THE UNCONSCIOUS AND PATRIARCHY: A PSYCHOANALYTIC
STUDY OF NAWAL EL SAADAWI’S GOD DIES BY THE NILE
ANDREW NYONGESA
Mount Kenya University
ABSTRACT
He could see her firm rounded buttocks pressing up against the long
gabaleya from behind,” writes Saadawi of the mayor in her novel, God Dies
by the Nile (p. 18). The sentence astounds the reader and lets him or her
question the extent of rot among male characters in Nawal El Saadawi’s
society. This and dozen other texts in Saadawi (1985a), God Dies by the Nile
suggest that there lies more behind the male psyche than the class struggle
as many scholars claim. Creative writers, according to Freud, write from a
dream world. The so called inspiration, for Freud is the unconscious world
that brings out the primordial instincts of the human mind, namely, death
and sex instincts. Saadawi (1985a), God Dies by the Nile depicts Freudian
principles in an amazing manner. This article employs the psychoanalytic
criticism to analyse elements of the unconscious and show the
relationship between psychic apparatus and patriarchy in Nawal Saadawi’s
God Dies by the Nile. The study will analyse the author’s mind and infer her
wishes and emotional characteristics.
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NJHS
Nairobi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Print ISSN 2520-4009
© Nairobi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 1, Issue 3, May 2017