Resistance and rebellion of female protagonists in three Maghreb novels of the twentieth century; 'La voyeuse interdite' of Nina Bouraoui, 'Le châtiment des hypocrites' of Leila Marouane, et 'Reves de femmes: Une enfance au harem' of Fatima Merniss

My dissertation consists in analyzing strategies of revolt and resistance employed by the female protagonists of three novels: La voyeuse interdite by Nina Bouraoui, Le Châtiment des hypocrites by Leila Marouane, and Reves des femmes by Fatima Mernissi.;Through a reading of the colonial critic Albert Memmi, the postcolonial critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the psychologist Michel Foucault, as well as a thematic study of the novels, I discover coping mechanisms of female protagonists who are oppressed by a patriarchal society.;In my first chapter, I demonstrate how the narrator uses her mind to fantasize about the street in front of her window and thus, travels beyond the confines of her house. Her sister uses anorexia to delay her entrance into womanhood. These strategies are only temporarily beneficial to the characters because they cannot free them from their family prisons. In the second chapter of my dissertation, I reveal how the female protagonist of Le Châtiment uses the strategy of temporary amnesia to survive a kidnapping. Her writing in a journal enables her to bury her past as she attempts a new life as a prostitute, which constitutes her second identity. Another strategy of survival is her immigration overseas to become a married woman and assume a third identity. The protagonist rebels against her exploitative husband by murdering him and taking on a final and fourth identity. The strategies of violence and immigration helped the protagonist successfully escape male domination. In the third chapter of my work, I focus on the power of storytelling in Reves de femmes as a means of mental escape for characters trapped inside a harem, female solidarity as a means of easing the burdens of imprisonment, and the power of oral and written narration as agents of transformation.;The authors of these novels have provided, through their writing, tools of revolt and resistance for women all over the world suffering from subjection.