The Quest for Body and Voice in Assia Djebar\u27s So Vast the Prison

Using Northrop Frye\u27s definition of the quest novel and Joseph Campbell\u27s writings, Susannah Rodríguez Drissi explores in her paper, The Quest for Body and Voice in Assia Djebar\u27s So Vast the Prison, the motif of the journey as Djebar adapts it to her female characters. Rodríguez Drissi proposes that in previous studies concerning the hero -- such as in James Frazer\u27s The Golden Bough or in Joseph Campbell\u27s The Hero with a Thousand Faces -- women are relegated to a secondary role. Recently, however, it has become evident that the study of the woman as heroine is necessary to a better understanding of not only of women\u27s literature but of literature as a whole. Drawing on the example of Assia Djebar\u27s work who dedicates her entire literary work to the reinstitution of the female voice in Algeria and whose narrators are always women, Rodríguez Drissi argues for the relevance of the study of the heroine in the study of culture and literature