Constructing New Female Subjectivities under Saudi Vision 2030: A Study of Rajaa Alsanea’s Girls of Riyadh as a Counter-Narrative

Abstract

Saudi society has undergone many social and cultural changes over the past decade that have influenced the way people think about crucial issues related to gender roles, relationships, female agency, and women’s mobility and visibility. Rajaa Alsanea’s novel Girls of Riyadh (2005) is narrated in the form of a series of anonymous emails that trace the private lived experiences of four young Saudi women -Gamarah, Sadeem, Lamees, and Michelle- surrounding love, marriage, and their struggle to construct new identities while transcending the many constraints imposed by a patriarchal system. Alsanea offers nuanced insights into, and aspirations for change amid the intersecting social, economic, and cultural forces that are crucial to shaping women’s lives. Within the theoretical framework of feminism, and through a qualitative thematic textual analysis supported by narratological character analysis, this paper examines Girls of Riyadh as a Counter-Narrative that challenges the dominant narratives in portraying young Saudi women. Contrary to dominant narratives, Alsanea presents the four protagonists as agents of rebellion and defiance against entrenched traditional norms, as they attempt to construct new identities by transcending all social and cultural constraints. The paper seeks to address the following questions: How far does Alsanea succeed in adopting Counter-Narrative as a narrative form to convey her vision of the predicament of the Saudi woman? In what way can Girls of Riyadh be read as a counter-narrative? How far do the protagonists’ diverse experiences subvert the conventional portrayal of women in mainstream Saudi narratives? To what extent can the novel be considered a visionary novel that creates considerable space for social and cultural change and reform embodied in Vision 2030?