Shahrzad’s Magic in One Thousand and One Nights: The Femininity in Literature
National University of Malaysia
ABSTRACT
In the contemporary period, the literature activities of Iranian women from its beginning in 1941 have always faced obstacles. Literature has been a tool for Iranian woman to get her rights and prove her existence. After, First World War, the emerge of different publications and establishment of schools for girls are the main two factors for women enlightenment to struggle for their freedom. In that time, women writers used novel as a literature work to get the concern of others on women’s voices and their inferior situation. Hence, this study have used the Thousand and One Nights Novel; while it is one of the first and most famous novel around the world and is known by different cultures. Also it narrates the fate of a woman in one of the golden period from the ancient Persia to current Iran; a time that woman has a special position and rights in a society. This woman, however, for her existence and life need to trick. One Thousand and One Nights is a story of women named Scheherazade who is trying to gain the love of the king through storytelling and rescue herself from the expected death. In this novel, various characteristics of a woman have been shown which the dominant view is negative. The purpose of this study is to understand why the image of women in the One Thousand and One Nights seems unpleasant and review the femininity power of Shahrzad to change women’s condition by using the art of narration.
KEYWORDS
Woman, Literature, One Thousand and One Nights, Iran