Feminist Discourse Strategies of Estrangement and Transcendence in the Modern Qatari Story

Abstract

This study aims to examine the feminine narrative discourse (short story) in Qatar by employing the concept of discourse as a cultural practice. These stories aim to reflect female perspectives parallelly in numerous contexts to deconstruct a dominant society in which female writers practice their craft. Firstly, they focus on the representation of women the body and soul because this strategy aims to stress female existence. As the female presence is incomplete, this encompasses personality, the social perspective, and functional roles. A second strategy involves presenting limited communication, as the majority of female male relationships are incomplete in most stories. Thirdly, these stories criticise community values that besiege the female existence. All three strategies include the stories as a textual context and disclose some themes (e.g., the stories’ content), but they possess another discourse function that is associated with the confrontation between the female configuration and society’s values. Keywords: Narrative discourse, feminism, short story, society, Qatar