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B. Review of Related Studies
Many researchers have criticized Saadawi’s work especially her famous novel, Woman at Point Zero. Most of the styles are used by Saadawi is critical
writing style. This critical writing style has brought Saadawi into both a researcher and an author of literary work. Her controversial writing in Woman at Point Zero
is merely about the condition in Egypt where she finds child abuse still becomes a serious problem.
Many critics have come to Saadawi. One of them is a critic comes from Hannah Todd from Publisher Weekly,
Egypt’s foremost feminist writer again confronts the role of women in Muslim society….Saadawi writes beautifully and in abundant and evocative
physical detail of an Egypt that remains closely tied to the land and to a way of life that in many aspects has not changed for centuries
www.webster.edusaadawi.html
. Nawal El Saadawi, a writer who writes many stories about women and
children, has proved as the leading of spokeswomen in the world. She writes many good novels that have been published in many countries. In her novel,
Woman at Point Zero , she tries to figure out the real condition of children in
Egypt. In Egypt, there are many people live under the insufficient economy. Many
children can not go to school and have to work outside or help household job. This kind of condition has brought Nawal El Saadawi to write a novel based on
the true story that she had interviewed with a prisoner named Firdaus. In this novel, Nawal provides a story with a flashback plot about child, love, and abuse
which are closely related into reality that happen in our lives. By reading every
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28 page of this novel, the reader will be able to feel each moment of this story which
will help them also to understand the character of Firdaus and all her actions. In Sanata Dharma University, there are some undergraduate theses which
discuss some certain topics using novel Woman at Point Zero. In 2004, Rigen Pratitisari, a student in English Education Study Program had written her thesis
entitled “Firdaus` motivation in becoming a prostitute as revealed in Nawal El Saadawi`s Woman at Point Zero”
. In the same year also, Yoelia Ong wrote her thesis which focused on motivation entitled “Feminism as reflected in Nawal El
Saadawi`s novel Woman at Point Zero” . Two years later, Dewi Maharani Purba
wrote her thesis about motivation in which the title is “A study of the main character`s motivations for accepting the death sentence in Nawal El Saadawi`s
Woman at Point Zero” . The latest study was about motivation using comparative
study entitled “Motivation of the main character in becoming a prostitute : a comparative study of Paulo Coelho`s eleven minutes and Nawal El Saadawi`s
Woman at Point Zero” which was written by Risa Pareka in 2008. Seeing the
topics that had been discussed previously, the writer would like to discuss other important points from the novel which has not been discussed yet. This study
focuses on the influence of child abuse towards Firdaus’ personality development by relating this study with psychological approach. The use of psychological
approach will give clearer description about Firdaus’ personality development. This approach helps the writer to know Firdaus from her psychological aspects
and her personality development after experiencing child abuse. This will answer the first and third problem formulation. Firdaus’ personality development is
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29 influenced by many aspects. These aspects can be found out using theory of
personality development by Hurlock.
C. Theoretical Framework