Images of Women in Classical Persian Literature and the Contemporary Iranian Novel
By: Dr. Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi, a former professor of English at the University of Terhran, is currently a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She is writing a book on the subversive role of the Western literary canon in Iran.
With many thanks to Dr. Nafisi for sharing her knowledge and hard work with Rozaneh.
Shahrnush Parsipur's novel, Tuba va Ma'na-ye Shab (Tuba and the Meaning of the Night, Tehran, 1989) begins with a series of interesting images. It opens at the end of the Qajar dynasty, at a time when western thought and new ways of living directly begin to influence and change the traditional closed society of Iran. The heroine's father is an adib, a poet-scholar, and yet simple man who is preoccupied with philosophy and poetry. One day as he walks the streets immersed in his thoughts, a foreigner on horseback runs him down. The insolent foreigner whips the adib across the face. Later he is forced to go to the adib's house to apologize. This incident is the adib's first and last direct encounter with the western world. The most important result of the encounter is his startling discovery that the earth is round. Before, he had been vaguely aware of the earth's roundness, but he had preferred to ignore it.
For several days the adib contemplates what the roundness of the earth means for him. He instinctively realizes the connection between the foreigner's presence, the roundness of the earth, and all the changes and upheavals yet to come. After several days he announces his conclusion: "Yes, the earth is round; the women will start to think; and as soon as they begin to think they will become shameless."
The most important point in these scenes is that women play a central role in any form of change in the society. Indeed, in most Iranian narratives women are central to the plot and given much space. My main goal is to analyze various images of women in the contemporary Iranian novel by looking at their antecedents in classical Persian literature. In fact, I would like to construct a literary history for the recurring images of women in the contemporary Iranian novel, rewriting them through the shine and shimmer of their enigmatic past.
The first known counterpart of Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful narrative poem, Vis va Ramin (Vis and Ramin). Written in the tenth century by Fakhr al-Din Gorgani, it is probably the oldest as well as the most important Persian narrative of its kind. In one scene in the poem Ramin, who has not seen Vis since they were children, watches Vis's litter go by. 'A sharp spring wind' lifts ('steals') the litter's curtain, revealing Vis. Ramin's first glace at Vis is 'disastrous'; he swoons, and is thrown off his horse. Vis va Ramin is followed by a long series of similar love stories, most notably Khosrow va Shirin, shirin va Farhad, Layla va Majnun, and Bijan va Manijeh. Like Vis, the women in these stories are equal in love and courage to their men. They are brave and independent, and have a loyalty most of their men lack. Most important of all are the dialogues they create. They create a negative dialogue with the outside world, which is insensitive to their love, and a positive dialogue with their lovers, through which they defy the rules of tradition. In fact, the structure of the narratives is built around these two parallel dialogues.
An archetypal image for transcending a particular confine of Persian culture is the softly radiant image of Shahrzad, in Hezar va Yek Shab (One Thousand and one Nights or Arabian Nights). The king in the frame story represents ultimate masculine power. Because of a woman's 'deceit', he severs all positive relations with women and in fact with the whole world. The king is powerful enough to revenge his wife's betrayal through first marrying and then killing a virgin every night. This power masks an inherent weakness: without a healthy relationship with a woman, without trust in the possibility of such a relationship, the king is gripped by a disease with which if literally destroying his whole kingdom.
Shahrzad, a victim of the king's tyranny, is a symbol of courage, rationality and wisdom. She must use what is called 'woman's guile' in order t save the kingdom and restore peace to the king. The way she uses this 'guile' gives her the power and confidence to direct and stage the drama which step by step brings the king back t sanity. The fact that she successful uses the tale the narrative, as the king's medicine points to the healing power of fantasy over 'reality.' Shahrzad uses her wisdom and skills - and uses them consciously - not only to change but also to heal her man.
In all the above-mentioned narratives the relationship between the male and the female characters is the center round which all other relations revolve. Essential to all these relationships is what I would like to call 'creative subversion.' This term needs further elaboration.
All these narratives are created within a highly hierarchical and masculine society. All are supposed to revolve round the male hero. But it is the active presence of the women that changes events, that diverts the men's life from its traditional course, that shocks the men into changing their very mode of existence. In the classical Iranian narrative active women dominate the scene; they make things happen. Like the wind in Vis va Ramin they open their lovers' eyes to new insight and discoveries which determine the course of the men's future actions.
This subversive relationship redirects the traditional course of male-female relationships. The hero's submission to love in one way or another softens and 'civilizes' him, making his familiar world intolerable. This change is brought about less by the heroes' own will than by the active pressure of the women in their lives. The king in One Thousand and One Nights is healed; Farhad loses Shirin and dies; Bijan's life is saved by Manijeh; Khosrow, whose masculine identity is reinforced by his sexual conquests-even as he pines for his beloved-repents, and is united with Shirin, only to be killed while sleeping by her side; and Ramin is finally rewarded with Vis, with whom he lives for 81 happy years of married life.
Majnun's case demands closer attention. After his beloved Layla's forced marriage, Majnun becomes a mad mystic and spends the rest of his days in the wilderness. Majnun's love for Layla has been interpreted, according to the mystical tradition, as a stage toward higher 'reality.' But looking at it from the lovers' point of view it makes more sense to say that Layla's love transforms Majnun to such a degree that the world with its rules and conventions is no longer tolerable to him In the same manner Layla also negates the traditional role assigned to her. She dies rather than submit to a forced marriage.
My last example from classical tradition is the heroine in ' The Black Dome,' a story in Nezami's Haft Paykar (Sever Beauties). The story is about a king who arrives in a town where all the inhabitants are in mourning. Demanding to know why, he is made t go through the same process. He is taken outside the town and put in a large basket. A huge bird carries him high up in the air and drops him in a heavenly pasture where he meets a most beautiful lady served by lesser beauties. Every night the lady invites him to a feast and frolics with him until he desires to make love to her. At that crucial moment, she asks for patience and refers him t one of her beautiful servants. He calls her 'fancy.' In order to get her, he must show patience, but patient is the one thing he cannot be. He fails the test and loses her forever. Like the town's inhabitants, he too wears black for the rest of his live, mourning his loss.