In the last two centuries, many scholars in social, cultural, and literary fields of study have addressed women’s concerns and their centrality in literary works. Women-centered criticism or feminist criticism examines works created by women or about women in order to provide a specific framework for their analysis and explication. Elaine Showalter, a feminist theorist, proposes four variants for this critical approach: biological, linguistic, psychological, and cultural. The cultural aspect investigates how women are characterized by society, as well as the role of society in shaping the works and activities of women. Therefore, it can be regarded as a kind of sociological criticism, insofar as the conditions of the society in which the writer lives and her position in interacting with other people determine the content of her work. The objective of this article is to examine how social concerns are represented in Sahar Khalifeh’s Origin and Branch. The article adopts a descriptive-analytical method and draws on woman-centered criticism as theorized by Elaine Showalter. It addresses how Palestinian society affected Khalifeh’s thinking in the 1930s and 1940s and how this effect could be traced in her novel. It finds that the novel challenges the patriarchal society of Palestine by depicting the Palestinian society in the first half of the 20th century and the early years of the occupation of Palestine. The domination of men over women is criticized by dealing with factors such as women’s forced marriage, deprivation of education and employment, concern for life and economic independence, and hatred of being forgotten by other women. Thus, the traditional Palestinian society of that day has left its impact on all dimensions and orientations of Khalifeh’s thoughts. In Origin and Branch, like her other novels, she compares the domination of men over women to Israel’s domination over Palestine and condemns both. Finally, this paper argues that femininity symbolizes homeland for Khalifeh.
