Arab women are often portrayed as in need of saving from the conditions they live in. This narrative takes away the possibility of these women to be agents of change in their own lives. This thesis...Show moreArab women are often portrayed as in need of saving from the conditions they live in. This narrative takes away the possibility of these women to be agents of change in their own lives. This thesis aims to explore how Saudi women push back against societal norms in literary fiction. Specifically, it investigates how Saudi female fictional characters employ different forms of agency in physical and online public spaces compared to private and women-only spaces. The close reading of segments of two fictional literary works was used to showcase how female protagonists employ different understandings of agency. These examples were then linked to real-life examples to demonstrate that fiction is strongly rooted in reality. What became clear is that there is a multiplicity of ways for Saudi women to employ agency to resist and reshape the established order and practices, and different spaces within Saudi society offer different opportunities for employing agency. Moreover, there are different types of agency employed by different types of Saudi women. Thus, Saudi women can be agents of change within Saudi society and their own lives.Show less
