Chapter 2, pages 67-77 Summary and Analysis

After that day, Firdaus refuses to bend her head; she looks people straight in the eyes and stares at money. She refuses two men because "there are plenty of men and I want to choose with whom to go" (p. 68). It takes many years before Firdaus tears her body and self from the people who held them in their grasp and they become her own. Now, she decides where to live, what to eat and who to sleep with. At the age of twenty-five, she has her first apartment, her bank account mounts continually, and she has free time to read or discuss politics with a few close friends of her choosing. She receives guests in her bedroom because her library is reserved for her alone. The first time that Di'aa, a journalist and man of culture...