Abstract

This research presents a close textual analysis of Liana Badr’s novel, The Eye of the Mirror, from the perspective of postcolonial feminism. It explores the traumatic experiences of dispossessed Palestinian women in exile, highlighting their resistance and the dual colonization they face from both external and internal oppressive forces: repressive patriarchy, tyrannical social mores, and the traumas of the Lebanese Civil War, an extension of the legacy of the Israeli Occupation. Aisha, the protagonist of the novel, is a Palestinian refugee in the Tal Ezza’tar camp in Lebanon. She is a subaltern outsider subjected to traumatic wartime experiences, persecution by suppressive patriarchal forces, and the dehumanizing perception of her as the invisible “Other” by the Lebanese Christian community. The article argues that Aisha's controlling and embittered father, Assayed, is a politically emasculated and militarily defeated patriarch who loses his power in the process of the Palestinian exodus and vents his anger and defeats on Aisha; thus, he enforces oppressive patriarchal societal norms that prevent her from moving freely. The article reveals that Aisha's poignant experiences in the novel and the double predicaments she undergoes capture the experiences of a large number of marginalized and oppressed Palestinian women, who were driven from their ancestral homeland, Palestine, and are now living in exile in refugee camps across the world. Ultimately, the study contends that Aisha emerges as a voice for the voiceless, resisting the masculinist culture that seeks to erase her identity while simultaneously struggling for her survival as a human being entitled to peace and dignity.