Dress as a marker of identity construction in Arab women’s literature from the diaspora

Abstract

This paper argues that dress is not a mere choice an individual makes; rather, it metonymizes almost every aspect of one’s identity. Through a critical analysis of Arab British novelists Fadia Faqir’s (2014) Willow Trees Don’t Weep and Leila Aboulela’s (2010) Lyrics Alley, the paper accentuates the skillful employment of dress in these novels and highlights its different implications. It also brings to light the strong relationship between the main characters and their choice of dress. In addition, this study draws on different theories of dress as an interdisciplinary subject in sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. The paper cites textual evidence which focuses on the different implications of dress and shows how these authors have used dress deliberately to comment on important social and political issues in their homelands and/in diaspora. Furthermore, it concentrates on these sartorial episodes to show that the identity construction of the main characters in these novels intricately intertwines with socioeconomic, political, cultural, religious, and psychological circumstances.