away. Another time, he comes to her again. He asks for money but this time she does not want to give it to him. She refuses him. She rejects him, but he keeps
forcing her. Thus, they do quarrel. They start to hit each other. He takes a knife and she is able to grab it from his hand. She kills him with his knife.
I caught hold of the latch of the door to open it, but he lifted his arms up in the air and slapped me. I raised my hand even higher than he had done,
and brought it down violently on his face. The whites of his eyes went red. His hand started to reach for the knife he carried in his pocket, but my
hand was quicker than his. I raised the knife and buried it deep in his neck, pulled it out of his neck and then thrust it deep into his chest, pulled it out
of his chest and plunged it deep into his belly. I stuck the knife into almost every part of his body p. 104.
After that, she feels so free, a thing that she has never had before. Firdaus, then, is arrested and sent to a prison. She is sentenced to death. However, she does not ask
for the freedom. She chooses to die rather than live under men‟s authority.
4.2.2 Men in Firdaus’ Eyes
Firdaus has many experiences with men. Those experiences create a different perception which influence her act and way of thinking. There are some
ideas about men which Firdaus has in her mind. They are as follows.
4.2.2.1 Abusers
During her life, many people hit Firdaus. Unfortunately, people who hit her are those who live close to her. Sheikh Mahmmoud, her hideous husband,
often slaps and hits her. He does not think how strong she is. Every time he thinks that his wife makes mistakes, he will jump and hit her directly. He does not even
consider that she is his wife. Additionally, he is quite stingy. If he sees her throw something away or use something more than usual, he will be very angry.
Probably, one of the causes is because the economic sector which change many times. The government holds some economic sectors. Additionally, Egypt remains
a poor and developing country. It makes common people difficult to improve their own business.
“And if I pressed a little more firmly than usual on the spoon as I took ghee out of the tin for cooking, he would scream out in anger, and draw
my attention to the fact that its contents were diminishing much more rapidly than they should.
… One day he discovered some leftover scraps of food, and started yelling at
me so loudly that all the neighbours could hear. After this incident, he got into the habit of beating me whether he had a reason for it or not.” p. 46
Bayoumi, a man who looks so gentle in the beginning, treats her badly. When she asks him about the job she is looking for, he gets angry. Without any
doubt, he hits her while he is saying abusive words. “…but he jumped up and slapped me on the face, saying, „How dare you raise your voice when you‟re
speaking to me, you street walker, you low woman?” p. 52. He does not stop on it. He does it again harder than before. “His hand was big and strong, and it was
the heaviest slap I had ever received on my face” p.52. Those experiences make her hate men more than before. In fact, she
becomes revengeful. There is no man who can really protect a woman. A woman has no right and she cannot decide many things by herself. While a man, he can
do many things as they like. He does not need to consider to his wife. A wife has many hard jobs to do, such as taking care the household, children, and husband.
What a man can do is only having sex, hitting the wife, forcing others in order to get money, making use of the situation in order to get a wealthy life.
