Social and Cultural Components of Femininity in Shahrzad’s a Thousand and One Nights Stories

Subject Areas : Psychology

Fatemeh Rahmatian ¹ , Shahriar Shahidi ² , Amir Ali Nojoumian ³ , Fatemeh Bagherian ⁴ , Leili Panaghi ⁵

1 - Shahid Beheshti University Tehran, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Shahid Beheshti University Tehran, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Shahid Beheshti University, Department of English Language and Literatures, Tehran, Iran.
4 - Shahid Beheshti University Tehran, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran.
5 - Shahid Beheshti University, Family Research Institute, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2021-03-14 Accepted : 2021-05-23 Published : 2021-06-22

Keywords: femininity, Social and cultural components, Shahrzad’s a thousand and one nights’ stories,

Abstract :

The research was purposed to study social and cultural components of femininity in Shahrzad’s a thousand and one nights’ stories. The research universe consisted of all Shahrzad’s a thousand and one nights’ stories. The sample included the gendered stories. the research was designed as qualitative in terms of thematic analysis. The femininity concepts based on either effeminate content or the heroine of the romantic, fiction, journey, jinni and fairy, pedagogics, wisdom and virtue stories were reviewed and extracted by implementing the content analysis. The findings indicated that woman was the most crucial subject of a thousand and one nights’ stories; and played a significant role in all the stories. Also the more important point to be discussed was that the narration was attributed to be created by a woman, Shahrzad. Sharzad could express a new narration for femininity by storytelling and not only saved her life but also she could reconcilliated her homeland with femininity. In fact, she brought the femininity from text to context so to be heard.

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