Athena's Quest for Freedom in Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello

Abstract

he Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelhois about the struggle of Athena against the several problems in the society.The novel intends to establish the harmonious society by making all the characters a ware that the conflict is prevalent when there is the combination of the people having different views.The novel has been analysed through feminist perspective.Feminism advocates political, social, and economic equality between male and female.There are various movements and theories that are concerned with the issue of gender difference, talks about the equality for women, and campaign for women’s rights and interests.In addition, feminist literary theory interprets a work of art or any intellectual discourse through the perspective of women and their concerns.According to the theory, men always establish norms, and women are defined as‘other’ with reference to these norms. There is little possibility of deviation of such conceptual values. The novel revolves around a Romanian girl named Athena adopted by a rich Lebanese family.Her real name is Sherin Khali land she attempts to over come the patriarchal norms and values. The novel also emphasizes the nature of existence of women in the male dominated society through the lenses women. This thesis studies the novel as depicting the condition of Athena who struggles throughout her life to get freedom, in the society, where women are dominated, discriminated and given bad names.