Both authors, regardless of the overwhelming theme of decay in their works, conjure the apparition of the name to revive their absent presence. We argue the names of Darwish and Said are ghostly presences of the absence of their bearers. works, employing Derrida’s theory of the ghostliness of the proper name. In this essay we examine the aesthetics of the proper name and diasporic identities as represented in the aforementioned. Despite the sombre theme dominating both works as swansongs, Darwish and Said manage to subvert it to transform their works into ghostly texts. Published in the same year, 1999, Edward Said’s Out of Place and Mahmoud Darwish’s “Mural” amplify eulogical voices of the dying self. Palestinian men, we suggest, are liable to project their sense of vulnerability, loss of control, and their difficulties coping with the restrictive mechanisms of the lockdown onto women, resulting in a dramatic increase in cases related to gender-based violence.

We also contend that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, violence against women can be explained through the psychological mechanism of projection.

Palestinian women’s oppression is the result of subjection to multiple layers of violence and discrimination, in both public and private spheres, stemming from the Israeli military occupation, prevailing patriarchal norms and practices and gender-based violence. We argue that the preventive measures of social distancing, quarantine and lockdown of public spaces had, in this instance, an adverse effect on women who are confined in the domestic spheres with abusive partners. This article ex amines domestic violence directed toward Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza during the outbreak of the pandemic. In the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the language of contagion may serve as a metaphor for the proliferation of political and economic crises and the spread of violence.

I am dead horatio