Nebula 5.4, December 2008 Shihada: The Story of Zahra… 177 Engendering War in Hanan Al Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra By Isam M. Shihada 1. Introduction The urgency to retrieve memory in many Arab women's writings becomes the impetus to retell the stories of women silenced, marginalized, and excluded by their own communities. There is no doubt that with the retrieval of memory comes the resituating of the body from its condition as an object of male desire, and "its transformation into a desiring force that rejects its subjugation to a narrative of erasure" (Fayad 148). 1 Hanan Al Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra 2 is divided into two books. The first book is entitled "The Scars of Peace". In it we find the central female character, Zahra, is silently victimized by the patriarchal structure through its variously ugly manifestations. The second book is subtitled "The Torrents of War". Here we find a completely different character, one who is ready to do anything to stop the war, even if it takes a relationship with a sniper – a symbol of patriarchal war – which ends in her tragic death. 2. Engendering War in Hanan Al Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra My argument is that women are victimized by both patriarchy and war, and the futility of deconstructing the concept of war from within the isolation of patriarchy. For example, Zahra's father is portrayed as a patriarchal tyrant to his wife, Fatme and daughter Zahra, who is ever fearful of him: "(a)ll I knew was that I was afraid of my father, as afraid of the blows he dealt her as I was of those he dealt me; while she continued to tremble and wail in his grip"(15). The attention lavished on Zahra’s brother Ahmad as a child reflects the masculine ideals of the patriarchy and the strength of its grip on society. Zahra remembers the behavior of her mother towards her brother. Everyday, as we sat in the kitchen to eat, her love would be declared: having filled my plate with soup she serves my brother Ahmad, taking all her time, searching carefully for the best pieces of meat. She dips the ladle into the pot and salvages meat fragments. There they go into Ahmad’s dish. (11)