The novel Zā'irāt al-Khamīs (Visitors on Thursday) by Saudi author Badriyah al-Bishr, through its precise representation of women's lived experiences, exposes the violent mechanisms of patriarchy and its impact on their destiny and identity. The present study intends to examine the concept of feminine individuality (subjectivity) in this novel, analyzing it based on Julia Kristeva's theory of the 'Abject.'
The analysis of the novel indicates that the violence-producing patriarchal structure, particularly in its specific formation, transforms the female identity into an abjected object that remains suspended at the unclean and intolerable boundaries of the social order. Child marriage, the cycle of successive divorces, and the deprivation of child custody are not merely individual events but are mechanisms for the reproduction and stabilization of this state of abjection within the symbolic patriarchal order.
The research findings show that the reduction of women to an abjected object is not a random consequence but a fundamental mechanism for the perpetuation and reproduction of patriarchy.
It demonstrates that feminine individuality in such an order is perpetually suspended, ruptured, and caught in the reproduction of suffering.