥāba bayḍā’ wa-hunāka jurḥ yaqṭaꜤ wajhahu

bi-al-ṭūl... yabdū aqrab ilā al-baltagī minhu ilā al-qawwād, lākin Ꜥindamā natakallam Ꜥan ḥuṯālat

78 For example, he decides to leave his place without informing anyone in order to keep his place, as it’s custom in

the queue. Therefore, when he returned, his place had been taken by someone else (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 75). 79 Transcribed from Egyptian dialect, as we are talking about local concepts and meanings.

55

al-bašar fa-lā fārq bayn mūdīl wa-āḫar” (Towfik, 2010: 51)

“I looked and there was a white-haired man with a huge body standing beside a leaning lamppost.

In his belt there was a giant knife, and in his fist was a sword he made himself out of a car spring.

I think they call it ‘singa’.80 He had one damaged eye, covered with a white cataract, and there

was a scar that cut across his face lengthwise. He seemed closer to a thug than to a pimp; but

when we speak about these dregs of humanity there is no difference between one model and the

other.” (Towfik, 2011: 42)81

In this fragment, ʿAlā’ distinguishes “al-baltagī” (‘the thug’) from “al-qawwād” (‘the pimp’), although

both are considered part of the lowest group of society. This description underlines two of their main

characteristics: physical strength and the use of violence. In contrast, when Jābir defines his street enemy,

al-Sirjānī, as a pimp, he considers al-qawwād to be in a lower category than al-baltagī: “[al-qawwād] la

yabīʿ quwat jasadihi wa baṭšahu wa lākin yabīʿ nisā’ahu” (Towfik, 2010: 82) (‘[the pimp] doesn’t sell his

body strength and his violent power, rather he sells his women’). These two categories might look alike in

physical strength, but their purposes differ in selling themselves, or selling their women. The negative

connotation of selling women is exemplified in how Jābir refuses that his sister Ṣafiyya becomes a

prostitute.

These categories stress the importance of the use of violence in the construction of masculinities, as

suggested by Ghannam (2013). According to her study, “a baltāgī is someone (usually a man) who uses

violence to impose his own will [...] on others [...] to further his personal interests.” (Ismail, 2006 as quoted

by Ghannam, 2013: 123) This has not been an static concept, but has evolved from the 1990s “to include

an increasing range of apparent or perceived transgressions against the law, public regulations, and social

conventions” (Ismail, 2006: 142). 82 As several studies point out, the threat of the baltagī has been

mobilized with the Law 6 on thuggery passed in the National Assembly in 1998 against violence in the

street and disorderly conduct in low-income neighbourhoods, which has been used as the main tool of the

state disciplining politics (Ismail, 2006: 139; Amar, 2011a: 350). However, the concept of ‘thuggery’ or

“baltagiyya” is sometimes also applied to the state in its perceived illegitimate deployment of violence.

(Ismail, 2006: 145).

While the ethnographic work points at the contemporary use of the baltagī as a tool for social control, we

see how in Utopia street gangs and thugs occupy a central role in providing for their members. Jābir

80 ‘Singa’ is a local blade (Hinds & Badawi, 1986: 434), usually used by low-income gangs in Egypt. This is why the

term remains untranslated and only transcribed as pronounced in Egyptian dialect. 81 The published translation has been modified in order to reflect the quote’s meaning as literally as possible. 82 Jacob’s (2011) historical and discursive analysis of what he calls effendi masculinity, positions the baltāgī as the

“Other” masculinity in the nation-state building process in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century into the first

decades of the twentieth century.

56

describes ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir, the man he works with, in contrast to another thug, Bayyūmī:

“ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir kāna baltagiyyan lākinnahu «gadaʿ» ḥār al-dimā’.. laysa mujarrad ḍabʿ tuṯīruhu

rā’iḥat al-dam miṯl Bayyūmī” (Towfik, 2010: 141)

“Abd el-Zahir was a thug, but he was a good guy, if hot-blooded. He wasn’t just a hyena provoked

by the smell of blood like Bayoumi.” (Towfik, 2011: 123)

The word gadaꜤ is commonly used in Egyptian dialect meaning “nobility of character and integrity”,

“intelligence and application”, and “manly toughness and courage” (Hinds and Badawi, 1986: 151). This

otherwise strange association between baltagī and gadaʿ marks Jābir’s relationship with ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir’s

gang, which is his source of “ḥimāya” (‘protection’), and “nufūḏ” (‘authority and control’) (Towfik, 2010:

140). In turn, Bayyūmī’s gang and values represent the enemy. Therefore, Jābir associates himself with a

constellation of physical and economic practices that do not involve selling women, and that are not driven

by naked cruelty. It is in this socialization that he is able to acquire and defend a certain status, which

allows him to protect his family from harm.

This differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate violence coincides with Ghannam’s work, who

concludes that the legitimate use of violence in some circumstances is coupled with its avoidance in others,

building the image of a “real man” who knows when violence can be deployed (Ghannam, 2013: 110).

This illustrates how violence is a social practice, productive of masculinities, and performative. In Jābir’s

view, the violence deployed by a baltagī has limits, which are not respected by men such as Bayyūmī, as

the example above shows.

By the end of the novel, the figure of the baltāgī representing a whole social class will be vindicated. As

all vehicles in Utopia are fuelled with sewage water, leaving them unusable, we realize that the revolution

of the Others has begun by putting ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir’s plan into action (Towfik, 2010: 141). At this point, the

social criticism of the dystopian novel points at the demystification of young low-income men as thugs.

As a whole social class is turned into thugs, their revolt aims for a re-reading of established social

categories, and a challenge of the use of baltāgī in the disciplining and surveillance of young men in Egypt

identified by Amar (2011a: 308).

The definition of local patterns of masculinity in The Queue requires a more subtle reading. At the

beginning of the novel, Yaḥyā’s attitude contrasts with the women that surround him in the queue. While

the old woman is eager to tell her stories and finds some empathy in Īnās, Yaḥyā chooses to lie, remain

silent and not show any interest in others.83 His silence occupies most of the narrative, and on several

occasions, he is described as inactive or waiting. Moreover, after Amānī is released from detention, Yaḥyā

83 See Chapter “al-ṭābūr” in Abdel Aziz, 2013: 17.

57

does not pressure her to pick up the phone or allow visits. This attitude is justified in various points of the

narrative by his medical condition, which makes any movement painful. It is their friend Nājī, with more

energy and mobility, who takes initiative, even behind Yaḥyā’s back in order not to worry him (Abdel

Aziz, 2013: 133).

All three main male characters, Yaḥyā, Nājī and Ṭāriq, show a peaceful and non-controlling attitude,

despite the oppressive atmosphere of the society they live in, contrary to Utopia’s main characters.

However, other side characters of The Queue are presented as representative of certain types of men. The

first one is Maḥfūẓ, a young member of the security forces who attempts to rape a patient under custody

in a hospital. As we will see in section 8.2.4., this episode illustrates the sexualized and violent practices

of Gate’s security forces. The second is the man wearing the jilbāb, analysed in chapter 8.3.5. of this thesis

as an example of Islamist masculinity for his religious gendering discourse.

8.1.7. Concluding thoughts on the depiction of local masculinities In this first chapter, the main elements of gender relations at the characters’ most immediate level have

been established. Utopia offers a very segregated landscape in the lines of gender and social class, with

men and women occupying different spaces and positions within the family and the society. At an inter-

personal level, men are shown to have the monopoly over violence and control over others. As the

dominant narrative voice is overtly male, there is no space for the inclusion of women’s voices, except in

very few instances.

Far from relating to a future model of masculinity, Utopia roots its fictional society in key traditional

masculine types, such as the baltāgī, which is re-worked to incorporate new attributes that in principle

seem contradictory, such as being a baltāgī and gadaʿ at the same time. However, as Jacob (2011; 2014)

explains when talking about al-futuwwa at the end of the nineteenth century, this phenomenon is all but

new.84 In Utopia, this combination of attributes triggers the poor’s rebellion against social and economic

injustice, and gives a glimpse into how characters such al-futuwwa can be reinvented in the context of state

absence and local security enforcement.

The Queue shows more diversity in the characters, as the narrative voice allows for different

experiences, stories and opinions to surface. The body is a perennial presence with Yaḥyā’s injury

dominating the narrative. However, the body is never left alone, as emotional and psychological suffering

84 Jacob explained how al-futuwwa (pl. al-futuwwat) literally translates as “youthful masculinity”, and has a very long

history in Egypt. In the nineteenth century, al-futuwwa referred to big imponent men that provided security in certain

areas. They were characterized by the strong bodily constitution, together with courage boldness and service to the

community. However, with the creation of the police by the British occupation, al-futuwwa acquired other

characteristics more related to the baltagī, as a tool to assert police control as the only legitimate enforcer of the law

(Jacob, 2015: 225-262). In a more recent article, Jacob explicitly links the use of the baltagī during the 25th January

Revolution and al-futuwwa at the end of the beginning of the twentieth century, as explained above (Jacob, 2014:

34).

58

is depicted to be just as painful as physical discomfort. In this landscape, it is the Gate and its practices

that dominate the lives of the characters, making them feel in need of protection and of wider social

networking in order to survive.85 Since all male main characters demonstrate understanding towards others

and their circumstances, no tendency towards violence or control is found in local patterns of masculinity.

However, other side stories provides examples that will be explored in the next chapters, such as members

of the security forces and an example of Islamist masculinity.

8.2. Men’s sexuality: control, violence and fertility

After defining bodily experiences and immediate gender relations in the previous chapter, this section

examines how men, manhood, fertility and virility are closely interlinked in Utopia and The Queue. First

of all, drawing from feminist and masculinity studies, a theoretical background on men’s sexuality will be

provided in the paragraphs that follow. After this comes the analysis of the multiple, and sometimes

contradictory, constructions of ‘manhood’ in the novel, in relation to men’s sexuality. Particularly, a

special focus on sexual violence against women has been adopted, due to its prominence in both novels.

Men’s sexuality has been on the radar of masculinity studies from their inception. Since feminist criticism

of men’s sexuality as violent and abusive (not only to women), men’s sexuality has been often

problematized as the cause of many perceived ills. 86 Behind the perception of men’s sexuality as

problematic, is the widely accepted consideration of men’s sexuality as powerful, natural, driven,

uncontrollable, penis centred, and seeking to achieve orgasm whenever it can (Plummer, 2005: 179). In

this view, the penis is located at the centre of male sexuality, which is both a symbol of power when erect,

or weakness when flaccid. Impotency is therefore the worst thing a man can suffer (Plummer, 2005: 178).

Complementary gender theory, together with ethnological works on masculinities and sexuality in Egypt,

add to the present analysis by focusing on the social criticism of the time in which these two dystopian

novels were written. Firstly, Inhorn’s (2012) study on male infertility touches upon some elements that can

help contextualize the relationship between manhood, virility and fertility as depicted in the novels.

Secondly, El Feki’s (2013) general study on sexuality in Egypt provide very relevant information for the

present analysis on the issues of fertility, virginity, and sexual harassment of women.

8.2.1. Wealthy hypersexualized “manhood” in Utopia The notion of ‘manhood’, ‘al-rujūla’, normally translated as “manhood, manliness, masculinity, virility”

85 The use of suffering as means of social control appears explicitly in Orwell’s 1984, in a society where power is

pursued only for its own sake (Patai, 1982: 856) 86 According to literature, men are much more likely than women to consume sex (prostitution and pornography in

all its forms), be diagnosed with sexual perversion, consider him/herself as a sex addicts, or become sex offenders

(Plummer, 2005: 179).

59

(Werh, 1980: 329; Balbaaki, 1995: 579), is central to the narrative of Utopia. 87 First of all, al-rujūla

appears as the main reason for ʿAlā’’s adventure, as he refers to hunting another human being as: “nawʿan

min iḫtibārāt al-rujūla” (Towfik, 2010: 32) (‘a kind of passage into manhood’). In this example, manhood

is characterized for its bravura; it’s about risk-taking, exerting violence on other human beings and coming

back alive.88 However, ʿAlā’’s narration highlights other defining elements of manhood, intersected by

age, virility and fertility.

The relationship between al-rujūla and sexuality is made explicit when ʿAlā’ talks about how older men

in Utopia are able to take a new drug, ‘Libidafro’, 89 in order to sustain their sexual performance. As the

whole paragraph is telling, I will quote in length:

“Kuntu aꜤrif ism al-dawā’ al-jadīd li’anna abī yastawriduhu... ‘Lībīdāfrū’... mustaḥīl an

tanṭiqahu al-mar’a... munḏu aꜤwām kānat ‘al-fiyyagra’ ṯumma jā’ hāḏa al-Ꜥaqār al-qādir Ꜥalā

itiyān al-muꜤjizāt.. li-hāḏā lā yatūb rijāl ‘Yūtūbiyā’ abadan... lā yašīḫūn wa-lā yahramūn, wa-

šahwatuhum li-al-nisā’ abadiyya ka-ālihat al-iġrīq, lākin al-kibār lā yajidūn furṣatahum illā

maꜤa al-aġyār Ꜥalā Ꜥaks al-šabāb.. anta taẓfur bi-al-mar’a Ꜥan ṭarīq futuwwatika aw mālika aw

nufūḏika aw saṭwatika.. yamliku al-kibār al-saṭwa wa-al-nufūḏ wa-al-māl wa-lā yamlikūn al-

futuwwa al-ṭabiꜤiyya allatī lā taṣnaꜤuhā al-Ꜥaqāqīr” (Towfik, 2010: 40, the emphasis is mine)

“I knew the name of the new medicine because my father imported it: ‘Libidafro’. It was

impossible for the woman to pronounce. Years ago, it was Viagra, then came this drug that could

work miracles. So the men of Utopia never die: they don’t grow old or become decrepit, and their

lust for women is eternal, like Greek gods. But the older ones only get their opportunity with the

Others, unlike the young guys. You conquer a woman by the way of your youthfulness, your

money, your prestige, or your power. The grown-ups have power, prestige and money, but they

don’t have the natural youthfulness that drugs can’t produce.”90

87 See also the theoretical framework of this thesis for more information about Ghannam’s 2013 insights on manhood

in Egypt in 6.1.6. 88 This conception of masculinity is very close to how Peteet describes “Arab masculinity (rujulah)” as “acquired,

verified and played out in the brave deed, in risk taking, and in expressions of fearlessness and assertiveness”

(Ghassoub and Sinclair-Webb, 2000: 107). 89 ‘Libidafro’ won’t be transcribed, as the word in Arabic itself looks as a transcription from English (Morgan, 2017).

Morgan also offers an exciting analysis of this drug where libido (“meaning “psychic drive or energy, particularly

that associated with the sexual instinct”) and afro (meaning “of or relating to Africa”), comes to signify in the context

of the novel that “sex is being sold to control Egypt” (Morgan 2017). 90 This translation coincides in most parts with Towfik (2010: 40), although the emphasis is mine. However, the

English translation here quoted choses a free interpretation of the word futuwwa as “machismo”, probably coming

from the Egyptian colloquial use of futuwwa representing a figure of the Egyptian social landscape that has a much

broad and older history, as was explained in footnote 84. As this term is key for my analysis, I have modified the

published translation to faithfully reflect the meaning of the Arabic original.

60

The whole paragraph links being a man with man’s ability to have sexual relationships with women,

assuming at all times a naturalized heterosexual discourse where the sexual desire (or its absence) of

Utopian women is silenced.91 Older men do not age if they are able to keep their sexual desire and

performance alive, even if this means using the fictional drug Libidafro, which has a similar effect than

real world Viagra.92 However, for ʿAlā’ no drug can imitate natural ‘youthfulness’, which power or money

cannot buy. Besides, the notion of “saṭwa” refers to power as domination, upper hand, hegemony, which

implies a dominated other. Virility stands then as an important element in defining manhood, intersected

by age for the rich in Utopia.

Throughout the novel, ʿAlā’ describes how men have full control of sexual relations inside Utopia,

especially with women from the Others working as maids. In the bus towards Shubra, one of the maids

talks to ʿAlā’ and Jirmīnāl, thinking that they are also workers in Utopia. The woman in the bus explains

that Ḥamzāwī bey, an older rich man, had sex with her; however, when he finally looked at her and realised

that she was ugly, he vomited on her and kicked her down the stairs. She continues by saying:

“lā tastaṭīꜤ al-mar’a minnā an tamtaniꜤ Ꜥan al-Hamzāwī beh.. lā aꜤrif al-sabab.. rubbamā huwa

al-ḫawf.. rubbamā hiya saṭwatuhu.. fikra laḏīḏa anna hāḏā al-Ꜥimlāq al-ṯarī yurīduki anti.. al-

muhim annaki taqbalīn dā’iman.. lā taqūlī yā bāša inna man yafꜤalna hāḏā murġamāt ṭīlat al-

waqt.. lā wa-ḥayātak.. li-al-šaraf ḥudūd yatahāwā baꜤdahā” (Towfik, 2010: 40)93

“Women like us can’t deny Hamzawi bey. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s his

power. It’s a delightful notion, that this wealthy giant of a man wants you. The important thing

is that you always accept it. Girl, don’t say that women who do that are always forced. Honour

has barriers that collapse if trespassed.” (Towfik, 2011: 33)94

In this example, a woman from the Others confirms ʿ Alā’’s perception of men’s attractiveness, almost with

the same words, such as money, and power. However, she introduces fear as a reason to have sex with a

rich man. In the same chapter, the woman in the bus explains that rich men in Utopia show an endless lust

for women, any woman, including relations with multiple partners and the consumption of Libidafro or

lobsters (Towfik, 2010: 40).95 Utopia’s cultural products, such as the in-universe quotations the ‘Orgasm

91 After reading this paragraph one wonders why rich women in Utopia (either young or old) do not want or cannot

have sex with older men, as older men are said to be ‘forced’ to have sex with women from the Others. 92 The importance of Viagra in today’s Egypt is explained by the high rates of men’s erectile dysfunction. El Feki

explains that the original Viagra, not the cheaper versions, were not only used for strictly individual consumption,

but as alternative currency in exchange for bureaucratic services (El Feki, 2013: 75). 93 The expression “lā wa-ḥayātak” is in Egyptian dialect, and it’s transcribed as such. 94 The last sentence is my translation, as it did not follow the Arabic original totally. 95 Al-Feki observes how natural aphrodisiacs, such as lobster, are commonly used in Cairo, pointing at the importance

of sexual prowess for men (Al-Feki 2013: 76).

61

Songs’, also support the hypersexualized image of men and the submission of women, for example with

lyrics about the sacrifice of a young girl in a highly sexualized ritual (Towfik, 2010: 169).96

8.2.2. Fertility as virility: men’s sexuality and manhood in Utopia As established in the previous section, (heterosexual) virility in Utopia is considered as a prerequisite for

manhood. The main example of this is ʿAlā’, who adheres to the kind of men’s sexuality described above,

in sharp contrast to his father, Mūrad. ʿAlā’’s hypermasculine self-portrait is built in part one, as he

describes his routine as reading books, taking drugs, and having sex with women. He also talks about “al-

ḫuṣūba allatī razaqatnī bihā al-ṭabīꜤa” (Towfik, 2010: 31) (‘the fertility endowed to me by nature’), which

makes girls often pregnant. However, this has little consequences for him, as his mother solves the situation

by giving money to the girl in question to get an abortion. The fact that abortion is a generalized practice,

even for very young girls (Towfik, 2010: 31), points out the sexual availability of both men and women

inside Utopia and the submission of women in this fictional society.97

According to ʿAlā’, fertility makes him different from his father, which is very relevant when contrasted

to some of the ethnographical works that study sexuality in Egypt. For example, Inhorn remarks how the

culture in Egypt “rewards and locates masculinity in a man’s ability to father children” (Inhorn, 2012: 14),

and how infertility has become a generalized problem in the Middle East (Inhorn, 2012: 67). However,

fertility and virility get often mixed up, as infertility is mistakenly associated with impotence (Inhorn 2012:

67).98 Therefore, ʿAlā’’s self-perceived superiority as a man becomes clearer when he describes his father

Mūrad as unable to engender more children (Towfik, 2010: 15).

However, this association goes beyond fertility as the capacity to engender children, but is directly linked

to heterosexual prowess: men are ‘real men’ when they have sexual relations with women. After ʿAlā’

explains that Mūrad keeps his mother sexually frustrated (Towfik, 2010: 24), the woman in the buss

towards Shubra would indirectly imply that Mūrad is having homosexual relations. ʿAlā’ lied to her by

saying that he works in Mūrad bey’s house, to which she replies:

“iḏan anta minhum ya sayyid al-riggāla99 [...] ʿ araftu hāḏā ʿ alā al-fawr ʿ indamā samiʿtu ṣawtaka

al-nāʿim” (Towfik, 2010: 41)

96 Other Orgasm Songs have passages that link sex, and violence against women, such as in Towfik (2010: 96). 97 By explicitly relating it to abortion, sexual freedom for the rich in Utopia is problematized. As being fertile and

having children seems to occupy a central place in men’s lives in contemporary Egypt (Inhorn, 2012), sex is

transformed into a commodity, a consumption product for men. However, women still bear the consequences of the

undesired reproductive consequences of the sexual intercourse. 98 El Feki also talks about how erectile dysfunction (which in the region could affect more than forty percent of men)

is an enormously worrying for Egyptian men, as they are expected to provide for their wives, economically, but also

sexually (El-Feki, 2013: 72-4). 99 The word “riggala” is transcribed in Egyptian dialect as a plural for ‘man’, as such a word does not exist in MSA.

62

“So, my fine buck, you are one of those, are you? [...] I knew it as soon as I heard your soft

voice.” (Towfik, 2010: 33)

The possibility of homosexual relations for rich men in Utopia appears in other examples. First of all, ʿ Alā’

says that he is not convinced that the older generation of men in Utopia do not get drunk or rape the women

from the Other, as well as their men (Towfik, 2010: 18). Moreover, boredom seems to push young men to

get involved in homosexual relations:

“li-asbāb ka-hāḏihi wa-fī layla ka-hāḏihi nāma Rāsim mustasliman wa-taraka li-ṯalāṯa min

rifāqihi an yafꜤalū bihi mā yašā’ūn” (Towfik, 2010: 21)

“For reasons like those, and on a night like this, Rasim lay dawn submissively and let three of

his friends do what they wanted to him.” (Towfik, 2010: 15)

From these few examples, we see that homosexuality is not explicitly condemned, but implicitly lays

outside the heterosexual, controlling, and fertile model of manhood that ʿAlā’ draws throughout the novel.

Hence, Murād’s low fertility, his lack of sexual interest in women, and his attitudes in life will spark ʿ Alā’’s

rage at the end of the novel, when the Marines come to their house to inform them that they might have to

be evacuated, as the Others are on their way towards Utopia:

“kidtu uṣīḥ fī Murād: li-māḏā tartajif? lima lā takūn akṯar kibriyā’? Li-ma lā takūn akṯar

waqāran? Mā atawaqqaꜤuhu min abī – law kāna ḥaqqan abī – huwa an yaġḍab wa-lā yaḫāf..

yaḥtaqir wa-lā yartajif.. yaġtāẓ wa-lā yaqlaq.. yaštim wa-lā yalūm.. al-raḥīl?” (Towfik, 2010:

176)

‘I almost yelled at Murad: Why are you shaking? Why aren’t you more prideful100? Why aren’t

you more dignified? What I expected from my father – if he was really my father - was anger,

not fear. To despise, not to shake. To course, not to blame. Leaving?’

The attitude that ʿAlā’ expects from Murād is linked to how a proper man, fertile and heterosexual, needs

to behave in order to be called so. His reaction also relates to how men’s sexuality has been traditionally

associated to ‘obligatory heterosexuality’ or ‘compulsory heterosexuality’.101 Although this concept was

100 The word “kibriyā’” means “pride, arrogance, grandeur” (Balbaaki, 1995: 886). However, in this sentence it

appears in the place of an adjective. This might be a mistake from the side of the author, or a use unknown to the

author of this thesis. However, the published English translation also chooses a similar solution (Towfik, 2011: 155). 101 In origin, ‘Obligatory heterosexuality’ or ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ refers to “the cultural and social pressures

on women to make themselves sexually available to men, on whatever terms they can get” (Connell, 2005: 104).

63

initially applied to women within feminist theory, masculinity scholars claimed it as applicable to men

also, as some studies showed that the male body also needs to be disciplined towards heterosexuality

(Connell, 2005: 104). The disciplining of the male body towards heterosexual performance has also been

affected by science and medical interventionism, with drugs such as Viagra, which looks at sexual issues

in a pure mechanical way (Plummer, 2005: 183). Until this point, we see that rich men’s sexuality reflects

the traditional conception men’s sexuality as heterosexual, powerful, natural, driven, and disconnected

from men’s emotions, almost mechanical.

Regarding men in Shubra, Jābir also mentions fertility and heterosexuality as important for the Others’

self-conception of themselves as men. Contrary to the perennial virility of wealthy men, Jābir narrates how

men from the Others were first target of castrating squads of policemen, who could perform a vasectomy

to three men every night. After this, the Others were “poisoned” with Gossypol in their cooking oil by the

rich, in order to thwart their fertility (Towfik, 2010: 107)102. Poverty and drugs also affect young boys,

even kids, that sniff glue, losing all interest in sex and women (Towfik, 2010: 110). Nonetheless, despite

these attempts, the Others continue reproducing themselves (Towfik, 2010: 46).

The voluntary use of Libidafro to enable men’s erections for those who can pay for it, together with the

forced administering of Gossypol to prevent the Others from multiplying, signals how social class

determines men’s experiences of their own sexuality and reproductive lives. In these examples, the Others

are subjected to castration and emasculation by the rich, adding up to their poverty. Together with the

instances of rape in 8.2.5., the previous examples show how the struggle between social classes is depicted

in Utopia also in sexual terms. References to rich and poor men’s fertility and virility serve to justify and

accompany economic and political domination, and includes multiple references to today’s Egypt.103

Moreover, these examples show that masculinities in the novel are hierarchical, with rich men placed at

the top as perennially virile and powerful, while poor men lay at the bottom, resisting the rich’s attempts

of emasculation.

8.2.3. Violence and sexual desire As we have seen, the association between manhood and fertility in Utopia exists for both the rich and the

Others. In this section, the relationship between sex and violence is examined in order to gain a more

comprehensive picture of men’s sexuality as described in Utopia’s fictional society. The beginning of the

novel is especially relevant to see how sex and violence are intimately related, both at the interpersonal

102 Gossypol is “a polyphenol isolated from the seed, roots, and stem of the cotton plant” (Metzker Coutinho 2002:

259). According to the same source, gossypol inhibits the production of sperm without affecting men’s hormonal

balance or their libido, and therefore stands as a potential contraceptive pill for men. 103 Apart from the references to ethnological works in the body of the analysis, El-Feki mentions that in today’s Egypt

there are also preconceived ideas of the sexual supremacy of poor men over wealthy ones (El-Feki, 2013: 74).

64

and structural level. The novel starts with an etic opening,104 an analepsis, told from the point of view of

ʿAlā’, who recalls when he and Jirmīnāl witnessed how the US Marines took down a man from the Others

with a helicopter, right at the other side of the fence that separates Utopia from the outside impoverished

world. This dramatic scene, the actual death of a human being, is told by ʿAlā’ in comparison with a scene

from the movie Platoon.105 From the first paragraphs, death, fear, fascination for violence and sexual desire

are already set as a frame for the actions to come:

“al-mašhad kāna muhīban ḫāṣṣatan annahu laysa Ꜥalā šāšat al-tilifiziyūn.. kull šay’ ḥaqīqī

murawwiꜤ qāṣi.. wa.. wa-fātin” (Towfik 2020: 9)

“The scene was fearsome, especially since it wasn’t on the television screen. Everything was real

and terrible and cruel and, and... And seductive.” (Towfik, 2011: 3)

While narrating this event, ʿAlā’ accuses Jirmīnāl of feeling the same erotic arousal than he feels in the

sight of death (Towfik, 2010: 9). Few pages later, Jirmīnāl has a similar reaction when ʿAlā’ tells her about

his plans of human hunt:

“bada’ wajhuha yataqallaṣ min al- našwa li-samāꜤ hāḏihi al-kalimāt... al-ḫaṭar... al- izāra...

kalimāt lam taꜤud fī qāmūsinā” (Towfik, 2010: 32)

‘Her face began contracting from the ecstasy of hearing these words... danger... excitement...

words that are not no longer in our dictionaries.’

In this passage, Jirmīnāl is sexually aroused by the thought of human hunt. One more time, ʿAlā’’s quest

for manhood is related to sex, and ultimately serves to provoke Jirmīnāl’s “našwa,”, meaning ecstasy but

also denoting sexual pleasure,106 and “iṯāra”, meaning excitement, and also sexual arousal (Balbaaki,

1995: 33).107 Both youngsters wish to have a break from their boredom, which is said to justify both ʿAlā’’s

104 In etic openings, neither the fictional world nor the characters are explicitly introduced, Therefore, it is common

to “encounter naming with no accompanying explanation, the use of pronouns without antecedents” (Fludernik, 2009:

45). 105 Platoon is a movie about the Vietnam War released in 1986. The scene referred to by ʿAlā’ is when William

Defoe, a US soldier, lifts his arms to the sky towards the helicopter that will leave without him, after being injured

by enemy fire. This reference is actually the first sentence of the novel, which points directly at how the model of the

US military influences ʿAlā’’s performance of masculinity, as will be analysed in chapter 8.3.2. 106 “Našwa” also means “orgasm, climax” (Balbaaki, 1995: 1172). 107 As the relationship between ʿAla’ and Jirmīnāl is always mediated by sex, it is unclear what Jirmīnāl’s role is in

ʿAla’’s quest, if only as witness, or a possibility for revenge for Jābir, as will be seen below in the chapter.

65

human hunt, his drug intake, and his tendency to practice sadistic sex (Towfik, 2010: 16).108 Therefore, the

description of ʿAlā’ as virile, fertile, and aggressive relates to his lack of purpose in life, which is further

generalized to other men (and women) inside Utopia.

Sexuality in Shubra seems to follow a similar pattern. Although an atmosphere of sexual freedom is said

to prevail, rape and prostitution of women are a generalized practice (Towfik, 2010: 73). Pornography is

also widely available in Shubra and almost necessary, as real women are said to be too ugly to awake

men’s sexual desire (Towfik, 2011: 115). In the following quote, Jābir notes some similarities between

men in Utopia and men of the Others that point out the relationship between men’s sexuality and

violence:109

”kilāna hunā wa-hunāka naꜤšaq al-Ꜥunf.. kilāna hunā wa-hunāka nuḥibb al-muḫaddarāt.. kilāna

hunā wa-hunāka narā aflām al-iġtiṣāb fī naham.. kilāna hunā wa-hunāka natakallam Ꜥan al-dīn

ṭīlat al-waqt” (Towfik, 2010: 120)

“Here and there, we’re both in love with violence. Here and there, we both love drugs. Here

and there, we both avidly watch movies about rape. Here and there, we both talk about religion

all the time.” (Towfik, 2011: 104)

Again, the trinity of sex, drugs and violence appears linked to how the Others live their sexuality. Among

all these masculine voices talking about men’s sexuality, Sumayya, the prostitute chosen by ʿAlā’ as a

suitable prey for his hunt, comes to confirm the generality of these practices. After ʿAlā’ takes her to a

hidden place, he hits her in the neck leaving her unconscious, what triggers the reaction of the pimps that

are safeguarding the prostitutes. Jābir comes to save the couple from Utopia saying that Sumayya fell by

herself, which leaves her in a state of incredulity. Few days later, she would face Jābir accusing him of

lying, as she insists that the guy from Utopia hit her, despite what Jābir said. He tries to convince her:

“’Sumayya.. anā aꜤraf hāḏā al-fatā.. baynī wa-baynaki huwa ṣāḥib mazāj ḫāṣṣ.. hunāka rijāl lā

taktamil laḏḏatuhum illā bi-ḍarb al-unṯā..’ Qālat fī dahša: ‘kull al-rijāl lā taktamil laḏḏatuhum

illā bi-ḍarb al-unṯā, wa-al-sabab annahum anjās wa-awlād..’” (Towfik, 2010: 122)

“’Somaya I know this guy. Between you and me, he has a special kind of character. There are

men who don’t get their full pleasure unless they hit a woman.’ ‘All men don’t get their full

108 Morgan 2017 extends this argument saying that boredom also justifies everything that is done under the

psychedelic state. However, drugs and boredom alone fall short in explaining how sexuality and violence will remain

intimately linked in Utopia and The Queue, despite their enormous differences in the treatment of sexuality. 109 I say men, not women, because most of the actions described would exclusively be practiced by men, never by

women.

66

pleasure without hitting a woman,’ she said in amazement. ‘The reason is that they are filthy

perverts and sons of..’”110

Sumayya then threatens Jābir with telling al-Sirjānī the truth, so he can defend her and “ya’ḫuḏ bi-ṯā’r

ibnat aḫīh” (Towfik, 2010: 122) (‘avenge his niece’). However, in the same page she mentions that al-

Sirgānī beats her non-stop because she has been unable to work for days. With this example, Sumayya

comes to confirm that men commonly show aggressiveness in sex. At the same time, men appear in control

of the use of violence, both for the protection and disciplining of women. In Utopia, Sumayya appears as

the most marginalized character. Both narrators describe her as ugly and stupid, comparing her to a man

(Towfik, 2010: 49) and to an animal (Towfik, 2010: 121). Without looks or brains, Sumayya remains at

the mercy of her uncle, subject to violence, prostitution and dehumanization. However, she is still able to

express a very clear opinion about men of the Others’ behaviour in sex.

In The Queue, references to sex are scarce. However, it is highly relevant that the only two stances where

sex is mentioned are related to sexual harassment perpetrated by men against women. Again, men’s

sexuality is clearly associated to violence, which can only be understood in connection with the state’s

violent practices at all levels in society. Although “for many men, violence is, under certain situations, the

only perceived available technique of expressing and validating masculinity” (DeKeseredy & Schwartz,

2005: 362), there are other factors than cannot be explained by patriarchal forces alone. Therefore, the

relationship between state violence and masculinity in 8.3. should be read in connection to the sexual

violence against women in The Queue presented below.

8.2.4. Sexual violence against women As mentioned in the previous section, men’s sexuality in Utopia and The Queue relates to

aggressiveness and power. In this section, we will explore the stances of sexual violence against

women that appear in both novels, and how this is viewed by the fictional societies. However, the two

examples of rape told in first person by their protagonists will be the subject of 8.2.5. A brief

theoretical introduction to the subject is provided in the next paragraph, followed by the analysis of

both novels.

There has been an increasing interest in studying violence against women in the last decades. However,

there are still differences between scholars and policy-makers on how to define violence against

women (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2011: 3). As providing such definition is beyond the scope of this

110 Until the last sentence the translation is taken from Towfik (2011: 106). It is important to point out the religious

connotations of “anjās”, plural of the word “najis”. This latter word appears in the Quran as “defilement, profanity,

desecration (9:28)” (Badawi & Abdel Haleem, 2013) referring to the polytheists. The word has retained its religious

connotation also in dialects; however, in this context and used by an ordinary and simple person, ‘filthy’ can be a

valid translation. Besides, the expression “wa-awlād..” seems to refer more to ‘wa-awlād al-kalb’, the corresponding

insult to ‘sons of bitches’ in English, than to actual children, as it appears in the published translation.

67

thesis, it will suffice to say that this study adopts a feminist perspective on violence against women

that takes into account gender relations, power and gender inequality in order to situate these cases of

violence in the wider framework of the hegemony of men, as put by DeKeseredy & Schwartz (2011:

13).

Both novels contain material on sexual harassment and rape against women,111 which in the case of The

Queue is presented at the very beginning. As Um Mabrūk sits in an old metro wagon, her thoughts are cut

by the entrance of “rajul ḍaḫm šadīd al-ittisāḫ” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 27) (‘a huge man, very dirty’) who

takes a seat beside her. Despite his bad smell and his aloof behaviour, Um Mabrūk does not to stand up,

since she is too tired after an exhausting day at work. Although she takes precautions by following his

movements and taking her legs away from him, this man grabs her breast, making her jump out of her seat,

shouting at him. In the midst of the chaos, the man manages to get off the metro and escape.

The scene that comes after reflects the reactions of other passengers. While most women in the wagon

screamed in “ḫawf wa iḍṭirāb” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 27) (‘fear and commotion’), Um Mabrūk hears men

commenting that women should rather stay at the home, or reciting an ayah from a religious book, “al-

kitāb al-akmal” (‘the most perfect book’)112 that she feels is directed at her:

“lāmat nafsahā iḏ iḫtārat al-mukūṯ amāmahu, Ꜥalā tilka al-masāfa al-qarība, raġm isrāꜤ baqiyyat

al-rukkāb bi-ifsāḥ al-makān fawr ru’iyatihi” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 28)

‘She blamed herself for having chosen to stay seated, at that close distance, despite that the other

passengers hurried to clear the space as soon as they saw him.’

As explained in studies on sexual harassment in the streets of Egypt (specially Cairo), the victimization of

survivors of sexual harassment is common, as women blame themselves for the harassment, worry about

their reputation, or fear that their movements could be restrained further by their parents or relatives (El

Feki, 2013: 126). In these studies, the attitude of the attackers has been widely justified by political and

economic oppression, “which has men lashing out at those next down in the line of the patriarchy” (El

111 However, Utopia also mentions other forms of violence against women in a real or fictional report with the number

of crimes committed against women in Egypt in the last six months of 2005 (Towfik, 2010: 75). From all the numbers

and categories of the analysis, the main conclusions are that the vast majority of women killed or raped were attacked

by their husbands, and that most women were killed for motives relating to honour, or their perceived misbehaviour

against male family members. Real-world studies about violence against women in Egypt provide similar data: most

survivors of violence were attacked by male members of their family, assaults in Egypt are rarely reported to the

police, and authorities regard violence against women at home as a private matter, not for public concern or police

intervention (Baobaid 2006: 164). 112 “al-Kitāb al-akmal” seems to be a fictional device to point at the Quran without naming it. Both the man wearing

the jilbāb and the Hight Sheikh use it, with quotes that are rhetorically very close to the Qur’an, as will be explained

in 8.3.5.

68

Feki, 2013: 128).113 According to feminist theory, sexual harassment of women perpetrated by men in

public spaces are a “regular reminder to women of their subordination in the public space” (Kelly, 2015:

123). In this case, it is the men around the victim that point at Um Mabrūk’s fault for being in a public

space, more than the attack in itself. Since the harasser is a man that looks homeless and mentally ill, 114

this points out an indiscriminate attack that does not relate to men lashing out due to economic oppression,

but sets the context for the reply of regular men.

Later in the narrative, Šalabī tells Um Mabrūk and Īnās about the heroic deeds of his belated cousin

Maḥfūẓ, who gave his life fighting with the security forces against the demonstrators. However, the

heterodiegetic narrator of The Queue discloses the not so honourable deeds that Šalabī prefers to keep for

himself “li-dawāꜤī al-satr wa-l-ḥayā’” 115 (‘because of discretion and embarrassment’). The narrator

explains that Maḥfūẓ made indeed some mistakes in life, the last one of which was “ḥīna sāwama imr’a

Ꜥalīla lahā kabd mamrūr, Ꜥalā qaḍā’ al-layla maꜤahu” (‘when he haggled with a woman suffering from a

liver problem to spend the night with him’), while he was guarding the patient in the hospital “aṯnā’ al-

haraj wa-al-maraj” (‘during the tumult and the disorder’). As the woman screamed, medical personnel

gathered around her and caught him climbing to her bed, trying to strip her clothes off. When they tried to

take him away from her, Maḥfūẓ resisted claiming that it was her who wanted him. He had to be tied up

with a rope until the arrival of his unit commander.

The issue of the woman’s consent is treated very subtly in this episode, as Maḥfūẓ did not ‘agree’ or

‘commit’ to have sexual relations with the patient, but “sāwama”, which means an argumentation back and

forth, with opposition from one of the parts, in order to reach an agreement. If we look at the power

relationship between them, we are also subtly told that the woman was under custody at the time of the

disturbances, which in this novel can only mean the Disgraceful Events. As an agent of the Gate’s security

forces, any sexual approach by Maḥfūẓ to a woman in custody would immediately put into question the

issue of consent. The previous point is further confirmed with the fact that the unit commander drew a line

from which agents were not to come close to the woman.

In a more concealed way than in Utopia, the following example tries to explain that his natural sexual drive

made him unable to comply with the orders, despite his usual commitment:

“wa-lākin šawqahu li-al-mar’at allatī lā yaꜤarifuha ġalabahu, wa-huwa baꜤad šāb wa-faꜤala mā

faꜤala” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 89)

‘But his lust for this women that he didn’t know overcame him, as he is still a young man, and

113 The issue of sexual harassment in the streets of Egypt has been a hotly debated issue in the last two decades. For

more information see El Feki (2013: 125-8) 114 Research points at that only a small minority of cases of violence against women are perpetrated by men who have

mental disorders (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2011: 3). 115 All contents and references in this paragraph are from Abdel Aziz, 2013: 89.

69

he did what he did.’

This sentence conveys Šalabī’s thoughts in free indirect speech,116 explaining that Maḥfūẓ’s overwhelming

sexual drive is due to his youthfulness. This argumentation is similar to Utopia’s conception of men’s

sexuality as unstoppable, to be satisfied on the spot, and totally in control of the situation. Despite that this

episode is not generalized to other men in the novel, the connection with the security forces as sexually

violent is a point that cannot be ignored, and that is a central argument in several studies of masculinities

in Egypt.117

The role of the security forces as perpetrators of sexual violence is further developed in Maḥfūẓ’s

punishment. After this episode, Maḥfūẓ is forced to stand “Ꜥārian kamā wulid” (‘naked as he was born’),

while his commander whips him with a water hose, then a shoe and then a whip, for disobeying orders. In

this case, the whipping is not enough by itself, but comes with a punishment of a sexual nature: nakedness.

Here, the sexual violence he is punished for is reproduced in the hierarchical structure of the security forces.

No much is said about the woman patient, only that:

“fa-lam yataṭawwar al-amr ilā maḥkama mīrī wa-lam yustadaꜤā ilā al-bawwāba. faḍḍalat al-

mar’at an taḥfaẓ sumiꜤatahā min al-qīl wa-al-qāl, fa-tanāzalat Ꜥan taqdīm balāġ rasmī” (Abdel

Aziz, 2013: 89)

‘The issue did not come forward to a military court and was not referred to the Gate. The woman

preferred to protect her reputation from gossip and renounced to file an official complaint.’

The victimization of survivors of sexual violence reported for today’s Egypt appears in this episode. As

women’s virginity stands as the mark and bearer of the family’s and men’s honour, this woman prefers

silence upon justice against her attacker. However, while in The Queue there seem to be specific

mechanisms in order to complain (meaning that sexual harassment of women must be illegal), in Utopia

sexual violence seems rampant and limitless.

The word “iġtiṣāb” appears several times in Utopia, mainly to point at men raping women.118 The

perpetrators of rape include all sorts of men, both rich and poor. Nonetheless, Jābir links rape in Shubra

with poverty and unemployment:

116 Free indirect speech is incorporated into the flow of the narrative without any introductory verb (Fludernik 2009:

66). In this case, Šalabī is the focalizer of this opinion, as it would be very different if the heterodiegetic narrator

would hold such an belief. 117 For a detailed explanation about the role of the state and the security forces in the sexualized attacks of

demonstrators, among others, see Ammar (2011a) and Tadros (2016). 118 The verb itself in Arabic means “take by force, violent or unlawful seizure”, and when applied to women, “rape,

violation” (Balbaaki, 1995: 135).

70

“lāḥiẓ anna 78% min murtakibī al-iġtiṣāb Ꜥāṭilūn.. ayy anna jarīmat al-iġtiṣāb hiya fī al-ḥaqīqa

iġtiṣāb li-al-mujtamaꜤ” (Towfik, 2010: 125)

“Note that 78 percent of those committing rape were unemployed; that is to say, the crime of

rape is really the rape of society”119

Jābir argues above that unemployed men abuse women sexually as a way to reassert masculinity and the

control of women, in order to perpetuate men’s domination in patriarchy (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2011:

13). In another setting, rape appears as a punitive device for Jirmīnāl after she stole a mobile phone:

“ḫaraja al-rijāl min al-zuqāq wa-hum yamsikūn bi-‘Jirmīnāl’.. wa-aqsama aḥaduhum annahā

yajib an talqā Ꜥiqābahā hunā wa-al-ān wa-bi-tarīqat al-īḏā’ al-muhīna allatī yujīdhā al-rijāl

maꜤa al-nisā’.. laqad taḥawwala hā’ulā’ al-qawm ilā maḫlūqāt abꜤad mā takūn Ꜥan al-bašar..

qišrat al-muḫḫ lam taꜤud tu’adī ayy dawr maꜤahum.. faqaṭ yataḥarrakūn li-al-jins aw al-Ꜥunf.. al-

iġtiṣab yamnaḥ al-šay’ayn maꜤan” (Towfik, 2010: 111)

‘The men came out of the alley, grabbing Germinal. One of them swore that she had to be

punished there and then, in that awful, humiliating way that men harm women. These people had

turned into creatures as far removed as possible from humans. The cerebral cortex no longer

plays any role with them. They are only driven by sex or violence. Rape gives them both.’

(Towfik, 2011: 95)

In this scene, ʿAlā’ defines rape as the ‘harming and humiliating manner that men generously dispend to

women’, if we translate it literally. The scene continues with Jābir’s defence of Jirmīnāl, who is able to

leave the scene unharmed, as the men retire while shaking hands. However, it is Jābir again who kicks her

making her fall to the floor and threatens to lift his protection if they do not follow his orders. Eventually,

Jirmīnāl is punished violently, but not with rape. Another important point is how sex and violence are said

to drive men who have lost their rationality, when ʿAlā’ himself, a rich and educated man, rapes Ṣafiyya

just for fun, as will be analysed below.

8.2.5. Rape as an embodied experience with a symbolic function

Until this point, sexual violence in the novels has appeared as means to meet men’s sexual drive, as a

reassertion of male domination, and as a disciplining tool against misbehaviour. After the previous initial

119 In the published English translations it reads “a crime by an entire class of society” (Towfik, 2011: 108). However,

this translation does not correspond to the meaning of the sentence.

71

considerations, we will focus on the embodied experience of rape of the two males protagonists and

narrators of Utopia.

Chronologically, it is Jābir who plans the rape of Jirmīnāl first, taking advantage that he has taken ʿAlā’ to

the chicken factory to work for the whole day. We are told that Ṣafiyya plays a major role in drugging

Jirmīnāl and cleaning her body. As Jirmīnāl lays drugged on the floor, Jābir quickly asks Ṣafiyya to leave,

as she is not supposed to witness what would happen next. Jābir’s motivation for raping Jirmīnāl is revenge,

and relates to who can be called ‘real men’:

“hāḏā huwa al-naṣr al-waḥīd allaḏī astaṭīꜤ taḥqīqahu.. qahr hāḏihi al-fatāti laysa qahra unṯā bal

huwa qahr ṭabaqa bi-akmalihā... qahr al-ẓurūf. Sawfa tarā Ꜥalā yadī mā lam tarahu min qabl..

a-laysa fityān ‘yūtūbiyya’ fatayāt la-hunna šawārib? A-lasnā naḥnu al-fuḥūl allaḏīna tartajif

nisā’uhum ḫawfan minnā wa-ištihā’ lanā? A-lā tatamannā al-wāḥīda minhunna bayna ḏirāꜤay

zawjihā aw Ꜥašīqihā an yaġtaṣibahā aḥadunā? A-laysa naḥnu kābūs rijāl ‘yūtūbiya’ wa-

hammuhum al-muqīm? A-laysat al-rujūla qamḥan fī šamṣ al-muꜤānāt al-yawmiyya?” (Towfik,

2010: 134)

“This is the only victory I can achieve. Humiliating this girl isn’t humiliating a woman, but

humiliating a class as a whole. Humiliating circumstances...Through me, she will see what she’s

never seen before. Aren’t the guys of Utopia just girls with facial hair? Aren’t we the studs that

their women tremble for in fear and desire? Don’t their women wish, as they lay in the arms of

their husbands or lovers, that one of us would ravish them? Aren’t we the nightmare of the men

of Utopia, and their permanent source of anxiety? Isn’t virility wheat that ripens in the sun of

daily suffering?” (Towfik, 2011: 115)

However, Jābir is not able to have sex with an unconscious Jirmīnāl, as every time he looks at her, he sees

instead the face of Ṣafiyya. With all lust gone, he limits himself at slapping Jirmīnāl’s face, shaking her

body, just to find her still totally unconscious. What follows is how Jābir questions his masculinity for

having been unable to maintain his sexual desire and consummate his plan:

“hal ṣārat tusayṭir ‘yūtūbiya’ Ꜥalā hurmūnātika wa-ġuddatika al-nuḫāmiyya wa- ġuddatika al-

kaẓariyya wa-nasījika al-kahfī wa-jihāzika al-simbaṯāwī” (Towfik, 2010: 135)

“Has Utopia come to dominate your hormones? Your adrenal gland, your pituitary, your penile

corpus cavernosum, your sympathetic apparatus?” (Towfik, 2011: 116)

Jābir then mentions that it might not be Utopia’s control what stopped him, but his consciousness. The

72

scene ends with Jābir refusal that ʿAlā’ could know what happened there:

“lā urīd an yaꜤrif.. laysa li-annanī aḫšāhu.. bal aḫšā an yaꜤrif annanī Ꜥajaztu Ꜥan īḏāi’hi Ꜥindamā

kāna haḏā fī wisꜤī.. anā Ꜥājiz Ꜥan qatlihimā. Al-su’āl al-waḥīd huwa: hal haḏā li’anna ‘yūtūbiya’

aqwā minnī, am li’annanī aqwā minnī?” (Towfik, 2010: 136)

“I don’t want him to know. It’s not because I’m afraid of him, I am afraid that he’ll know that I

was incapable of hurting him when it was in my power to. [...] I am incapable of killing them.

The only question is whether it is because Utopia is stronger than me, or because I am stronger

than me.” (Towfik, 2011: 118)

As mentioned in the theoretical framework, the body mediates men’s experiences, and sometimes have

agency on its own. As Jābir fails to sustain an erection, he questions his capacity to enact the superior

masculinity that he granted to the Others in his previous speech. Plummer explains how erection for men

(the capacity to have one and maintain it in time) has become socialized, drawing the line between those

men that can perform in the right way at the right time, and those who can’t (Plummer, 2005. 189).120 Jābir

is unable or unwilling to rape or kill, thus challenging the dominant visions of men’s sexuality in the novel,

always connected to violence and control.

On the other side, ʿAlā’ will show that he is indeed able to rape Ṣafiyya, and later kill Jābir at the end of

the novel, reinforcing his view as a dominant man. In his narration, ʿAlā’ uses certain devices that make it

feel as narrated in real time. Taking advantage that Jābir is out taking care of the details of their escape,

ʿAlā’ ties Ṣafiyya up and puts a gag on her mouth due to her fierce resistance. Then, he cleans only the

parts of her body that he is going to touch. While doing it, he gives a speech exonerating the rich of any

responsibility over the poor’ situation. When approaching orgasm, his discourse becomes repetitive and

interrupted by his moaning. After his climax, ʿAlā’ wonders why Ṣafiyya resisted so fiercely, also related

to who can be called ‘real men’:

“al-muftaraḍ annahā sa-taḏūb li-fikrati annanī aštahīhā. Rijāl al-aġyār laysū rijālan ḥaqqan.

Laqad qaḍā al-jūꜤ wa-al-ṭaꜤām al-fāsid wa-‘al-gossipol’ Ꜥalā rujūlatihim, wa-naḥnu naẓur bi-

nisā’ihim bi-suhūla ṭīlat al-waqt fī ‘yūtūbiya’ baynamā yaktafī rijāluhum bi-iṣṭināꜤ al-fuḥūla wa-

al-jabarūt.. a-laysat al-rujūla ḥayawānan yaḥtāj ilā taġḏiyya jayyida wa-riyāḍa wa-šamṣ

sāṭiꜤa?.. iḏan hum lā šay’.. lā šay’” (Towfik, 2010: 149)

120 This view on men’s sexuality is currently recognized as the hegemonic versions of male sexuality, which is

reinforced from all directions. For example, feminists scholars pointed at language as a major supporter of “the male

sex drive discourse”, which feminist and queer studies are trying to de-construct. (Plummer 2005. 189)

73

“She was supposed to melt at the mere thought that I desired her. Among the Others, the man

aren’t really men. Hunger, rotten food and gossypol have killed off their manhood, and we easily

make conquests of their women all the time in Utopia, while their men are content to feign virility

and potency. Isn’t virility an animal that needs good nourishment, exercise and radiant sunlight?

So they’re nothing, nothing…” (Towfik, 2011: 131)

ʿAlā’ justifies raping Ṣafiyya by saying that he solely wanted to have a souvenir back with him to Utopia,

a new experience (Towfik, 2010: 148). Nonetheless, the paragraph above points out a counterargument to

Jābir’s words that claimed the Others’ superiority over the rich in terms of masculinity. Both Jābir’s and

ʿAlā’’s argumentations focus on virility as a central claim for manhood, as well as the ability of seducing

women and providing for them sexually. This type of argumentation looks very similar to the hegemonic

version of men’s sexuality where “[m]en must not be like women in any way; must succeed in sex; must

exude a manly sexuality; and must be forceful, assertive, and aggressive” (Plummer, 2005: 182).121

Both Jābir and ʿAlā’ see raping Jirmīnāl and Ṣafiyya as an action that will be valued by other men, either

positively or negatively. In the case of Jābir, he is to inflict pain on ʿAlā’, and by extension humiliate a

whole social class. However, this humiliation points out men as the main target. In turn, while ʿAlā’ ties

Ṣafiyya up and cleans her, he thinks about how his friends would laugh and appreciate this story.

Consequently, in both acts of rape, the eyes of other men are upon them. If we look at DeKeseredy’s study

on masculinities and inter-personal violence, despite the multiple factors that justify the high rates of sexual

violence perpetrated by men towards women in heterosexual relations, DeKeseredy points at “male peer

support” as one of the common elements across the spectrum, meaning that “the attachments to male peers

and the resources that these men provide [...] encourage and legitimate woman abuse” (DeKeseredy, 1990:

130, as quoted in DeKeseredy, 2005: 357).

ʿAlā’ eventually does tell this story to his friend Rāsim, wondering why Ṣafiyya defended her virginity so

much. Rāsim thinks it was not about defending her virginity, “bal Ꜥan irādatiha.., Ꜥan ḥurriyat iḫtiyāriha”

(Towfik, 2010: 168) [“Her will, actually. Her freedom of choice” (Towfik, 2011: 147)]. Ṣafiyya’s virginity

will be further confirmed by Murād as he explains why the Others are revolting, as a detail that seems to

spark the Others’ anger even further (Towfik, 2010: 173). The insistence on that she was indeed a virgin

confirms the value of women’s virginity in Utopia’s society, which contrasts immensely with the

widespread sexual availability of both men and women.122 The importance of virginity for the Others, and

its recognition by the rich as an influential factor, draws another line of continuity from present Egypt,

121 At this point, Plummer clarifies that this approach has been nuanced and challenged by contemporary studies on

human sexuality, which conclude that human sexuality is “both (a) symbolic and meaningful and (b) linked to power.”

Therefore, the study of sexuality in the twenty first century brings about the questioning of “any fixed, essential, or

dominant version of men and their sexualities”, which are being deconstructed in search of more fluid patterns.

(Plummer 2005: 187) 122 As a contrast, the loss of male virginity as told by ʿAlā’ is presented as a passage into adulthood in Towfik, 2010:

49.

74

where the relationship between women’s virginity and family honour has made this issue a collective

concern (El Feki, 2013: 112). As a result, Ṣafiyya’s body comes here to represent the rape of a social class,

very close to the ‘rape of the nation’, a figure that has been analysed and studied multiple times.123

The opposition between ʿAlā’’s and Jābir’s sexuality, and the implications it has for their construction of

masculinity is evident, and becomes even clearer when ʿAlā’ kills Jābir, signalling the death of a type of

masculinity that is unable to hold on to the principles of dominance, violence and control over the other.124

However, as Jābir challenges this dominant masculinity throughout the book and refuses to rape or kill,

the Others will raise against the rich at the end of the novel, challenging their dominance and oppression.

It is important to note that these episodes also contribute to build different kinds of femininities, as Ṣafiyya

and Jirmīnāl have different attitudes during the novel and are constructed differently.125 However, the

limited space for this thesis does not allow for the inclusion of this material in favour of a focus on men

and masculinities.

8.2.6. Concluding remarks on the role of violence against women in

the novels In this chapter, we have seen how sexual violence against women finds a space in two very different types

of society, with different moral codes. While in Utopia sex is available and rampant, this freedom brings

the subjugation of women even further. In The Queue, with the suffocating presence of the Gate following

every step of its citizens, sexuality appears only related to sexual harassment and rape. As will be analysed

in the next chapter, the overwhelming apparatus of the state and its related institutions deploy gendering

and gendered practices that serve to sustain the hegemony of men and the masculine at all levels of society,

which is conductive to violence against women.

The portrayal of sexuality as violent in Utopia, as well as the passages about rape, contribute to the social

criticism of the novels. This might be a continuation of how sex was depicted in its “ugliest” way in

Egyptian literature after 1967 and the policies of infitah, as “[m]an’s reality has come to be conceived of

as, among other things, essentially cruel and ugly by Egyptian writers” (Guth, 1995: 126). If Guth (1995:

129) saw the extreme polarization of Egyptian society in the sexual passages of novels written in the 1970s

and 1980s, the rape scenes in Utopia seem to represent a new kind of social criticism outside of literary

realism, but in the same direction.

123 Aghacy talks about woman as a symbol of the nation, “a refuge for men from humiliation, abasement, and

emasculation and a sign of man’s castrating defeat and his debarment from the world of male adventurism and brave

attainments” (Aghacy, 2009: 7). 124 As Ghannam points out, the question of death has a symbolic meaning in the construction of men. As Utopia is

said to be a forecast of 25th January revolution of 2011, it is strikingly similar how the death of Khaled Said on the

hands of the police was a trigger for this popular movement, as the death of Gaber triggers the Others’ revolt and

their siege of Utopia (Ghannam, 2013: 157). 125 These episodes of violence against women are built on the dehumanization of both Ṣafiyya and Jirmīnāl in the

way they are described and treated.

75

8.3. Men, Violence and State institutions

After analysing the relationship between men’s sexuality and violence in the last chapter, we take a step

further in trying to link the use of violence in gender relations to the difficulty of maintaining a structure

of inequality on a greater scale, at the level of the state. Masculinity studies recognize the relationship

between the state and masculinities, to the point that the state is understood as a ‘masculine institution’.

Connell mentions several reasons for this: “[t]he overwhelming majority of top office-holders are men

because there is a gender configuring of recruitment and promotion, a gender configuring of the internal

division of labour and systems of control, a gender configuring of policymaking practical routines, and

ways of mobilizing pleasure and consent” (Connell, 2005: 73). At the same time, the state holds the

monopoly of legitimate violence within the boundaries of a given nation-state, with armed forces such as

the military, the police, and other repressive forces, which immediately links collective violence to men

and masculinities (Hearn, 2012: 41).

In the arena of international relations, masculine practices are dominant, both materially and discursively

(Hearn, 2012: 42). This naturalization of the masculine in state and security matters has been challenged

by scholars that seek to consider men’s practices as gendered, instead of the “‘normal,’ usual, even the

official way of doing things” (Hearn, 2012: 42). Hearn explains that “[t]he military is one of the clearest

and most obvious arenas of men’s social power, violence, killing and potential violence and killing, in their

many guises” (Hearn, 2012: 36). However, this obvious relationship obscures other links with “actually or

potentially violent and violating gendered practices in and by: corporations, privatized security forces,

organized crime, foreign policy, diplomacy, arms trading, sex trade, financial exploitation and corruption”

(Hearn, 2012: 37).

Hence, for the purposes of this thesis, the analysis of violence does not only include interpersonal violence,

but also to how the rule of law and ‘legitimate’ violence are deployed by government institutions. In The

Queue, the weight of the state is omnipresent, with the Gate’s strong surveillance and security apparatus.

In Utopia, other state-like institutions are presented, such as the US Marines hired to protect Utopia,

following the orders of Utopia’s ruling class. In both novels, institutions work in the same direction:

maintaining the status-quo in favour of the ruling class. Therefore, analysing these dynamics from a gender

perspective offers the opportunity to inquire on how the hegemony of men, at the level of the state, is the

hegemony of ‘certain’ men, who put all other men and women in a subordinate position. It also leaves

space to see what the spaces for contestation are, and how men and women challenge this rule, individually

or collectively.

76

8.3.1. Challenging the figure of the hero in The Queue At the beginning, The Queue presents a headless bureaucratic all-powerful institution from which virtually

all activities depend, “bawwābat al-mabnā al-šamālī” (‘the Gate of the Northern Building’), abbreviated

in the novel as “al-bawwāba” (‘the Gate’). The building itself is described as:

“binā’ ġarīb yartafiꜤ Ꜥan aswār al-bawwāba qalīlan, lā nawāfiḏ fī-al-jawānib al-ẓāhira minhu

wa-lā šurafāt” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 45)

‘a strange building that raises over the Gate’s walls a little, with no distinguishable windows or

balconies on the sides.’126

At the beginning of the novel it is said that the Gate suddenly appeared after the failure of a big popular

movement against the “al-ḥaras al-qadīm” (‘the old guard’) that held power, called “al-habba al-ūlā”

(Abdel Aziz, 2013: 15) (‘the first Wind Gust’):

“iḫtafā al-ḥākim al-qadīm min al-mašḥad, wa-rāḥat al-bawwāba tunaẓẓim al-kaṯīr min al-umūr,

wa-taḍaꜤ al-quyyūd wa-al-ḍawābiṭ al-lāẓima li-tasyīr al-maṣāliḥ wa-al-ašġāl, ṯumma ṣadara

manšūr rasmī awḍaḥa iḫtiṣāṣāt al-bawwāba wa-ṣalāḥiyyātihā, allatī ištamalat Ꜥalā kulli mā

yumkin li-al-mar’ an yufakkir fīhi” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 41)

‘The old ruler disappeared from sight, and the Gate started organizing a lot of issues, setting the

limitations and rules needed to manage well-being and occupations. Then, an official leaflet was

published clarifying the Gate’s competences and powers, which included everything that anyone

could think of.’

After its appearance, three new security forces were created: “al-ḥaras al-amnī al-māniꜤ” (‘the Deterrent

Security Guard’), dedicated to protecting the actual building of the Gate and its surroundings; “al-ḥaras

al-amnī al-ḥājib” (‘the Concealing Security Guard’), tasked with the protection of the premises that guard

sensitive information, such as the public hospital al-Ajwā’;127 and “al-ḥaras al-amnī al-qābiḍ” (‘the

126 It is worth commenting the Kafkaesque aspect of the building here described, with no windows or balconies, as in

Kafka’s The Castle. This image appears in Al Saadi‘s (2014) analysis of Hikāyat al-Mu’assasa (1997), by Egyptian

writer al-Ġīṭānī, where a similar building also has a symbolic function, representing a despotic regime (Al Saadi,

2014: 687) 127 In a footnote, Milich argues that the name of the hospital, “al-Ajwa’” (pl. of ‘jaw’, meaning air and atmosphere)

could be associated to the public hospitals in Egypt run by the Air Force, thus contributing to the atmosphere of social

control (Milich, 2019: 152).

77

Seizing Security Guard’), a sort of an anti-riot force (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 42).128

It is relevant to highlight that the word “ḥaras” (“guard, patrol”), closely also in meaning to “protect,

preserve, safeguard, and watch over” (Balbaaki, 1995: 462), is constantly repeated in these paragraphs. It

refers both to those in power before, ‘al-ḥaras al-qadīm’, and the law enforcement agencies that protect

them. The continuous use of this word to refer to governmental tasks should resonate with the theoretical

framework, which points at the protection feature as one of the main features of masculinity in Egypt.

Despite the immense presence of the Gate, the name of the president of the Northern Building is mentioned

very late in the novel, at the end of a TV broadcasting. His name, ‘former Major General Zakī ꜤAbd al-ꜤĀl

Ḥāmid’ (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 129) suggests that he was a high rank officer in any of the law enforcement

agencies, or perhaps the military. At the highest level of the most powerful institution, the Gate, the obvious

relationship between men, the security forces and population control, is confirmed with only one name.

This element points out a criticism of modern Egypt, with a history of overwhelming military control over

the government and public institutions.129

The security establishment is embodied in the story of Maḥfūẓ, Šalabī’s cousin, who served for the Seizing

Security Guard. In Šalabī’s opinion, the security forces were tasked with protecting the country against

“al-kafara al-šarāmīṭ al-anjās” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 87) (‘the unbelievers-whores-impure’). This last

expression sets a very strong and sexualized language with a religious component, which imagines all

those who took part in the demonstrations as non-believers, prostitutes and defiled.130 At the other side of

the spectrum stands Maḥfūẓ, who had to kill one of the protestors during the Disgraceful Events in order

to defend the country, becoming a “baṭal” (‘hero’), and a “šahīd” (‘martyr’) (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 91).

However, Maḥfūẓ did not get any homage as a hero because he died by jumping from a bridge when he

was surrounded by demonstrators.

The idea of Maḥfūẓ being a hero is contested by Īnās, who charges against the image of the security forces

as heroes, dismantling the virtues and works of these men, who are officially treated as heroes, and

recognized as such by the society:

“[Šalabī] yatakallam kamā law kāna qarībuhu fārisan miġwāran yuḥārib al-ašrār wa laysa

šaḫṣan bā’isan intuziʿa min arḍihi li-yaḫdim ġaṣban fī wiḥdat amn lā yaʿrif aḥad mā taqūm bih”

128 As the old ruler and his old guard led the country in the past single handed, there is no mention to what happened

to the old security forces. They might have been dissolved and reconverted, or maybe the new forces were added to

fortify the elite in power even more. 129 Since the ‘Free Officers’ coup against the king in 1952, all Egyptian presidents have come from the military rank,

starting with Gamal Abdel Nasser, and with the exception of recently deceased Mohamad Morsi (30th June 2012 -

3rd July 2013), former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Lutterbeck (2013: 37) explains how although the army’s

direct role on political decision making has diminished over the years, its role in the economy has grown to the extent

that although “there are no official data on the size of the military’s business empire, […] estimates put it at between

10 percent and 40 percent of the GDP, most likely making it the economically most important actor of the country”.

In addition, he explains that Egypt has been the main recipient of military aid from the US after the Camp David

Accords in 1978, with 1.3 billion annually. 130 For the connotations of ‘anjās’, consult footnote 109.

78

(Abdel Aziz, 2013: 91)

‘[Šalabī] speaks like his relative was an audacious knight fighting against the evildoers and not

a miserable person extracted from his land against his will to serve in a security force that no one

knows what it does.’

If we add Īnās’ argument to the previously analysed scene of Maḥfūẓ’s attempt of sexual assault in 8.2.4.,

we can conclude that the behaviour of the members of the Seizing Security Guard is far from honourable

and brave in the novel. Hence, The Queue challenges the consideration of the security forces as heroes, as

well as their values and their ultimate objective. While Šalabī argues that his cousin was defending the

country, Īnās considers that killing unarmed demonstrators is not a sign of that. Coming back to the

relationship between the security forces with men and masculinities, The Queue points out the protection

function of the state as problematic, related to oppression and social control for the sole benefit of the

ruling class. At the same time, it humanizes individual members of the security forces and their families

by portraying them in need of social recognition and economic support.

8.3.2. Global hegemonic masculinity in Utopia Although Utopia seems to portray two state-less territories, the novel presents an institutionalized security

force in the use of retired US Marines for the protection of the rich inside Utopia. In this section, the

hierarchical relationship between the US and Utopia serve as a background to explore the links between

global, regional and local masculinities in the novel, following Connell’s categorization in the theoretical

framework. As masculinities are hierarchical, we want to examine how global hegemonic masculinity,

represented by the retired US Marines, interacts with the masculinity portrayed in the novel as dominant,

centred on men’s sexuality, fertility and control.

The Marines appear at the beginning of the novel killing a man from the Others from an helicopter. In fact,

these retired Marines are the only ones who succeed in “muhimmat al-ṣayd” (Towfik, 2010: 10) (‘the task

of hunting’). ʿAlā’ refers to them as “al-ḥurrās al- amrīkiyyīn” (Towfik, 2010: 14) (‘the American

guards’), and likes socializing with them. Although ʿAlā’ says not to know why there are American guards

patrolling Utopia’s borders, references to anglophone words, movies or books are scattered throughout the

novel.131 ʿAlā’ reproduces some of his conversations with Mike, the head of the guards, for example about

the American military intervention in Iraq. Then, Mike explains how Egypt had to sell all its antiques in

exchange of fifty years of ‘Biroil’ provision, the new energy source that substituted oil, invented by the

131 For example, there are words written in English in the original (Towfik, 2010: 10) or transcribed, for example

“necrophilia” (Towfik, 2010: 22). There is a mention to a Hollywood movie, Platoon (Towfik, 2010: 9), a story by

Edgar Allan Poe, The Mask of the Red Death (“qinaꜤ al-mawt al-aḥmar” in Towfik, 2010: 125). This point is also

defended in Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui (2016: 371).

79

US. Hence, American presence in Utopia is not limited to the use of American mercenaries as defenders

of the rich, but implies a broader cultural influence and total economic dependence.

The retired Marines are described as physically fit and carrying heavy weapons. Mike himself is said to

be:

“laṭīf al-maꜤšar lahu šārib ašqar rafīꜤ.. qaṣṣat al-ṭāqam (Crew Cut)132 al-mumayyaza wa-al-

Ꜥaḍalāt al-bāriza wa-ṭaraf al-fānilla al-ḫaḍrā’ al-zaytiyya al-bāriz min al-sitar” (Towfik, 2010:

28)

“he’s good company. He has a thin, blond moustache, that distinctive crew cut, bulging muscles;

the edge of his olive-green undershirt sticks out of his jacket.” (Towfik, 2010: 21)

This description corresponds to the stereotypical image of a white, blonde, and muscular man in the

military. If global hegemonic masculinity is invariable white, Christian and dominant, as seen in the

theoretical framework, ʿAlā’’s quest for manhood appears as a way to emulate this model of masculinity,

which is reinforced by economic and cultural domination.133 This point is confirmed by the end of the

novel, when ʿAlā’ comes back to his normal life after his adventure in Shubra, completely unchanged and

immersed in the same dull routine (Towfik, 2010: 170). Although he returned ‘victorious’, his quest for

manhood did not bring any advances or recognition. Nonetheless, as hordes of Others walk towards the

security perimeter of Utopia in a hostile way, and the Marines take battle position, ʿAlā’ grabs a machine

gun from one of the guards, and starts shooting against the Others.

“lam afṭin ilā annanī lam ujarrib hāḏā min qabli, wa-lam tafutta min šajjāꜤatī al-ḍarba al-

qawiyya allatī talaqaytuhā fī sāꜤidī ladā al-irtidād..” (Towfik, 2010: 177)

“I ignored the fact that I had never done this before, and the forceful slam I received in my upper

arm from the recoil didn’t weaken my courage.” (Towfik, 2011: 156)

In this passage, ʿAlā’’s agency remains the focus. It is by enacting an American militarized masculinity

that ʿAlā’’s courage overrides everything as he faces the possibility of a successful and legitimate hunt. At

a global level, the ending of the novel is especially relevant and will be reproduced in full:

132 “Crew Cut” in English in the original. 133 Hooper reminds us how the colonizer power used pseudo-scientific disciplines, such as craneology, to organize

the ranking of masculinities according to embodiment (Hooper, 2001: 84). Therefore, men’s bodies and embodied

experience are also mediated by the colonization experience, and seem to affect even futuristic works of fiction.

80

“hākaḏā aṭlaq al-nār.. / aṭlaq al-nār.. / aṭlaq al-nār.. / fī laḥẓa ka-tilka uḥibbuki ḥaqqan.. / ḍaꜤī

Ꜥunuqaki yā ṣaġīra.. / ḍaꜤī Ꜥunuqaki yā ṣaġīra Ꜥalā al-saḫra al-muqaddasa.. / aṭlaq al-nār.. / aṭlaq

al-nār.. / «saffifnī al-ḥanḍal wa-ittaꜤasnī / ra’yna ḫalf ḫilāf.. / iḥbisnī aw iṭlaqnī wa-idhisnī /

ra’yna ḫalf ḫilāf »”134 (Towfik, 2010: 177)

‘This is how I shoot. / I shoot. / I shoot. / In moments like these is when I really love you / put

your neck, little girl / put your neck, little girl, on the sacred stone / I shoot / I shoot / “Beat the

crap out of me and ruin my life / We have seen beyond our differences / Arrest me or let me go

and walk all over me / We have seen beyond our differences”’ (Towfik, 2010: 156)135

This ‘verses’ seem to be ʿAlā’’s stream of thought, mixed with his actions. In them, ʿAlā’’s shooting in

real time is interrupted by some verses of an Orgasm Song that has appeared before in the narrative.136 The

fact that this song talks about a sexualized rite of sacrifice points out the slaughter of the feminized Others,

an image that has been constructed throughout the novel by way of the emasculation of their men and the

victimization of their women. The novel ends with a quote of Egyptian poet ꜤAbd al-Raḥmān al-Abnūdī,137

which clearly talks about the social division between the powerful and all the rest.138 With this reference

to social divisions in Egypt at the time in which the novel was written, these verses signal the Others’

hopelessness, and the inevitable clash that social injustice at that scale can produce.139

As mentioned before, the Others’ emasculation and the consideration of the nation as female is supported

by other statements in the novel. The main example of this is how Jābir compares Egypt to a beaten wife:

“al-šaḫṣiyya al-maṣriyya qad lāqat al-kaṯīr min al-marmaṭa fī al-ma’ati Ꜥām al-aḫīra ḥattā ṣārat

ka-zawja Ꜥāmalahā zawjuhā bi-tawaḥḥuš Ꜥiddat aꜤwām, min ṯamma aṣbaḥat ḏātuhā aqrab ilā al-

waḥšiyya wa-al-šarāsa” (Towfik, 2010: 120)

‘The Egyptian character has suffered a lot of damage in the last hundred years until it became

like a wife whose husband treated her brutally for several years, and so she became closer to

134 The last four verses are in Egyptian dialect. However, “iṭlaqnī” maintains the letter qaf, instead of transcribing it

as a glottal stop, which is the way it would be pronounced. The letter hamza in “ra’yna” is also maintained. 135 The published translation has been slightly modified in this paragraph to literally reflect the meaning of the

original. 136 The last three verses are taken from the in-world cultural device, the Orgasms Songs, which have been commented

before in 8.2.1. and footnote 96. This particular song is reproduced in full in Towfik (2010: 168). 137 ꜤAbd al-Raḥmān Al-Abnūdī (1938 – 2015 CE) was an prolific Egyptian poet that wrote in Egyptian dialect, with

a special focus on social injustice and against oppression (Al-Jazīra, 2015). 138 This poem by al-Abnūdī is reproduced in full in Towfik (2011: 165). These poems, which appear in other places

in the narrative, point at Jābir’s voice, as it is him who introduces this poetry to Jirmīnāl and ʿAlā’ (Towfik, 2010:

162). 139 Resheq and Majdoubeh also see the end of the novel as a the dismantling of the borders, but in this case of the

dichotomy between poor and rich, Utopia/Shubra (Resheq and Majdoubeh, 2019: 189).

81

brutality and viciousness.’

This quote has double-fold implications. The first one relates to Ghannam’s remark of how Egypt as a

country or nation is often presented as a woman, who should be cherished, honoured, and protected, while

a proper government is paralleled with a true man that protects, supports, and provides (Ghannam, 2013:

163). Therefore, this quote identify the governors as the nation’s abusers, thus challenging the

consideration of the ruler as an “exemplary man” (Abdelmoez, 2018: 200).140 The second one is that Utopia

as a nation is protected and provided for by the US, which again feminises Utopia (or Egypt) and defines

a masculine role for the US, with the power implications that this entails.141

8.3.3. Surveillance and state control in The Queue As mentioned previously, institutionalized violence by the state is not only contained in the military and

other security forces, but permeates other industries that work in the same direction, like intelligence

gathering. According to some estimates for Egypt, the security apparatuses employ a large number of

people. Only the informants are said to reach 250,000 (Ismail, 2006: 152), including informants for crime

related information, and undercover watchers of individuals and organizations.142 These encounters with

the police and the intelligence services affect men’s enactment of masculinity (Abdallah, 2014; Amar,

2011a; Ghannam, 2013), and are interlinked with other structures that promote the values of dominance

and control as characteristic of the state.143 In this section, we will focus on the interconnection of several

institutions towards social control, and how this affects the power hierarchies in these fictional societies,

around the categories of gender, social class and political affiliation.

Although surveillance and control are the main protagonists of The Queue, there is no explicit information

about who carries out this surveillance, contrary to the more detailed description of the law enforcement

140 Abdelmoez’s results highlight Gamal Abdel Nasser as a symbol of strength, intelligence, as a provider and

protector of the nation (Abdelmoez, 2018: 215). In turn, Treacher (2007), by focusing on emotions, is able to conclude

that Nasser was popular because he made Egyptians feel liberated and dignified, while giving them hope for the

future. She mentions that “honour, glory, dignity and pride” were his most repeated words in speeches (Treacher

2007: 289). Having the emotional dimension present, the omnipresent image of Gamal Abdel Nasser invokes a very

different feeling than other leaders mentioned as eminently “masculine”, such Saddam Hussein for Irak, or Ataturk

in Turkey. 141 As deepening in this argument is beyond of the scope of this thesis, a detailed example of feminist international

relations regarding Egypt can be obtained in Bilgic’s analysis of the EU’s hegemonic masculinity before and after

the Arab Spring (Bilgic, 2015). This sharp separation between Utopia and the Others also reminds how the West

positions itself against the “Rest” (Treacher, 2007: 282), in polarized discourses that are also reproduced in the novel. 142 Several theorizations take into account the role of the state and its overwhelming population control, such as the

notion of the “neopatriarchal state”, where “ordinary citizens not only are arbitrarily deprived of some of their basic

rights but are the virtual prisoners of the state, the objects of its capricious and ever-present violence.” (Sharabi 1988:

7 as quoted in Aghacy, 2009: 94). Amar’s “human-security state” also offers a complex theorization of how security

politics grant more and more space and power to armed institutions such as the police in order to project citizens,

using a human rights discourse to justify state control over citizens (Amar, 2011a: 302). 143 Stories of beatings, detention, force confessions and even deaths on the hands of the Egyptian police are common

for low-income men in Cairo (Ghannam, 2013: 68).

82

bodies. Yaḥyā’s medical file is the main axis of the novel, and the fundamental proof of the Gate’s control.

Yaḥyā’s medical file starts with his personal details in Document No. 1 (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 7), followed

by a description of his injury upon arrival to the hospital in Document No. 2 (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 31), and

a preliminary description of his symptoms and needed treatment in Document No. 3 (Abdel Aziz, 2013:

51). However, Document No. 4 (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 119) contains details that are not strictly of medical

interest: his rebellious character, other records requested to his university and his employer, or the fact that

he has been seen in ‘the square’. Therefore, the different pages of Yaḥyā’s medical file serve to introduce

a highly securitized state, where disagreement or rebellion are considered as pathological behaviour.

The documents in Yaḥyā’s file are also symbolic, like the blank space inside a back frame in Document

No. 5 (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 159), which is supposed to eventually contain the Gate’s Response. These

documents do not stand alone, as their contents are completed and questioned by Dr Ṭāriq, who acts as

focalizer in the narration.144 The surveillance system is especially evident in Document No. 6 (Abdel Aziz,

2013: 219), where Dr Ṭāriq can read about every corner of Yaḥyā’s existence. Moreover, this last document

contains instructions for information gathering, as well as a description of who is allowed to read this

confidential information (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 219). In Yaḥyā’s file, his medical data mixes with information

gathered for social control, which indicates that the medical sector also takes part in surveillance.

Therefore, medical services are not trusted overall, for example when Yaḥyā asks Nājī to keep “al-iḥtirās”

(‘great carefulness’) and “al-taḥaffuẓ” (‘reservation’) in not sharing information about the people in the

queue in front of Dr Ṭāriq (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 46).

However, not all doctors have the same security clearance. The day after the Disgraceful Events, a doctor

in military uniform comes to see Dr Ṭāriq. The military doctor greets Dr Ṭāriq coldly and does not accept

any sign of hospitality. Eventually, he sits on Ṭāriq’s chair after showing his official ID: “biṭāqat taꜤrīf min

tilka allati lā yumkin al-šakk fīhā wa-lā murājaꜤatuhā” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 54) (‘an identity card of those

that no one can question or inspect’). Then, he asks Dr Ṭāriq to bring him all copies of Yaḥyā’s X-rays

showing that he has more authority and power than any regular doctor: “lam yastaḫdim ayyat ṣiyāġa tadull

Ꜥalā imkaniyat an tuqābal ṭalabātuhu bi-al-rafḍ” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 55) (‘he did not use any expression

that indicates the possibility that his petitions could be refused’). Dr Ṭāriq considers this episode as a

humiliation, but recognizes that in the current circumstances, there is no opposition or questioning

possible.145

The utmost symbol of the Gate’s surveillance appears by the end of the novel. As the queue reaches further

away to areas it never reached before, the Gate announces that a wall will be built around the waiting

citizens, “li-ḥimāyatihim” (‘for their own protection’). The paragraph that follows will be quoted in length:

144 In narratology, the focalizer is “the subject of focalization; the holder of the point of view” (Prince, 2003: 32). 145 It is worth mentioning that all these military doctors in position of power are men, as well as all the other employees

of the Gate mentioned in the novel.

83

“Fī al-waqt ḏātih, ẓahara fawqa al-mabnā al-šamālī li-al-bawwāba, allaḏī yumkin ru’iyyatuhu

min al-minṭaqa al-wūṣṭā li-al-ṭābūr, rajul jālis Ꜥalā al-saṭḥ, ḫalfa jism ġayr wāḍiḥ al-malāmiḥ,

lākinnahu muṯabbat Ꜥalā ṯalāṯat arjul wa-yabdū kamā law kāna tiliskūban aw ālat taṣwīr Ꜥatīqa

aw mā šābah” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 238)

‘At the same time, on the top of the northern building of the Gate, which could be seen from the

middle of the queue, appeared a man sitting on the roof, behind an object of unclear

characteristics that was fixed over three legs. It looked like if it was a telescope or some old photo

camera, or something of the like’

The previous description of a sniper at the end of the novel makes us doubt of the credibility of the narrator,

as this description is unable or unwilling to say what was the most probable function of that man on the

roof. At the same time, it could refer to the same carefulness employed by citizens, who would beware to

call things by their name. All the references to surveillance and the silences that populate the novel, like

the one above, build a complex system of control and surveillance that even permeates to the level of the

narration.

This general sense of self-control and reservation towards others comes from the feeling that everyone

could be listening anytime anywhere.146 For example, Sabāh, the nurse that assists Dr Ṭāriq, is called by

an influential doctor from al-Ajwā’ Hospital asking her to modify Yaḥyā’s medical file as he dictates

(Abdel Aziz, 2013: 67). Besides, “al-bawwāb” (‘the door keeper’) in Amānī’s building tells Yaḥyā and

Nājī all about her movements, and questions her involvement in the protests (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 171). That

being said, surveillance also comes from companies and institutions at the service of the Gate. The main

example of this is how the main mobile telephone company offers sim-cards for free in the queue.

However, what was seen as a solidarity gesture towards citizens, turns out to be a surveillance scam

orchestrated by the Gate, executed by the telephone company, and supported by the highest religious

authority (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 140-56).

The complexity of this networks is elaborated by Nājī, who suggests that independence and free-will are

not in spite of the Gate, but granted by it:

“[Amānī] la taqtaniꜤ abadan bi-anna hāḏā al-istiqlāl allaḏī tatawahham annahā taꜤīš, laysa fī

ḥaqīqat al-amr siwā šakl muttafiq Ꜥalayhi, juz’ min al-niẓām yukmil šabakat al-Ꜥalāqāt wa-al-

tanāqudāt. Al-bawwāba nafsuhā juz’ aṣīl min al-šabaka, raġma annahā tabdū mumsika bi-

ḫuyūṭihā min al-ḫārij” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 202)

146 Milich (2019) contains some examples of how surveillance contributes to the population’s control and

dehumanization.

84

‘[Amānī] never conceived that the independence she thinks she enjoys is in reality something

that has been agreed upon, a part of the system that completes the network of relations and

contradictions. The Gate itself is a central part of the network, even though it seems to control its

threads when looked from the outside.’

Nonetheless, there is space for contestation at the individual level in this seemingly unmovable system. As

the novel advances, Dr Ṭāriq suffers a transformation. From being a person who likes having a quiet and

untroubled life, far away from any problem with the Gate, Dr Ṭāriq ends up offering himself to perform

Yaḥyā’s surgery in Nājī’s house, circumventing the Gate’s regulations. According to Milich (2019: 160),

Dr Ṭāriq’s resistance is not based on political ideas, but attempts to defy the vision of reality conveyed by

the Gate.147 At the end of the novel, Dr Ṭāriq takes a pen and writes in Document no. 5 of Yaḥyā’s medical

file, the one reserved to the response of the Gate. By doing so, Dr Ṭāriq acknowledges being part of the

Gate. At the same time, he does so with a caring and sympathetic attitude towards Yaḥyā, contrary to the

Gate’s oppressing practices. Dr Ṭāriq, in his position of power, chooses not to show a controlling or violent

attitude, in total opposition to the main trends defining state’s power and social control.148

In Utopia, the total control of the rich over the Others left these people fighting for mere survival.

Consequently, surveillance does not seem not be needed for social control. However, Jābir mentions a

strong security apparatus as the reason why the Others do not revolt against the injustice they live in:

“inna al-niẓām al-amnī muꜤaqqad mutaṭawwar al-yawm.. hunāka sittat ajhiza amniyya turāqib

baꜤaḍahā wa-muhimmat kull minhā ḥimāyat al-ḥukkām” (Towfik, 2010: 108)

“The security apparatus is complex and evolved today. There are six security systems observing

each other and the mission of each of them is to protect the rulers” (Towfik, 2011: 91)

Despite this mention, these security agencies do not appear during the novel, which points out a criticism

of Egypt’s today’s ‘securitocracy’.149 However, this quote adds up to how the intelligence services in The

Queue and Utopia are said to work in order to maintain the status quo and protect the ruling class, which

147 Although Milich (2019) argues that Yaḥyā follows the same pattern, there are some details in his medical file that

makes us think that he could be politically motivated. 148 In contrast, it is important to mention how Amānī suffers the opposite process after her release from detention.

From being a caring person, with interests in politics and society, Amānī loses all her human connections, and choses

to believe all the Gate’s official announcements. This process is very similar to doublethink at the end of Orwell’s

1984, when Wiston wins a victory over himself believing everything the party said, despite his previous rebellion

(Patai, 1982: 865). He, as Amānī, gain some sort of control, as they had been unable to change the outside reality, by

transforming the way they think about it (Patai, 1982: 865). For more details about Amānī’s detention, see Milich

(2019: 157), 149 “’Securitocracy’ refers to a system of security elites (intelligence and security services, military and police forces),

that, at the executive level, use either direct or indirect political power and influence in matters related to a state’s

foreign and security policy, internal security, and even in the finance and economic sectors” (Mäkelä, 2014: 218).

85

seems to be a criticism of the time in which the novels were written. In doing so, the ruling class and its

institutions situate themselves at the top of the hierarchy, controlling and dominating all other citizens. As

will be analysed below, all positions of power are held by men in both novels, leaving low-income or

politically dissident men, and women, at the margins.

8.3.4. Gender and the economy in The Queue and Utopia

As can be inferred from this analysis, there are strong bonds that link the control of the security forces with

the control of the economy in both novels. Even though men seem to be totally in control of both the state

and the economy, this does not include all men, by all means. As we will see, other categories such as

class, age and political affiliation will define men’s and women’s position in the job market. At the same

time, we should not forget that in the case of Utopia, both the rich and the poor live in debt and dependency

of the US, as all Egypt’s sources of income have disappeared.150

In Utopia, rich middle aged men sit at the top of the chain, with examples such as Murād, ʿAlā’’s father, a

wealthy pharmaceutical importer with some influential friends who own big businesses.151 All of them are

called “bey” as a courtesy title, which since the Ottoman times applied first to provincial governors and

then to members of the affluent class. However, the young population (such as ʿAlā’, Jirmīnāl and their

friends) are not mentioned to be carrying out any sort of activity, either educational of professional. As a

counter-example, Lārīn, ʿ Alā’’s mother, is not said to have any known profession. No female professionals

are mentioned in the novel, which comes to represent women’s virtual absence from the most profitable

income-earning activities in today’s Egypt and in the broader Arab world.152

In the territories of the Others, men are mentioned to be the breadwinners, as the relationship between Jābir

and Ṣafiyya analysed in 8.1.5. shows. During the novel, Jābir explains what he does in order to survive,

from selling adulterate phylogistine, to participating in gang-related activities. On the other side, women

from the Others seem to be responsible for the housework in their own houses (Towfik, 2010: 103), or

work in other venues, for example as cleaning ladies for the rich inside the compound, or in the chicken

processing factory (Towfik, 2010: 168).153 Work and dispossession reflect on their bodies, as women of

the Others are portrayed as masculinized in descriptions that stress their bad smell, dirtiness and

dispossession:

150 Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui give a brief summary saying that four of the pillars of the Egyptian economy are

skilfully demolished in Utopia: tourism is gone after the Aswan dam broke and Egypt had to sell its antiques to the

US for Biroil; migration to the oil rich countries is cut by the invention of a new dominant source of energy; and

Israel builds an alternative to the Suez Canal (Madoeuf & Pagès-El Karoui, 2016: 370). 151 Such as Sālim bey (Towfik, 2010: 13), ꜤAlawī bey and ꜤAdnān bey (Towfik, 2010: 18), ꜤAzzām bey and Muṣṭafā

bey (Towfik, 2010: 20). 152 A study about women participation in the labour market shows that in 1995 the Arab women’s share of earned

income was the lowest in the world (Hijab, 2001: 43). 153 There are also other women working as maids in Utopia, as the mention of ʿAlā’’s African maid exemplifies. ꜤAla’

mentions having sex with her as a normal part of his daily routine (Towfik, 2010: 23). There is no other mention

about African workers in Utopia, neither if there are only women

86

“al-rā’iḥa al-karīha tadnū min ‘Jirmīnāl’.. al-rā’iḥa al-karīha wa-al-baḫar min famm talafat

asnānunu.. imra’a.. tašrīḥiyyan hiya kaḏālik.. am kamā yaṣifu Rāsim maṯīlātihā: hāḏā rajul

maṯqūb lā akṯar!” (Towfik, 2010: 38)

“A terrible smell came near Germinal. A terrible smell and the breath of a mouth with rotten

teeth. A woman: anatomically, at least. Or, as Rasim describes women like her, ‘It’s a man with

a whole, that’s it’” (Towfik, 2011: 31)

In this scene, we see how the performativity of gender is stressed, as this woman, despite being

anatomically labelled as female for her genitalia, remains a man if her appearance and performance does

not coincide with social expectations. First of all, the descriptions stressing working women’s ugliness

affects their femininity, as shown in the previous example, always with Jirmīnāl’s soft hair and skin as a

sharp contrast. Secondly, as men are generally considered as the main providers for their wives and families

in ethnographic studies (Ghannam, 2013; Abdallah, 2015), women’s activities in the job market reflect

directly over their male relatives’ sense of masculinity. As the inclusion of women of the Others in the job

market serves to de-feminize women and emasculate men at the same time, gender relations in the novel

are put to the test. Eventually, this system seems to play at the women’s disadvantage, as seen in 8.2.4.154

At the same time, women from the Others are also said to work as prostitutes in multiple occasions, for

example when ʿAlā’ sees them in the streets of Subra (Towfik, 2010: 48). All these women prostitutes are

accompanied, managed and controlled by pimps, who are always family members (Towfik, 2010: 51). As

al-Sirgānī explains when he tries to negotiate with Jābir, by prostituting Jirmīnāl he could turn a woman

into a good source of income instead of a burden (Towfik, 2010: 139).155

The wide availability of female prostitutes seems to be one of the few commodities that can be sold and

bought in the misery reigning the territory of the Others. Bahoora’s analysis of the representation of the

prostitute in Iraqi literature from the 1940s and 1950s points at how “the prostitute’s body came to

symbolize sexual desire and commodity fetishism of European capitalist consumption” (Bahoora, 2015:

44). Looking at the above use of the prostitute characters in Utopia, and among all the Others’

dispossession, it is not farfetched to say that they allow for an space of masculine desire and consumption

to remain open, “where the boundaries separating economics from sexuality are blurred” (Bahoora, 2015:

50). This blurred distinction emanates as well from the analysis of ʿAlā’’s sexuality, where he seems to

‘consume’ sex with women as he consumes drugs, also in the framework of Utopia’s enormous wealth and

154 Paradoxically, sexual freedom and women’ inclusion in the job market in Utopia do not bring any advantage, but

all the contrary. This is an example of how seemingly utopian conditions can backfire and become a nightmarish

dystopia, 155 However, there is a glimpse of women’s agency in Najāt’s story, when she refuses to sell her “kanz” or ‘treasure’

despite her husband’s pressure (Towfik, 2010: 68).

87

capitalist overconsumption.

In turn, the workforce in The Queue is not so sharply divided. However, there is a clear demarcation

between the elite, all men, represented by the government and the biggest telecommunication company on

the one side, and the more heterogeneous working force present in the queue, on the other side. At the

individual level, women and men work in order to earn a living, with an emphasis on the role of women

as providers. For example, Amānī, Yaḥyā’s girlfriend and workmate, manages to keep her job while Yaḥyā

and Nājī get fired for their involvement (actively, passively or suspected) in anti-Gate activities. Hence,

Amānī is the one paying when they sit in a cafe (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 150). Īnās is mentioned as a good

teacher, well educated, committed to her job, and with a sense of professionality. Sabāḥ is the nurse

assistant of Dr Ṭāriq, and is described as diligent. Um Mabrūk comes as an entrepreneur who knows how

to adapt to the circumstances in order to secure food and medicines to her children.

It comes with not surprise that the Gate appears as the main actor in the allocation of jobs and the control

of the economy. For instance, the Gate established new fees that put the company where Yaḥyā was

working on the verge of bankruptcy. Then, the Gate asked his company to provide services that were

completely alien to the company’s activities, and rejected all the company’s appeals (Abdel Aziz, 2013:

43). From these examples, the Gate appears as an interventionist state bureaucracy that not only controls

the private lives and endeavours of individuals, but also the means of production and recruiting, which is

located along political lines.156 This relationship is more accentuated when it is discovered that the head of

the Gate is also the CEO of the biggest telecommunication company, which was mentioned before as the

protagonist of a surveillance scandal.

Nonetheless, not all men hold a privileged position. A good example of this is Šalabī, a peasant who, unable

to provide for his family in his current conditions, went to the queue to request the Gate a salary for his

late cousin Maḥfūẓ, which died in service. By the end of the novel, Šalabī visits “al-manfaḏ” (‘the reception

window’) of the Gate in order to request a new piece of land, after the one he and his family were cultivating

was flooded. Šalabī’s and Maḥfūẓ’s family had lost everything, and “hazza Ꜥawīl ummihi wa zawjat

Ꜥammihi, wa banātiha al-ḫamas” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 237) (‘provoking the wailing of his mother, his aunt

and her five daughters’). Šalabī gathers evidence of the losses and hands them to the employee at the

window; however, the Gate employee accuses Šalabī of having flooded the land himself in order to take

advantage of the system. At hearing these words, everything that happened during previous weeks

surfaced:

“taꜤarraḍ li-al-suḫriya wa-al-ihāna wa-ṭuꜤina fī šarafihi wa-karāmatihi wa-ḫaḏalahu al-qā’id

wa-al-waḥda wa-kaḏālik faꜤalat al-bawwāba, ḥattā itṭarra ilā al-kaḏib Ꜥalā al-nās li-yastabqī

ma’ al-wajh, wa-qad fāḍa bihi al-kayl fī tilka al-laḥẓa” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 238)

156 As in the case of Īnās, which needs a certificate from the Gate to be allowed back at work, and which seems to be

a common practice.

88

‘He suffered mockery and humiliation, his honour and dignity were stabbed. The commander

and the unit failed him, as did the Gate. He even had to lie to people to keep face. In that moment,

this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.’

Šalabī then punches the employee in the face, until the people present manage to calm him down. The fact

that he is not even capable of maintaining moral values important for him, such as honesty, add up to wider

structural factors that make him uncapable of providing for his family, which is represented by mentioning

the women’s wailing. In this short extract, we get glimpse on how the political and economic system

portrayed by The Queue clearly benefits some men and leave other on the margins, for example peasants

and low-income men. Šalabī has no security network with people of influence, or the Gate. Therefore, he

is mocked and humiliated by the authorities, as he remains dependant on them for the survival of his family.

Basic attributes related to manhood and masculinity, such as providing for one’s family and safeguarding

one’s respectability, are unattainable for Šalabī.157

8.3.5. Supporting institutions to the hegemony of men: religion and

the media Religion appears as a transversal theme in both novels; nevertheless, it does not occupy a central role in

the construction of masculinities. In Utopia, religion figures as a consolation from the Others’ lives of

misery, and as a source of strength for the rich, who pray to in God in order to maintain the status quo

(Towfik, 2010: 18). However, in The Queue, religion does appears as serving the ruling elite, either by the

highest religious authority, or by the man wearing the jilbāb.158 In this section, we will examine the

gendering project of the man wearing the jilbāb as representative of ‘Islamist masculinity’, within the

wider framework of social control by the ruling class. Within the analysis, some references to the

theoretical background will help situate the present study within ethnological and discursive studies of the

relationship between men, masculinities and Islam.

The man wearing the jilbāb is depicted from the beginning as antagonistic to women. Firstly, he blames

the old woman’s faint to her voting the ‘wrong’ party, displaying a conservative religious discourse with

expressions such as:

“akkada anna hāḏā huwa ġaḍab Allāh Ꜥalayhā, fa-qad irtakabat ḫaṭa’an Ꜥaẓīman fī ḥaqq nafsihā,

157 The marginalization of low-income women is also evident in the novel, with Um Mabrūk as the main example.

She has multiple jobs and depends on other people to fill in any form, as she does not know how to read and write

(Abdel Aziz, 2013: 81). In this case, social class seems to play a bigger role than gender alone. However, as providing

for one’s family is stressed in all ethnological studies as one of the pillars of masculinity in Egypt, the stress is put on

the effect of this economic system in the ability of men to provide. 158 This character has been mentioned previously as an example of marriage in 8.1.5. of this thesis.

89

wa-ḥaq kulli al-mu’minīn jamīꜤan” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 37)

‘He assured that that was the wrath of God, as she had committed a great sin upon herself, and

upon all believers’

Secondly, the man wearing the jilbāb enters in an altercation with the woman of the short hair over what

to do with a handbag that was forgotten by its owner at the queue. As she holds a different opinion from

his, he looks displeased by her presence and begs God to help those who cannot distinguish good from

evil. Some men agree with him, and one of them asks out loud “Ꜥan jawāz al-aḫḏ bi-raᵓyī imra’a ġayr

muḥtašima fī jamiꜤ min al-rijāl” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 60) (‘whether the opinion of a immodest woman

among a group of men can be considered’). During the whole novel, neutralising the influence of the

woman of the short hair is his main mission, as he explicitly says in a phone call (Abdel Aziz, 2010: 156).

It is important to mention that the woman of the short hair not only challenges his vision of how gender

relations should be, but organizes an alternative forum to discuss important news far away from the man

wearing the jilbāb’s vision of gender relations, society and the Gate (Abdel Aziz, 2010: 194).

Some scholars have tried to find out how Islamist masculinity is constructed.159 A good example is De

Sondy (2014), which agrees with other scholars in that Islamist movements use a particular gender

ideology that would help “reinstate the earlier ‘pure’ Islamic society” (Gerami, 2005: 452) based on Islam’s

discursive tradition. In turn, Gerami (2005) defines a single Islamist masculinity as a category recognized

by others, somehow monolithic and undifferentiated, “product of fundamentalist resistance movements

and Western media”, and different from multiple Muslim masculinities (Gerami, 2005: 452).160 It is in this

framework that the man wearing the jilbāb is singled out in the narrative as a character with a distinctive

discourse that serves for further generalization, as explained in 8.1.4.

In his speech, the man wearing the jilbāb continuously uses seemingly Quranic expressions as buzzwords,

a characteristic identified by de Sondy for Islamic masculinity (De Sondy, 2013: 39). During his weekly

religious lessons, he acts as an advocate of the Gate’s view of reality, and tries to influence people that do

not hold the same religious or political values. He praises women listeners as good believers, good mothers

and wives. He also distributes specific booklets to women, with titles such as “ḫuṣūṣīyyāt al-nisā’”, “al-

ibtilā’ bi-fitnat al-nisā’”, “Ꜥaḏāb al-qabr wa-naꜤīmihi”, “al-ḥuqūq al-zawjīyya” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 211),

159 This necessity for the purposes of this thesis should be not confounded with a generalization between Islamism

and Islam, or Islamist and Muslim, even in the works quoted. For example, De Sondy follows Talal Asad’s proposal

of referring to Islam as a discursive tradition (Asad, 2009) to trace how Islamic texts and traditions cohabit with

multiple forms of Islam and different forms of Muslims. Taking on the feminist challenge of exposing the diversity

of masculinities deployed in the Quran and the Sunna, De Sondy concludes that the Quran shows very different

examples of masculinity, which only have in common the submission to God, which “remains the central relationship

in Islam” (De Sondy, 2014: 183). 160 However, Gerami focuses solely on the militarized expressions of Islamist masculinity, making most of her

material irrelevant to the present analysis.

90

which translate as ‘Women attributes’, ‘The tribulations about the women’s seduction’,161 ‘The torments

and blisses of the grave’, and ‘Marriage rights’. In these titles, the man wearing the jilbāb identifies women

as intrinsically different from men, and with distinct functions in society. The gendered nature of his speech

and behaviour is further represented by his references to women only as mothers and wives, or as owners

of destabilising ‘seductive powers’ in need of social control.162

Despite his clear-cut gendering and political mission, the man wearing the jilbāb is a contradictory

character; while expressing how displeased he is with the mingling of men and women, he visits Īnās

continuously for romantic purposes.163 For example, when he visits her in order to offer his help in making

phone calls, he takes the time to look at her hands: “saꜤida bi-imtilāᵓihimā al-baḍḍ, wa bi-ḫullū aṣābiꜤiha

min ayy muṣāġ” (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 62) (‘he was pleased by their white fullness, and by the absence of

jewellery on her fingers’). With the man wearing the jilbāb, the main stances and contradictions of Islamist

masculinity are portrayed as social criticism, also regarding his support of the Gate’s policies.

As said before, the man wearing the jilbāb supports the official religious establishment embodied in “al-

Šayḫ al-aꜤlā” (“the Highest Sheik”), which refers to the highest religious authority in the country. In one of

his lessons, the man wearing the jilbāb gives publicity and support to the religious statement (the fatwā),

issued by al- Šayḫ al-aꜤlā. This fatwa supports the official version of the Disgraceful Events by offering

religious arguments to consider injured people as bad citizens and unbelievers, as well as declaring the

boycott of the Violet Telephone Company un-religious (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 206). In this way, a triangle

between the Gate, the highest religious authority and the biggest telephone company is drawn, pointing at

the existence of a wide network of interests that feed into each other, resulting in the benefit of the ruling

elite, and the total submission of the rest, economically, politically and religiously.

Not surprisingly, media and the press appear as highly influential in both novels. In The Queue, the same

dichotomy along political lines is drawn. While the Gate makes use of its massive resources, people with

different opinions find it very difficult to share information. There is only one TV channel (Abdel Aziz,

2013: 128) and one newspaper left (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 132), all conveying the official story sketched by

the Gate. These views are so influential that are said to model the view of the people of the queue, to the

point that they all think the same, without second thoughts (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 105). On the other side,

rumours appear as the most common source of information in social gatherings.164 However, these informal

161 As Mernissin puts it, “fitna” can mean “disorder or chaos”, as well as “a beautiful woman” (Mernissi, 1985: 31). 162 For more details about women’s sexuality as a destabilizing device in society, see Mernissi (1985). 163 The separation between the sexes has also been identified by De Sondy as one of the main concerns of Muslim

Pakistani theologian and politician al-Mawdūdī, who serves as a case study for the use of the discursive tradition of

Islam to justify a conservative gender ideology. De Sondy explains that by defining the role of women at home, in

the realm of the private, al-Mawdūdī indirectly delineates what men’s roles are. For the case of gender segregation,

bodily closeness is said to be dangerous, as men and women are overpowered by their sexuality; thus, spatial

separation is needed between them (De Sondy, 2014: 42 & 45). In the same chapter, De Sondy explains that Al-

Mawdūdī’s arguments resonate with other conservative movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. 164 For example, the Second Disgraceful Events are told from the accounts of anonymous witnesses, together with

the story of a microbus driver (Abdel Aziz, 2013: 100).

91

talks cannot stand along against the official means of communication used by the Gate.

In Utopia, media does not play such an important role, especially when the absence of governmental

institutions and organizations equates with the virtual disappearance of other forms of organization or

entrepreneurship. However, one of the few references to press stresses its role in perpetuating certain

structures:

“hādihi hiya al-ṣaḥāfa al-waḥīda al-rā’ija al-yawm.. [...] maꜤa talmīḥ Ꜥām yūḥī bi-anna kulla al-

nisā’ Ꜥāhirāt wa-kulla al-rijāl qawwādūn” (Towfik, 2010: 115)

“This is the only newspaper in circulation today [...] with a general insinuation that all women

are whores and all men are pimps.” (Towfik, 2011: 98)

In the same page, Jābir also mentions how the newspapers are written as mere glorification of the rich in

Utopia, which points at the same direction of the media’s role in The Queue: perpetuating the ruling class.

8.3.6. Concluding remarks on masculinities, the state and other

institutions As explained in this chapter, a gender analysis of the state and the institutions as depicted in the novels

show that decision making is limited to a few individuals, all male, who also control the means of

production, the religious institutions and the media. This fact might seem obvious, as men’s control of all

aspects of life has been historically taken as natural or normal. As a consequence, dominant men appear in

a privileged, and almost un-challengeable position. In the case of The Queue, the security forces protect

the ruling elite,. References to Egypt are countless, with an emphasis on the control that security forces

exert on the economy, and the complicity that the religious institutions and the media have in perpetuating

the status quo. However, this control does not go uncontested, as all main characters challenge the

enormous power of the Gate in helping Yaḥyā extract the bullet.

At the same time, a masculinity analysis on the security services in Utopia helps understand the relationship

between global military masculinities, and local and regional masculinities based on control, violence and

dominance. Hence, what in principle looked like a social system based on local patterns of social inequality

and economic domination, emerges as part of a wider network of international relations of dependency.

Although these are merely two fictional societies, it is clear that gender theory serves its purpose at

disentangling how the hegemony of men is presented, also at the level of the state and other institutions.

92

9. Conclusion In this thesis, we have analysed how the narratological elements of Utopia and The Queue, together with

the content of the novel, are used to depict gender relations in these fictional societies. Basing the analysis

on Connell’s and Hearn’s theories on masculinities and the ‘hegemony of men’, together with Booker’s

theory on dystopian fiction as social criticism, we have interrogated how the social criticism embedded in

Utopia and The Queue also includes the gender order, gender relations, and specific embodied experiences

of both men and women. At the same time, and due to the claim that futuristic or seemingly far-away

societies depicted in dystopian fiction do point at the time in which the novels were written, some relevant

ethnographic works on masculinities in Egypt have served to actually prove that references to present day

Egypt are many, if not all.

The main research question about the position of men and masculinities in the wider gender relations in

The Queue and Utopia has been answered at three different levels: local, regional and global. First of all,

the analysis of bodily experience as represented in the novels in Chapter 8.1. reveals that personal

descriptions, personal attributes such as names, as well as the characters’ own perception of their body and

emotions are mediated by gender, social class, age, and even political affiliation. These categories, together

with fertility and virility as analysed in Chapter 8.2., are found to be the main factors that determine men’s

positionality in the gender hierarchy of these fictional societies.

The main scenarios of both novels have been presented, as well as the main characters’ immediate

interaction within the family and close social relations. This attention to the face-to-face aspect of gender

relations has allowed for the recognizing of local patterns of masculinities in both novels, which are very

far away from each other. While Utopia presents a dichotomy between rich and poor men in terms of

‘manhood’, and a strong masculine voice, The Queue depicts a more heterogeneous society, where both

men and women are limited by the omnipresence of the Gate. In narratological terms, we have seen that

the narrative voice is a key element in constructing the absolute masculine voice in Utopia, with two male

heterosexual homodiegetic narrators. In the case of The Queue, its heterodiegetic narrator allows for other

voices to appear through internal focalization, for example with the use of free indirect speech.

On the second level, Chapter 8.2. dedicated to men’s sexuality, points out the centrality of sex in the

construction of both fictional societies. A special focus on violence against women has been adopted, due

to the pre-eminence of this phenomenon in both novels. It was seen how both The Queue and Utopia depict

men’s sexuality as powerful, natural-driven, uncontrollable, penis centred, and seeking to achieve orgasm

whenever it can, which corresponds to the hegemonic version of men’s sexuality. This conception of men’s

sexuality permeates to the level of culture, and is supported and maintained by the state, the media, and

the religious institutions. Having in mind the huge differences between the fictional societies of both

Utopia and The Queue, the presence of men and the masculine as controlling, violent and hypersexualized

seems to be a common issue of concern in present day Egypt. The use of masculinity studies also casts

93

some light upon the consequences of such a gender order for women, also intersected by social class and

political affiliation.

On the third level, Chapter 8.3. examines the state and other affiliated institutions, which allows for a wider

consideration of otherwise seemingly naturalized aspects, such as the omnipresence of men in these

institutions, or the influence of global hegemonic masculinity over regional and local models of

masculinity. Institutions that were described as gender neutral in other analysis of Utopia and The Queue

are hereby shown to be intimately related to the controlling, violent and hypersexual masculinity

established in Chapter 8.2., as well as having a deep impact in limiting men’s possibilities in their

enactment of masculinity in their daily lives.

On one side, the present analysis of The Queue has exposed many of the hidden interconnections between

men and the state, including its security, surveillance and bureaucratic apparatuses. On the other side,

Utopia, with a seemingly state-less structure, has shown a similar configuration, where the male elite holds

absolute political power, as well as controls the economy, religious institutions, security forces, and the

media. In Utopia, this local structure is replicated at a global level, where countries such as the US exert

total control over others, which in some cases appear as feminized, in need of protection and control. In

this framework, the state –with its security, surveillance and bureaucratic apparatuses– the economy, the

media, and the official religious establishment, have been found as the main institutions that influence

men’s position in the fictional societies.

Consequently, despite some differing attitudes at the level of men’s immediate interaction, the hegemony

of men permeates culture, sexuality, the economy, the state, and international relations in both novels. It is

important to clarify that the hegemony of men does not mean that literally ‘all men’ are better off than all

women, as some men are marginalized and, in many cases, it is difficult to separate class from gender, as

the reproduction of gender inequalities and class hierarchies are interlinked and inseparable (Ghannam,

2013: 164).

Nonetheless, The Queue and Utopia still offer space for contestation, as several characters clearly

challenge and oppose these naturalized conceptions of men as controlling, abusive, violent and hypersexual.

For example, Jābir, Yaḥyā or Dr Tāriq enact their masculinity differently, stressing the centrality of free-

will in challenging seemingly immovable and all-powerful structures, such as the gated compound Utopia

or the Gate. The same characters offer a complex emotional palette, are bound to help those in need, and

generally do not brutalize women.

As the use of ethnographic works for masculinities shows that the fictional societies portrayed in Utopia

and The Queue generally refer to the situation in present-day Egypt. Despite the fictionality of these

societies, multiple elements point at issues considered as problematic in gender relations at the time in

which the novels were written, such as (sexual) violence against women, the marginalization of women in

the political and social spheres, and the dominant and controlling project of the ruling elite. The inability,

or unwillingness of the authors to imagine a different fictional future for gender relations could indicate

94

that the hegemony of men is in itself a direct object of criticism, or that it is so naturalized that it went

through into these fictional societies without previous questioning. The fact that none of the multiple

articles analysing Utopia saw the use of manhood and sexuality as part of the criticism to certain economic,

political and social processes evidences how the hegemony of men is naturalized and taken as normal even

in academia.

The compelling and dramatic scenes of both Utopia and The Queue, such as the social segregation between

the rich and the poor, or the heavy bureaucracy used as means of control, point directly at the reality of

millions of people, not only in Egypt, but in other Arab countries.165 Therefore, the richness of these two

works of Egyptian dystopian fiction deserve more attention as an instrument for meaningful and intricate

social criticism. In light of this, further research is needed to create a theoretical framework for Arabic

dystopian fiction that pays attention to the intersections of intellectual, philosophical, cultural, political,

economic and social processes in the region, and that can relate them to global forces.

165 Through personal contacts, other Arab readers have seen in these novels not a fictional society, but a very real

one.

95

10. Bibliography Abaza, M. (2016). Cairo: Personal Reflections on Enduring Daily Life. Journal of Arabic and Islamic

Studies, pp. 221-388.

Abdalla, M. (2015). Challenged Masculinities: Sexuality, ꜤUrfi Marriage, and the State in Dahab, Egypt.

In: G. Ozyegin, ed., Gender and sexuality in Muslim cultures, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 37-54.

———. (2014). Masculinity on Shifting Grounds: Emasculation and the rise of the Islamist Political

Scene in Cairo in Post-Mubarak Egypt. In: H. Rizzo, ed., Masculinities in Egypt and the Arab world:

historical, literary, and social science perspectives, Cairo : The American University in Cairo Press, pp.

53-73.

Abdel Aziz, B. (2013). al-Ṭabūr. Cairo: Dār Al-tanwīr lil-tabāʼa wa al-nashar.

———. (2016a). The Queue, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette. Brooklyn: Melville House.

———. (2016b). Basma Abdel Aziz on writing The Queue [online], For Book’s Sake. Available at:

http://forbookssake.net/2016/06/09/basma-abdel-aziz-writing-queue/ Consulted last: 18th May 2020.

Published on: 9th June 2016.

Abdelmoez, J. W. (2018). Muscles, Moustaches and Machismo: Narratives of Masculinity by Egyptian

English-Language Media Professionals and Media Audiences. Masculinities: A Journal of Identity and

Culture, (Feb.-Aug.), pp. 197-225.

Aghacy, S. (2009). Masculine Identity in the Fiction of the Arab East Since 1967. Syracuse: Syracuse

University Press.

Almaany.com. Available at: https://www.almaany.com/

Alter, A. (2016). Middle Eastern Writers Find Refuge in the Dystopian Novel [online]. The New York

Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/books/middle-eastern-writers-find-refuge-in-

the-dystopian-novel.html Consulted last: 18th May 2020. Published on: 30th May 2016.

Amar, P. (2011a). Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out? International Feminist

Journal of Politics, (no. 3), pp. 299 – 328.

———. (2011b). Middle East Masculinity Studies Discourses of ‘Men in Crisis’: Industries of Gender in

Revolution. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 7(3), pp. 36-70.

96

Al Saadi, T. (2014). Des despotes et des opprimés dans les romans de Ǧamāl al-Ġīṭānī. Arabica 61, pp.

664-696.

———. (2011). Utopia / Dystopia through the theme of Immigration in Two Arabic Short Stories. In: K.

Eksell and S. Guth, eds., Borders and beyond: crossings and transitions in modern Arabic literature,

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Asad, T. (2009), The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Qui Parle, (Vol. 17 No. 2), pp. 1-30.

ꜤAsāqila, I. (2011). Binā’ al-šaḫṣīyyāt fī riwāyāt al-ḫayāl al-Ꜥilmī fī al-adab al-Ꜥarabī. Amman: Azmina.

Badawi, E. M. and Abdel Haleem, M. (2013). ن/ج/س n–j–s [online]. In: E. M. Badawi and M. Abdel

Haleem, eds., Dictionary of Qurʾanic Usage. Available at: http://dx.doi.org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1163/1875-

3922_dqu_SIM_001666 Consulted last: 24th April 2020. Published on: 2013.

Bahoora, H. (2015). The Figure of the Prostitute, Tajdid, and Masculinity in Anticolonial Literature of

Iraq. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, (March), pp. 42-62.

Bakker, B. (2018a). Arabic dystopian in the 21st century: a study of 21st century Arabic dystopian fiction

through the analysis of four works of Arabic dystopian narrative [online]. Bachelor’s thesis, Dalarna

University. Available at: http://www.diva-

portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1250016&dswid=9445 Consulted last: 18th January 2020.

Published on: 21st September 2018a.

———. (2018b). Dystopian Trends in Modern Arabic Literature. Al Jadid, (Vol. 22, No. 75).

Balbaaki, R. (1995). Al-Mawrid. A modern Arabic-English Dictionary. Beirut: Dar El-Ilm Lilmalayin.

Baobaid, M. (2006). Masculinity and gender violence in Yemen. In: L. Ouzgane, ed., Islamic

masculinities, London: Zed books, pp. 161-183.

Barbaro, A. (2013). La fantascienza nella letteratura araba. Roma: Carocci.

Berg, L. (2017). Creating a Man, a Mouse or a Monster? – Masculinity as Formulated by Syrian Female

Novelists through the Second Half of the 20th Century. PhD. University of Edinburgh.

Bilgic, A. (2015). Hybrid Hegemonic Masculinity of the EU before and after the Arab Spring: A Gender

Analysis of Euro-Mediterranean Security Relations. Mediterranean Politics, (Vol. 20, No. 3), pp. 322–

97

341.

Campbell, I. (2018). Arabic Science Fiction. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

———. (2015). Prefiguring Egypt's Arab Spring: Allegory and Allusion in Ahmad Khālid Tawfīq's

Utopia. Science Fiction Studies, (Vol. 42 No. 3 November), pp. 541-556.

Chiti, E. (2016). ’A Dark Comedy’: Perceptions of the Egyptian Present between Reality and Fiction.

Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, (16), pp. 273-289.

Clute, J. and Nicholls, P. (1993). The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction. London: Orbit.

Booker, M. K. (1994a). Dystopian literature: a theory and research guide. Westport: Conn. Greenwood

Press.

———. (1994b). The dystopian impulse in modern literature: fiction as social criticism. Westport:

Conn. Greenwood Press.

Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist

Theory. Theatre Journal, (Vol. 40, No. 4), pp. 519-531.

Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities, 2nd ed, Cambridge: Polity.

———. (1987). Gender and Power: society, the person and sexual politics. Cambridge: Polity in

association with Blackwell.

Connell, R. W. and Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: rethinking the concept.

Gender & Society, (Vol. 19 No. 6), pp. 829-859.

Conrad, L. I. (1996). The world of Ibn-Ṭufayl: interdisciplinary perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān. Leiden:

Brill.

Cooke, M. (1994). Naguib Mahfouz, Men, and the Egyptian Underworld. In: P. F. Murphy, ed., Fictions

of Masculinity, Crossing cultures, Crossing sexuality. New York: New York University Press, pp. 96-121.

Deeb, L. and Winegar, J. (2012). Anthropologies of Arab-majority societies. Annual review of

anthropology, (41), pp. 537-558.

DeKeseredy, W. S. and Schwartz, M. D. (2011). Theoretical and Definitional Issues in Violence against

98

Women. In: C. M. Renzetti et al, eds., Sourcebook on Violence against Women. Thousand Oaks: SAGE

Publications, pp. 3-20.

———. (2005). Masculinities and Interpersonal Violence. In: M. S. Kimmel, J. Hearn and R. W.

Connell, eds., Handbook of Studies on Men & Masculinities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc.,

pp. 353-366.

De Sondy, A. (2014). The crisis of Islamic masculinities. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Easton, L. and Schroeder, R. (eds). (2007). Influence of Imagination: Essays on Science Fiction and

Fantasy as Agents of Social Change. Jefferson: McFarland & Company.

El Feki, S. (2013). Sex and the citadel: intimate life in a changing Arab world. New York: Pantheon

Books.

Fernández Parilla, G. (2006). La literatura marroquí contemporánea. La novela y la crítica literaria.

Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla La-Mancha.

Fludernik, M. (2009). An Introduction to Narratology. London: Routledge.

Genette, G. (1980). Narrative discourse: an essay in method. Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell U.P.

Gerami, S. (2005). Islamist Masculinity and Muslim Masculinities. In: M. S. Kimmel, J. Hearn and R.

W. Connell, eds., Handbook of Studies on Men & Masculinities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications

Inc. pp. 448-457.

Ghannam, F. (2013). Live and Die Like a Man: Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt. Stanford University

Press.

Ghoussoub, M. and Sinclair-Webb, E. (eds.) (2000). Imagined masculinities: male identity and culture in

the modern Middle East. London: Saqi.

Greenberg, N. (2019). Ahmed Khaled Towfik: Days of Rage and Horror in Arabic Science Fiction.

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, (60:2), pp. 169-178.

Guth, S. (1995). The function of Sexual Passages in some Egyptian Novels from the 1980s. In: R. Allen,

H. Kilpatrick, and E. de Moor, eds., Love and sexuality in modern Arabic literature. London: Saqi.

99

Hearn, J. (2012). Men/masculinities: war/militarism - searching (for) the obvious connections? In: A.

Kronsell and E. Svedberg, eds., Making gender, making war: violence, military and peacekeeping

practices. New York: Routledge, pp. 36–46.

———. (2011). Neglected Intersectionalities in studying Men: Age(ing), virtuality, transnationality. In:

Lutz et al., eds, Framing Intersectionality. Farnham: Ashgate.

———. (2004). From hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men. Feminist Theory, (Vol. 5 Issue

1), pp. 49-72.

Hijab, N. (2001). Women and Work in the Arab World. In: S. Joseph and S. Slyomovics, eds., Women

and power in the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hinds, M. and Badawi, E. (1986). A dictionary of Egyptian Arabic, Arabic-English. Beirut: Librairie du

Liban.

Hoffman Baruch, E. (1984). Women in Men’s utopias. In: Rohrlich and Hoffman Baruch, eds., Women

in search of utopia: mavericks and mythmakers. New York: Shocken Books.

Hooper, C. (2001). Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics. New

York: Columbia University Press.

Inhorn, M. C. (2012). The new Arab man: emergent masculinities, technologies, and Islam in the Middle

East. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ismail, S. (2006). Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

Jacob, W. C. (2014). Revolutionary mankind: Egypt and the time of al-Futuwwa. In: H. Rizzo, ed.,

Masculinities in Egypt and the Arab world: historical, literary, and social science perspectives, Cairo:

The American University in Cairo Press, pp. 32-52.

———. (2011). Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity,

1870–1940. Duke: Duke University Press.

Jacquemond, R. (2013). The Yacoubian Building and its sisters: reflections on readership and written

culture in modern Egypt. In: M. Soliman and W. El Hamamsy, eds., Popular Culture in the Middle East

and North Africa: A Postcolonial Outlook. New York: Routledge, pp. 223-236.

100

Al-Jazīra, (2017). ꜤAbd al-Raḥmān al-Abnūdī. [online] Available at:

https://www.aljazeera.net/encyclopedia/icons/2015/4/26/%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%86-

%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%A8%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AF%D9%8A Accessed last on: 19th

May 2020. Published on: 26th April 2017.

Joseph, S. (1999). Intimate selving in Arab families: gender, self, and identity. Syracuse: Syracuse

University Press.

Al-Jurf, M. Ṣ. (2014). Binaՙ ṣūrat al-šakhṣīya al-dhukūrīya fī al-riwāya al-‘arabīya al-sūrīyah. Damascus:

Afkār lil-dirāsāt wa al-našr.

Kelly, L. (2015). Violence against women. In: V. Robinson and D. Richardson, eds., Introducing Gender

and Women’s Studies, 4th Edition, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 114-32.

Khayrutdinov, D. (2014). Ahmad Khaled Tawfik’s Novel Utopia as an Important Example of the New

Wave of Science Fiction in Arabic Literature. World Applied Sciences Journal, (31), pp. 190-192.

Leber, A. (2017). Eternal Nightmares of the Hounded Mind: On ‘Post-Revolutionary Egyptian

Dystopias’ [online]. ArabLit Quarterly & ArabLit. Available at: https://arablit.org/2017/07/18/eternal-

nightmares-of-the-hounded-mind-on-post-revolutionary-egyptian-dystopias/ Accessed last on: 17th May

2020. Published on: 18th July 2017.

Lutterbeck, D. (2013). Arab Uprisings, Armed Forces, and Civil–Military Relations. Armed Forces &

Society, 39(1), pp. 28-52.

Madoeuf, A. and Pagès-El Karoui, D. (2016). Le Caire en 2015 et en 2023: deux dystopies

anticipatrices? Les avenirs funestes de la capitale égyptienne dans Tower of dreams et Utopia. Annales

de géographie, (N° 709-710), pp. 360-377.

Mahadeen, E. (2016). Arabizing “Masculinity”. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, (November),

pp. 450-452.

Mäkelä, J. P. (2014). The Arab Spring’s Impact on Egypt’s Securitocracy. International Journal of

Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, (27), pp. 217–239.

101

Malti-Douglas, F. (1996). Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān as a Male Utopia. In: L. I. Conrad, ed., The world of Ibn-

Ṭufayl: interdisciplinary perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn-Yaqẓān. Leiden: Brill.

Massad, J. A. (2007). Desiring Arabs, University of Chicago Press.

Mernissi, F. (1985). Beyond the veil: male-female dynamics in modern Muslim society. London: Al Saqi.

Metzker Coutinho, E. (2002). Gossypol: a contraceptive for men. Contraception, (65), pp. 259-63.

Milich, S. (2019). The Politics of Terror and Traumatization: State Violence and Dehumanization in

Basma ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s al-Ṭābūr. In: S. Guth, and T. Pepe, eds., Arabic Literature in a Posthuman World

: Proceedings of the 12th Conference of the European Association for Modern Arabic Literature

(EURAMAL), May 2016, Oslo: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 145-163s.

Moore, L. (2018). ‘What happens after saying no?’ Egyptian Uprisings and Afterwords in Basma Abdel

Aziz’s The Queue and Omar Robert Hamilton’s The City Always Wins. CounterText 4.2, pp. 192–211.

Morgan, C. (2012). Ahmed Khaled Towfik Interview. [online] The World SF Blog. Available at:

https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/monday-original-content-ahmed-khaled-towfik-interview/

Accessed last on: 17th May 2020. Published on: 11th June 2012.

Morgan, H. (2017). A Brave New Cairo? The Pharmacology of Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s ‘Utopia’.

[online] Culturised. Available at: https://culturised.co.uk/2017/02/a-brave-new-cairo-the-pharmacology-

of-ahmed-khaled-towfiks-utopia/

Accessed last on: 12th April 2020. Published on: 7th February 2017

Murphy, S. (2017). Science Fiction and the Arab Spring: the critical dystopia in contemporary Egyptian

fiction. [online] Strange Horizons. Available at: http://dx.doi.org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1163/1875-

3922_dqu_SIM_001666 Accessed last on: 15th May 2020. Published online on: 30th October 2017.

Nājī, S. (2006). Ṣūrat al-rajul fī al-qaṣaṣ al-nisāՙā. Cairo: al-Majlis al-Ꜥalā li-al-ṯaqāfa.

Page, R. E. (2006). Literary and Linguistic Approaches to Feminist Narratology, New York: Palgrave.

Pagès-El Karoui, D. (2013). Utopia ou l’anti-Tahrir: le pire des mondes dans le roman de A. K. Towfik.

102

EchoGéo, (25/2013 juillet – septembre).

Patai, D. (1982). Gamesmanship and Androcentrism in Orwell's 1984. PMLA, (Vol. 97 No. 5 Oct.), pp.

856-870.

Plummer, K. (2005). Male Sexualities. In: M. S. Kimmel, J. Hearn and R. W. Connell, eds., Handbook of

Studies on Men & Masculinities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc., pp. 178-195.

Prince, G. (2003). Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

al-Qamāh, N. Ṣ. (2018). Adab al-madīna al-fāsida intiqāl min al-adab al-ḫayāl ilā al-wāqiꜤ al-ḥaqiqī.

[online] al-ꜤArab. Available at: https://alarab.co.uk/en/node/158753 Accessed last on: 16th May 2020.

Published online on: 25th February 2018.

Resheq, R. and Majdoubeh, A. Y. (2019). Critical Dystopia: Local Narrative in the Threshold in Ahmed

Khaled Towfik’s Utopia. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES), (Vol. 19 No.1), pp.

175-194.

Rizzo, H. (2015). Introduction: The State of the Field of Masculinity Studies. In: H. Rizzo, ed.,

Masculinities in Egypt and the Arab world: historical, literary, and social science perspectives, Cairo :

The American University in Cairo Press, pp. 1-11.

Robinson, V. (2015). Masculinity Studies, Gender Relations and Feminism. In: V. Robinson and D.

Richardson, eds., Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies, 4th Edition, London: Palgrave Macmillan,

pp. 58-76.

Richardson, D. (2015). Conceptualizing gender. In: V. Robinson and D. Richardson, eds., Introducing

Gender and Women’s Studies, 4th Edition, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3-22.

Roded, R. (2006). Alternate images of the Prophet Muhammad’s virility. In: L. Ouzgane, ed., Islamic

masculinities, London: Zed books.

Rooney, C. (2013). From Cairo to Tottenham: Big Societies, Neoliberal States, Colonial Utopias.

Journal for Cultural Research, (Vol. 17 No. 2), pp. 144–163.

103

Al-Shārūnī, Y. (2000). al-Ḫayāl al-Ꜥilmī fī al-adab al-Ꜥarabī al-muꜤāsir. Cairo: al-Hī’a al-maṣriyya al-

Ꜥāma li-al-kitāb.

Snir, R. (2000). The emergence of Science Fiction in Arabic literature. Der Islam, pp. 263-84.

Snodgrass, M. E. (1995). Encyclopedia of utopian literature. California: ABC-CLIO.

Stableford, Brian, Historical dictionary of science fiction literature. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004.

Tadros, M. (2016). Challenging Reified Masculinities: Men as Survivors of Politically Motivated Sexual

Assault in Egypt. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, (November), pp. 323-342.

Toelle, H. (ed) (2007). Histoire de la littérature arabe moderne: 1800-1945. T. 1. Arles: Sindebad, Actes

sud.

Towfik, A. K. (2011). Utopia. Translated by Chip Rossetti. London: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation

Publishing.

———. (2010). Yūtūbyā. London: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.

Treacher, A. (2007). Postcolonial subjectivity: Masculinity, shame, and memory. Ethnic and Racial

Studies, (Vol. 30 No. 2 March), pp. 281-299.

Wardini, E. (2013. Transcription Rules for Arabic Fuṣḥā and Lebanese Arabic. Stockholm University.

Warhol, R. and Lanser, S. (2015) Narrative Theory Unbound: Queer and Feminist Interventions.

Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Wehr, H. (1980). A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 3rd Edition. Beirut: Librarie du Liban.