The Unconscious and Patriarchy: A Psychoanalytic Study of Nawal El Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile

He could see her firm rounded buttocks pressing up against the long gabaleya from behind,” writes Saadawi of the mayor in her novel, God Dies by the Nile (p. 18). The sentence astounds the reader and lets him or her question the extent of rot among male characters in Nawal El Saadawi’s society. This and dozen other texts in Saadawi (1985a), God Dies by the Nile suggest that there lies more behind the male psyche than the class struggle as many scholars claim.  Creative writers, according to Freud, write from a dream world. The so called inspiration, for Freud is the unconscious world that brings out the primordial instincts of the human mind, namely, death and sex instincts.  Saadawi (1985a), God Dies by the Nile depicts Freudian principles in an amazing manner. This article employs the psychoanalytic criticism to analyse elements of the unconscious and show the relationship between psychic apparatus and patriarchy in Nawal Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile. The study will analyse the author’s mind and infer her wishes and emotional characteristics