The Woman-Artist in Ruth Almog's Fiction: Her Formation and Engagement with the World

Israeli literary establishment has consistently assessed Almog as a writer preoccupied with "women's romantic issues." I propose that Almog's ars poetica focuses on two aspects of the woman-artist's interaction with the world: the artist's growth in patriarchal society, and her artistic preoccupation with Israeli ideological-political reality. Artistic growth entails twofold dissent: it defies the patriarchal order of women's marginality, and at the same time, it antagonizes the artist's formative sense of marginality. The understanding that the indispensable components of art—the pre-oedipal sources of creativity and the ability to express them—are shared by both men and women artists liberates the women-protagonists to engage in artistic creativity.

The process of liberation from gender politics dovetails with the woman-artist's ethical-political involvement. Almog's women-protagonists-artists are preoccupied with Israel's political situation and take a stand against its moral transgressions. From this perspective, the insensitive lovers represent the militaristic Israeli patriarchy, and their inability to love reflects the incapability for empathy engendered by the Zionist ethos of militant separatism. Emphatic opposition to Israel's empowered isolation defines Almog's fiction as literature of political dissent.