Maryam Hoseini; Fahime zarezadeh
Volume 1, Issue 2 , February 2010
Abstract
The book “One Thousand and One Nights” has always been considered as a relatively major source in cultural studies about women. This book comprises many female characters who play various moral and operative roles. It seems that this book does not merely reflect the common perspectives of one era ...
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The book “One Thousand and One Nights” has always been considered as a relatively major source in cultural studies about women. This book comprises many female characters who play various moral and operative roles. It seems that this book does not merely reflect the common perspectives of one era or the personal experiences of its authors in relation with women; yet it is an intricate result of the society views toward this issue and different experiences of the authors. Throughout the years, it has developed the opportunities for expressing an idea, or the ways for opposing a belief and has also established the ground for its survival or demise. The investigated domain in this article is the Persian translation of the book “One Thousand and One nights” and some of the paintings of Sani’-ol-Molk. In the present study, the stories in which women play the primary role have been selected. The purpose of the current research is to explore the image of woman in these stories and to compare it with the paintings of Sani’-ol-Molk. Shahrzad is a key female character in the One Thousand and One Nights book who creates a general convergence in the stories by illustrating the conditions of women and introducing them as prudent, courageous, lover, artist and writer; and this results in the fact that not only is woman no longer disgraced but also the readers consider her as a complement, a collaborator and a comrade for man and therefore try to resolve her problems. Consistent with the language of the narrator of the stories and the story principles, Sani’-ol-Molk also creates a democratic atmosphere about women which demonstrates the profound impacts of Shahrzad and other women of the story on him.
