Abstract: This study critically explores how Jarīmatul Intiqām, an Algerian Arabic novel, portrays mariticide, patricide, and suicide as gendered strategies of resistance to trauma and systemic oppression. Drawing on postcolonial feminist theory and trauma theory, the research examines how the female protagonists' acts of fatal violence serve not only as personal responses to suffering but also as political statements against entrenched patriarchal norms within Algerian society. Through close textual analysis, the paper interrogates the symbolic and narrative functions of these extreme acts, revealing how they complicate conventional understandings of victimhood, agency, and justice. Rather than depicting women as passive subjects, the novel frames their violence as a means of reclaiming autonomy and articulating unspeakable pain. At the same time, the ethical implications of representing such violence are considered, particularly the tension between visibility, catharsis, and the potential re-inscription of trauma. Ultimately, the study contends that Jarīmatul Intiqām leverages narrative violence as a literary device to expose the silences imposed on women’s experiences and to foreground the socio-political dimensions of trauma and retaliation.
Keywords: Gendered violence, trauma, resistance, mariticide, patricide, suicide, postcolonial feminism, Algerian literature, Jarīmatul IntiqāmDOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/tjllc.2025.v04i02.012
author/Abdulwahab, Y.O. & Akewula, A.O.
journal/Tasambo JLLC 4(2) | July 2025 |
