GENDER DISBALANCE IN SIMIN DANESHVAR’S NOVELS

Abstract

The world’s political processes in the first half of the 20th century, especially the progress in the protection of women’s rights, enhanced feminist activities in Iran. Writers were the first to engage in this process. Persian literature of this period made active steps towards the liberation of Iranian women from the patriarchal slavery.

Earlier, on the initial stage of development of modern prose, only men wrote about women’s problems and described their inner world. However, from the second half of the 20th century, women writers appeared in Persian literature and started speaking about their own problems and the ways of solving them.

Simin Daneshvar is the first professional Iranian prose-writer who dared to reflect the topical issues of the hard fate of Iranian women. She created versatile images of main characters and left a special trace in the contemporary Persian literature. At the same time, she formed grounds for the development of female literature in Iran.

On the background of social-political situation, Simin Daneshvar describes the life of women oppressed by the patriarchal society and focuses on the stereotypes established in such society. By means of symbolic-mythological reflection of the reality, the writer tries to show the reader a complete transformation of the Iranian woman’s mentality on the way of search for identity.

Daneshvar’s works reveal not only the attitude of the Iranian society towards women, but also the attitude of women themselves towards their place, function, social role, rights and freedom.

Keywords: Female literature, women’s rights, feminism, Simin Daneshvar, Persian literature