The protagonist of Woman at Point Zero ends up in a jail cell like the one pictured above with the narrator of the novel. This story depicts a woman’s struggles with violent men and her eventual death sentence (courtesy of LoneWolfmontana on flickr).
Woman at Point Zero is the story of Firdaus, a woman who has been sentenced to death by hanging for killing a man. The story is a combination of nonfiction and fiction that is framed through the author listening to Firdaus tell her life’s story as the pair sits on the floor of Firdaus’s jail cell.
Firdaus has refused to talk to most people, but ultimately decides to frantically tell the author her story just hours before she is to be taken away to her death. The story starts slowly but seems to frantically speed up as more and more details are added, giving readers the impression that there is less time between each of Firdaus’s thoughts.
It feels as though Firdaus is bringing you along with her for every detail, and towards the end she’s practically dragging you because you can barely keep up with all her emotional life events. While this sounds like it would be overwhelming, I loved it because it gave a sense of the fever with which Firdaus tells the author her story.
This book is full of extremely raw emotion, and centers around the violence women face at the hands of men. This means that there are some semi-graphic accounts of physical and sexual abuse, so make sure you are prepared for such topics if you choose to read it.
This book was an assigned reading for a class of mine and I honestly didn’t expect to actually enjoy it. After reading the first few pages, I assumed this book would serve as a depressing reminder of how poorly women all over the world are treated. It turned out to be much more than that.
As Firdaus confronts struggle after struggle I could feel her emotional bruising, extreme strength and willingness to rise above it all. This book is not just about women’s rights—it’s about overcoming what life throws at you.
This book is only about 140 pages, and it’s an easy read because of its heavy use of metaphor to break up the graphic emotional content, yet every single word is meaningful. There is not one sentence I felt the need to skim because it wasn’t important.
Despite the heavy content, this book manages to also be uplifting, empowering the reader to keep pushing through life’s obstacles. One example of this is when Firdaus is told, “life is a snake. They are the same, Firdaus. If the snake realizes you are not a snake, it will bite you. And if life knows you have no sting, it will devour you.”
One metaphor used repeatedly to show the cyclical nature of Firdaus’ life is the description of the eyes of those she comes to love. These eyes start as those of her mother but continue to morph throughout the book into those of various characters.
In these scenes, Firdaus repeats something along the lines of, “the white seemed to grow even whiter, and the black to become even blacker, as though light flowed through them from some unknown, mysterious source, neither on earth, nor in the heavens, for the earth was enveloped in the dark cloak of night, and the heavens had neither sun nor moon to light them up.” Firdaus always compares these characters’ eyes to light and dark or moon and sun.
I think this book should be read by anyone and everyone, not just for its feminist message, but for its life lessons. A large focus of the book is what it truly means to live.
The concluding message is that only you can determine what life means to you, as life is an individual experience that every person must embark on. While life can be difficult, it’s important to live your truth even if that brings you death, because living a lie is no life at all. There is no reader who can’t admire and learn from this story.