TARLAC STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

CENTER OF DEVELOPMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION
Re-accredited Level IV by the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and
Universities of the Philippines (AACUP), Inc.

A Literary Analysis on

Princess: A True Story

of Life Behind the Veil
in Saudi Arabia
by Jean P. Sasson

Presented by:
JASPER MATIAS
BSEd English-2C

Presented to:
MS. SHEILA MARIE DAVID
Course Instructor

March 2021
 PRINCESS: UNVEILING THE SECRETS BEHIND THE VEIL OF SAUDI ARABIAN
WOMEN
‘Princess’ written by Jean Sasson is a real life story of Saudi Arabian princess Sultana, a
woman who’s born with luxuriousness and uncountable wealth, she tells her story being a royal
woman who lives the most privileged of material things, yet she is held back by the country she
lives in. The book is a classic international bestseller book which genre is memoir. Sultana tells
her story to an American writer Jean Sasson. It talks about a Saudi Arabian princess bounded by a
strict culture that defines women as nothing more than a tool to satisfy their sexual desires and
bearer of their children, “From an early age, the male child is taught that women are of little value:
They exist only for his comfort and convenience” (page 107). This book depicts how even the
royal woman are beaten, executed and enslaved by their fathers, sons and husbands. She recounts
her whole life up to the point where she makes a transition. She lifts women's veils, allowing them
to see the injustice of the society in which they live. ‘Princess’ by Jean Sasson illuminates what it
is like for women to live in a certain set of beliefs such as lack of education, forced marriage,
sexual assault and even death are all things women of this region face and she describes these
experiences in great detail which allows us to see the secrets behind the veil of this society,
focusing to the heart of a nation where gender inequality, forced marriage, sex, money, male
dominance, and power reign supreme. The story also demonstrates feminism fighting this society’s
cruelty against the Saudi Arabian women.

‘Princess’ is the tale of the growing up years of Princess Sultana, the youngest of ten sisters.
The first part in the story, presents a four-year-old Sultana’s memory of violence, slowly
introduces the female oppression and male dominance in Saudi, “When I was four years old, I was
slapped across the face by my usually gentle mother. Why? I had imitated my father in his prayers.
Instead of praying to Makkah, I prayed to my six-year-old brother, Ali. I thought he was a god.
How was I to know he was not? Thirty-two years later, I remember the sting of that slap and the
beginning of questions in my mind: If my brother was not a god, why was he treated like one?”,
“In a family of ten daughters and one son, fear ruled our home: fear that cruel death would claim
the one living male child, fear that no other sons would follow, fear that God had cursed our home
with daughters. My mother feared each pregnancy, praying for a son, dreading a daughter. She
bore one daughter after another – until there were ten in all…” (page 90-91) which clearly explains
that the male child is highly valued, while females are scorned.
Sultana also mentioned that the authority of a Saudi Arabian male is unlimited, their wife
and children survive only if they desire. In their homes, they are the state. Women had no voice
and no choice but to follow the leadership of men. In the story, Sultana’s older sister Sara was
forcibly married off to a sixty-two-year-old man. Sultana narrated what happened that day, “I slid
inside the open closet door and wept silent tears as my sister cursed our father, our land, our culture.
She cried so hard that I lost many of her words, but I heard her cry out that she was sure to be
sacrificed like a lamb. My mother wept too, but she had no words of comfort for Sara, for she
knew her husband had the full right to dispose of their daughters in any marriage he liked” (page
208-209). Fearing that she would create a scene during the marriage ceremony and spoil the family
name, Sara was drugged on the orders of her own father.
The plot develops around the theme of female oppression. Women are not respected in
their society. They don't have their own life because society dictates them what to do. As a result,
this story is about struggles for political and social justice. It's a battle for every woman's rights to
live their life according to their own desires rather than what their society dictates. The story was
the best portrayal of feminism and women empowerment because it portrayed the lives of Saudi
Arabian women and their true capacity to raise awareness. Sultana, the story's main character,
demonstrated that women can be as equally strong as men. Princess Sultana pulls back the veil of
female oppression and fearlessly open our eyes to an often-forgotten group of women.
These are the major characters from ‘Princess’ wherein the readers can get lessons and
inspirations because of its different qualities, strengths and weaknesses.
• ‘Sultana’, the Saudi Arabian princess. She saw that the country she’s living in is full of
injustice and biases which made her lift up her veil and decided to fearlessly fight back.
• Sultana’s father portrayed most feared dominant male in the society.
• Ali, Sultana’s older brother, portrayed the cruelty of men in Saudi Arabia.
• Sara, Sultana’s sister, portrayed the ‘no-choice’ individual who was forced to do what is
dictated by the men.
• Sultana’s mother whom although she cares for her daughter, she is the portrayer of an
unwilling individual to fight or change what is right. Despite of the fact that she’s aware of
the injustice, she’s taking a step back because of the fact that it’s a long time part of their
culture.
When it comes to the characters, the story provided us a fighter and courageous Sultana.
In the scene where Noorah, the mother of Kareem (husband of Sultana), and Sultana were having
a conflict because Noorah thinks that Sultana is her competitor in Kareem’s money. Kareem
having a bad mood, heard Sultana answering back to his mother, made Kareem slapped Sultana in
the face three times. This is where Sultana fights back and slapped Kareem, "My strong character
was formed by age five. I have the tendency to be nervous at the sight of trouble looming. As the
danger draws near, I become less nervous. When the peril is at hand, I swell with fierceness. As I
grapple with my assailant, I am without fear and fight to the finish with little thought of injury, the
battle was on. I swung at Kareem with a rare he saved his face by a quick move to the left"(page
158).
Another scene of Sultana’s courageousness is where she fights back at her brother Ali
because he insulted and humiliated the women, “Ali declared that women and men would be
meeting in the desserts for sexual misadventures!... and I leaped at Ali, grabbed a handful of his
hair, and began to pull as hard as I could” (page 195). The fact that Ali is their father’s favorite,
didn’t bother Sultana. All she wants to do that time is to defend the women’s rights.
 ‘Princess’ shows us the glimpse of the culture in the Middle East. It was told through the
perspective of the main character which is Sultana due to the fact that it uses a first-person point
of view which makes it more interesting to read, feel, and understand the story. It discusses the
cruelty of a strict society wherein women are of little value. It encapsulates how gender inequality,
forced marriage, sex, money, male dominance, and the likes, bring suffering to Saudi Arabian
women which was tried to put to an end by Princess Sultana through feminism. She proved that
men and women have equal strengths, privileges, rights, and opportunities in life.