Introduction
Literature is as much a mirror of social changes and cultural developments of societies is affected by them. In Iran, since the end of the Qajar rule, one of the most important structural developments has been familiarity with modern ideas and their increasing prevalence in society. The emergence and gradual expansion of the novel genre has been also known as one of the most important cultural manifestations of this influence. What distinguishes the novel genre from other literary forms is that it can present a largely realistic picture of the cultural characteristics of a group or society at a particular time. Thus, the scientific study of novels is significant in that they can affect the current social atmosphere of society or some groups by stabilizing, reforming, or changing their living conditions. Undoubtedly, the definition and redefinition of femininity in various dimensions has been one of the most important challenges and debatable consequences of the gradual familiarity, entry, and spread of modern ideas in Iran. A situation that has been reflected in diverse texts including novels. Therefore, investigating the way of representing women’s roles, tasks, identities, and positions in novels can be considered one of the most interesting ways to analyze and explore the constructed feminine identity in the cultural space of the early modern era in Iran.
Research Questions
Based on the basic assumption that female novels of any particular period can be considered in a way that is in line with the consolidation or conversely transformation of their previous status, identities, and roles; the main goal of the authors was to answer the question of how is the representation of female identity in the novel "Ziba”? Are the women and feminine roles represented in this novel traditional? modern? Or traditional-modern?
Materials& Methods
The main source and material examined to answer the research questions was Mohammad Hejazi’s Ziba novel. Hejazi was sufficiently familiar with Iranian literature and Western culture. He also integrated romanticism and realism styles. The novel as the most realistic Hejazi’s work has been able to narrate in detail the social situations of the post-Constitutional Movement era especially the extensive changes in women’s social situation. Historically, this novel dates back to the early Pahlavi period, which is considered the beginning of the government's first efforts to establish a modern state and expand modernization in Iran. Methodologically, the research was done by using a qualitative-inductive method and thematic analysis. The researchers sought to describe, categorize, and analyze the relevant feminine themes in Ziaba's novel by understanding and extracting the statements that referred to women implicitly or explicitly. Inductive, meaning that without any main prior hypothesis, the researchers extracted the types of identification, values, norms, interactions, action patterns, etc. of women and femininity represented in the novel and then analyzed the extracted categories at a more abstract level. The systematic thematic analysis method used here involves six basic steps making transcripts and familiarizing with the data; identifying and determining main concepts; code selection; theme development; conceptualization through interpretation of keywords, codes, and themes; and finally, development of a conceptual model. Firstly, the explicit and implicit meanings of the textual themes were considered; then, in the analysis phase, the extracted meanings were illustrated referring to the Iranian historical social and cultural contexts of female behaviors, roles and interactions, etc.
Discussion & Results
The most important indicators of the represented traditional femininity in the novel can be explained under the major categories of "essentialist naming", "methods of achieving and specific tasks of the role"; "portraying feminine identity"; "orienting value-cognitive frameworks"; and "relational strategies". illustratively, there are a variety of traditional and religious names, also names that represent the women’s social status and the power hierarchy of their families. To some extent, the attributed tasks, challenges, and how women cope with these challenges are mostly consistent with their attributed names. In Ziba's novel, tasks such as washing dishes, taking care of children, satisfying the husbands’ and children’s needs, applying hard and soft violence against the young children of the family, and at the same time enduring all kinds of hard and soft violence from the male members of the family, etc., are frequently depicted as the main traditional duties of the women. In the novel, feminine identities are more depicted in their being under ownership, having an instrumental role, objectification, blaming them while becoming often male victims, defining their identity inclusively through connections with men, and the primacy of the family institution over their own needs and ignoring their aspirations. The traditional intellectual framework is crystallized in indicators such as "choosing arranged marriage", "female pretending to be oppressed and resorting more to crying and wailing to assert their rights", "believing in superstitions", and "preferring institutionalism over their rights". With few exceptions, when faced with men or placed in difficult situations, women often have adopted types of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive actions and reactions that have all contributed to consolidate and perpetuate their traditional subordinate and domineered status. It appears that Hijazi by depicting the diverse interconnected components of femininity functions and identities in the Ziba novel, could represent a coherent, understandable, logical, and reasonable narrative of the traditional femininity in the first Pahlavi era. A narrative that is largely in keeping with the conflicting and tense historical-cultural situation of Iranian society in transition at that time.
Conclusion
Despite making the traditional awareness maxima, the way women are represented in the novel has been diverse and multifaceted depending on their different physical and psychological characteristics, specific life cycles, and belonging to different classes and statuses. Accordingly, contrary to Lukacs’s view, such attributed diverse characteristics and strategies cannot be described and analyzed exclusively based on a class-based perspective or represented abstractly under a single, generalizing, and inclusive title of traditional "woman." Because, concretely the different sub-groups of women in the novel are attributed different and diverse functions and identities and adopted diverse manners for dealing with their affairs based on their personal, familial, and socioeconomic attributes.