The deconstruction of patriarchal and political authority in the novel "The Settler's Daughter" by Avraham Shmuel Stein A Study in the Aesthetics of Feminist Documentary Narrative

Abstract

This study examines the deconstruction of patriarchal and political power in Avraham Shmuel Stein's novel “Bat HaMoshava” (Daughter of the Settlement) (1948), a novel that chronicles the beginnings of Zionist settlement in Palestine from a critical feminist perspective. The research employs a feminist documentary narrative methodology, integrating postcolonial, structuralist, and deconstructionist theories, feminist narratology, and microhistory.

The study concludes that the novel utilizes three main narrative mechanisms to deconstruct the official narrative: historical documentation (the novel opens with a letter rejecting the European Organization for Migration), a multiplicity of female voices (the voices of Myra, Carmela, and Sara Arnonson) that reveal the contradictions of collective memory, and the writing of the body that documents violence and female resistance. The novel also exposes the contradictions of the settlement project by deconstructing the colonial authority of the barons (the condition of "blind obedience") and presenting a complex picture of the relationship with Palestinians (Myra's forbidden relationship with the young Arab man, Salh, and the tragedy of Perah). Finally, the novel deconstructs foundational myths (the hero, the benefactor) through microcosm (details of hunger, disease, and poverty), creating a multilingual space (Hebrew and Arabic) that reflects the multiplicity of identities in Mandate Palestine.