Female Characters Through a Male Gaze in Modern Persian Fiction Ronak Karami
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Journal of International Women's Studies Volume 20 | Issue 2 Article 25 Jan-2019 “All I See is through His Gaze!” Female Characters through a Male Gaze in Modern Persian Fiction Ronak Karami Follow this and additional works at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws Part of the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Karami, Ronak (2019). “All I See is through His Gaze!” Female Characters through a Male Gaze in Modern Persian Fiction. Journal of International Women's Studies, 20(2), 373-383. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol20/iss2/25 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. This journal and its contents may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. ©2019 Journal of International Women’s Studies. “All I See is through His Gaze!” Female Characters through a Male Gaze in Modern Persian Fiction By Ronak Karami1 Abstract Between the late 1960s and 1970s, Iran’s growing contact with the West aroused many contradictions, inner conflicts, and extravagancies. People could not stand the rapid transformations in the society and particularly in women’s situation that arose due to modernization. By this time, male novelists indicated all their inner tensions in the shape of a woman they created in their stories. This paper focuses on a notable modern Persian fiction, Prince Ehtejab by Houshang Golshiri that was first published in 1969. The author aims, at first, demonstrating how Golshiri uses the four female characters to, in effect, introduce the male narrator and second, analyzing how these four female characters are shown to the reader through the male protagonist’s gaze. The male gaze refers to the sexist attitude of an image: the depiction of women regarding male or masculine preferences. Where of Houshang Golshiri created works that incorporated the literature of the world and adapted modern western literary styles of writing, this essay employs the western approach of the male gaze. It analyzes one Persian fiction, going through names, symbols, settings, comparisons, and contrasts to show the way the male narrator and the readers see the female characters. It depicts not only the torments of women but also how their torments are represented from a male gaze, which imparts a different perspective to readers. Keywords: Male Gaze, Houshang Golshiri, Prince Ehtejab, Modern Persian Literature, Female Characters Introduction Houshang Golshiri and his Masterwork Prince Ehtejab Similar to other branches of art, literature has been under the domination of male-centered ideology in Iran. During 1920-78, Persian literary masterpieces have been most of the time known to be written by male writers. Even those who have written stories about female conflicts have depicted women through a male gaze, either that of a central male character or the writer himself. The famous modern Persian writer Houshang Golshiri, who wrote many works of fiction about women's struggles, is not excluded from this fact and introduced women mostly through a male narrative description. His masterwork, Shazdeh Ehtejab (Prince Ehtejab), involves four important female characters that have been demonstrated to the reader through the similarities and differences that the narrator, Khosro Ehtejab, attributes to them. This paper aims first at explaining how the writer uses the four female characters to, in effect, introduce the male narrator-Khosro 1 Ronak Karami is an M.A student in English literature at Islamic Azad University, Science and Research faculty, Tehran, Iran. I was born in Nov 1992 in Shiraz; however, I am originally Kurdish. I studied my B.A in English literature at University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Although my major is literature, I am very much interested in women and gender issues (especially in Iran). 373 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 20, No. 2 January 2019 Ehtejab-and second, analyzing how these four female characters are shown to the reader through a male gaze. Before analyzing the novella, one needs to know Houshang Golshiri’s style of writing and the historical background in which the novella was written. The period during which Prince Ehtejab was published, was a historically controversial one for Iranian people. “As Iran began to have increasing contact with the West, many sectors of the population especially intellectuals, minorities, clerics, and women became increasingly aware of their nation's problems.” (Nafisi, 2003, 983). The 1906 constitutional revolution in Iran was accompanied by a cultural revolution which introduced new literary forms to the country such as drama, novel, music, and film (Nafisi, 2003, 983) and, at the same time, aroused many contradictions, inner conflicts, and extravagancies (Kar, 1992, 17). Following western culture, Iranian women started to gain their social rights during the late 1960s and 1970s. These efforts, however, were being used as an advertisement to display the monarchy's pretentious intellectuality (Kar, 1992, 14), and eventually turned to a huge concern for men: they could not stand the rapid transformations in the society and particularly in women’s situation that arose due to modernization. Consequently, by this time, which was also a period of social, cultural, and political upheaval, male novelists’ indicated all their inner tensions in the shape of a woman they created in their stories (Nafisi, 2003, 987-988). Golshiri's novella Prince Ehtejab, in both structure and content, incorporates those modern Iranian conflicts and represents "a vague hostility and mistrust towards the new reality called the Western world which colors the images of its women more than any other image." (Nafisi, 2003, 992). Houshang Golshiri was one of the most celebrated Iranian modern fiction writers who influenced Persian prose during the 20th century (Taheri, 2004, 96) in a way that it orientated itself more towards controversial Iranian issues in the modern time such as religion, politics, and women's situation (Nafisi, 2003, 987-990). Golshiri became famous for his novella, Shazdeh Ehtejab (Prince Ehtejab), “which is a tortured journey of self-realization through the remembrance of past events (Yavari, 2002, 6). If one intends to name the top five Iranian modern novels, Prince Ehtejab will be one of them for both structure and content (Taheri, 2004, 97). The novella was first published in 1969, adapted into a screenplay in 1974, and translated into English and French. "Golshiri's skillful exploitation of stream of consciousness narration converts this story of outer actions into a drama of the life of the mind" (Yavari, 2002, 6), in a way that time keeps no order and the reader learns about the incidents that happened at different times within a symmetric view (Hosseini, 2001, 81). He writes with a poetic diction and without a pause, just as words come to his mind, and each word may contain several meanings depending on personal experiences (Hosseini, 2001, 86-90). Moreover, Golshiri illustrates how a writer can take modern western forms and blend them with Persian culture (Taheri, 2004, 92). "His writings are distinguished by their complex structure, vivid language, and subtle manipulations of narrative time." (Yavari, 2002, 8). The reader can start reading not necessarily from the beginning, but from any part s/he desires since it enfolds neither traditional coherence nor unity (Taheri, 2004, 41). Besides analyzing Houshang Golshiri's style of writing, critics discuss the way he displays female characters in his fictions. Ghahraman Shiri2 proclaims in The magic of killing genies that “although some feminist critics accused Houshang Golshiri of being a misogynist, 3he was one of the writers who displayed women's real conditions in Iran.” (Shiri, 2016, 179). According to the critic, despite traditional Iranian writers who were interested in depicting an ideal woman, Golshiri portrayed a realistic picture of a modern woman in his country (Shiri, 2016, 176). In other words, 2 A professor and a critic of Persian literature in Buali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran 3 Mostly because he portrays female characters as subordinate and passive in his works 374 Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 20, No. 2 January 2019 instead of portraying a fixed, clichéd image of women, Golshiri represented female characters in his fictions the way one might deal with them in the society (Shiri, 2016, 173). Howsoever, since the reality was male-dominated and male-centered in Iran, the writer still seemed interested in an ideal aesthetic picture of a woman, which he integrated with erotic descriptions (Shiri, 2016, 177). That is, similar to many modern Iranian writers, Golshiri seemed stuck between two realities due to Iran’s growing contact with the West4, “one, the vanishing culture of the past with its unified and hierarchical view of women; the other, the modern Western-oriented culture of the present with its doubting, ironic view of the world and its fast-changing view of women.” (Nafisi, 2003, 991). Accordingly, he seemed to demonstrate contemporary, prevailing male views about the circumstances and the modernization of women by portraying them either unreachable or subordinated and accessible (Shiri, 2016 173-179). As far as the writing of the novella is concerned, Golshiri claimed that his work took a greater effort on the grounds that he was dealing with many lively characters who needed to be connected in a plausible way (Taheri, 2004, 35). Accordingly, Golshiri created works that incorporated the literature of the world and maintained its Iranian authenticity simultaneously (Taheri, 2004, 89-96). Prince Ehtejab cannot be analyzed merely within some pages since it requires a thorough knowledge of Iranian literature and history. Critics discussed that Golshiri poses questions that need profound considerations not only in its own time but also for posterities.