Emerging Cocoons (Exploring Feminine Effects from the Perspective of woman-centeredCriticism in Touba and the Meaning of the Night)

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Simin Panahi Fard
• Ghadamali Serrami

Islamic Azad University, Zanjan Branch

10.22067/jls.v0i0.81940

Abstract

Extended Abstract

Introduction

Feminism, which is the belief in equality between men's and women's rights, is a political, social and cultural movement that has invaded the world for the past two centuries. The main demand of this movement is to address the gender inequality caused by the patriarchal system and the realization of women's rights, first emerged in Western literature, and expanded to political and social issues by literary and artistic works. After the Constitutional Revolution, with the emergence of writers such as Sadegh Hedayat the phenomenon emerged in Iranian art and literature. Poetry and storytelling became a domain for expressing feminist ideas and.

Theoretical Framework

The idea of feminism is based on having equal rights and opportunities regardless of gender. Mary Wellston Craft was the first woman who protested for women's rights in the Enlightenment era. After that, Virginia Woolf, along with Simone de Beauvoir and Julia Kristeva, had the most influence on feminist literature. In a woman-centered critique, Virginia Woolf, by writing A room of one’s own in 1919, takes the first step in the field of literature and declares that even feminine identity is portrayed by men. In 1949, Simon de Beauvoir revived the feminist movement by writing “second sex”, stating that in Western societies all writers were men and women were always ignored as the "other sex".
The first movements of defending women's rights in Iran occurred after the Constitutional Revolution. Men who were narrative of women's lives were never able to portray a woman's true self regarding women’s desires, feelings, and emotions. As a result, when women started writing and creating brilliant works about themselves, a new era began. One of the women who started writing of women was Shahrnoush Parsipour.

Method

As Iranian literature is generally made up of men, woman-centered criticism can make an effective contribution to women's equality. The purpose of this study is to examine feminine effects and to find signs of feminism in Touba and the meaning of night novel that proves in a descriptive-analytical way that the novel can be considered a purely feminist work for many reasons. For the writer is a woman herself and the protagonist of her story is a woman, she cleverly portrays Iranian women’s issues, concerns, and oppressions in Iranian patriarchal society from the Qajar era to the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution. For this purpose, Touba and the meaning of the night were analyzed regarding feminist aspects and some extracted parts were provided.

Results and Discussion

The study shows that Parsipour deals with all the components of feminist novels in this work, such as forced and traditional marriage, heterosexuality, polygamy and male infidelity, demonstration of women's depressing lives, feminine feelings and emotions, patriarchy and ignoring women's rights, fantasies, humiliating and insulting women, wrong traditional beliefs and superstitious beliefs, homelessness, and loneliness over a 100-year. The novel illustrates how women with education, self-awareness, and transitions from tradition to Modernity in Iran's patriarchal society have overcome many problems. The characteristics are contrary to that of traditional Iranian woman who were obedient, devoted, unaware and that obeyed men's desires and orders. Virginia Woolf calls woman a “domestic angel”. She can be a knowledgeable, literate and wise woman who, in addition to fulfilling her home and parenting responsibilities, participate in social and political affairs and decide for her fate and future.
Parsipour, examines the role of women in the historical developments of society from the constitutional period to the 1979 (Islamic Revolution). As a feminist writer, she accurately describes the life and feelings of female characters in her story. She tries to show the oppression of women. Therefore, it can be said that efforts to revive women's rights and show their oppression are a common feature of Parsipour's work and all of Iranian women writers, and can be regarded as expression of women’s situations who have a different  cognition of themselves and their position in society

Conclusion

Parsipour chose "Touba" as the protagonist of the story and as an example of an Iranian woman and tells all the events of the story through her eyes. Generally, in processing a woman's personality, she tries to create a woman whose existence is essential to the continuance of others life.. The whole novel emphasizes the transition from tradition to modernity, which first takes place in society and then leads to the internal and external transformation of the female characters in the story., Parsipour  represents all kinds of insults, humiliations and cruelties by creating characters like Adib (Father of Touba), Haj Mahmood (Touba's first husband), Fereydoun Mirza (Touba’s second husband) and Prince Gil as the Iranian men’s representative to emphasize Iran's patriarchal system and the oppression of Iranian women. In the end, she shows how women with great patience and overcoming many obstacles and hardships released from the old patriarchal cocoon that has been woven for so many years, and realize their feminine identity like a free butterfly and achieve freedom, self-awareness, open-mindedness and self-reliance.

Keywords

• Women-centered critique
• Shahrnosh parsipour
• Tuba
• Meaning of the Night
• feminism

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