Essay Questions

Why is the Woman Doctor lonely most of her lifetime?

The narrator is focused on her work as a doctor, and when the time comes to search for love, things work opposite to her expectations. After returning to the city, the Woman Doctor meets a man seeking medication for his ailing old mother. Later, the Woman Doctor falls in love with the man, but he turns out not to be ostentatious. The man pretends to be loving and caring, but he is just looking for a replacement for his lost mother in reality. The Woman Doctor finds the marriage boring and decides to divorce the man. Later, the narrator falls in love with a surgeon but later realizes that he has a dominant character and rejects him. The narrator decides to kill her boredom and loneliness by spending most of her time in her clinic. Consequently, the Woman Doctor is lonely because she fails to get her perfect match.

How does the Woman Doctor go against the odds of her cultural background?

The Woman Doctor is raised by a Muslim family that observes all the religious and cultural regulations. According to her parents' wish, she is to be married off to a man at an early age. However, the narrator is pursuing her dreams of becoming a doctor but not serving a man as a housewife. She focuses on her studies and graduates from the university to become a Woman Doctor. During her duty, she examines the bodies of a man and a woman. She realizes that most taboos are false, and there is no significant difference between man, woman, and animals. She also defies her societal expectations by dating men of her choice and divorcing them as she wishes.

What is symbolic about the two naked bodies in the dissecting room?

One of the crucial classes that the narrator had to attend is the dissecting lesson. There were two naked bodies in the dissection room, a man and a woman laid side by side. The narrator realized that at death, both men and women are equal. The two nude bodies embody the illogical prospects and gender guidelines in humanity. The narrator realized that gender inequality in real life is unnecessary because, at death, there is no superiority. Therefore, both men and women should be given equal chances and opportunities in life without discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation.