Subverting masculine ideology and monstrous power exertion in Doris Lessing‟s The Cleft

Women’s oppression and subjugation reflected in literature has always been a controversial issue for writers and critics and Lessing is a novelist whose long career of writing demonstrates her preoccupation with related issues. The present paper approaches Doris Lessing’s novel, The Cleft, from a socialist feminist point of view to foreground Lessing’s understanding of women in both past and present societies in which women are subjugated and oppressed by capitalist and patriarchal systems and ideologies. The author of this paper argues that characterising exploitative and dominating male characters Lessing tries to introduce them as naive and unsophisticated invaders who seem pathetic and inhumane simultaneously. She identifies an intellectual gap between males and females that can justify all the problems and miseries of female race until the twentieth century and afterward. Thus, as the author understands it, Lessing’s novel is an attempt to subvert such longestablished masculine ideology and defy the monstrous power exertion that has had women as its most important target. As Lessing shows in her novel, men’s use of a fake history and male-defined ideology has led to women’s domination and inferiority. However, she demonstrates that women’s unique intellectual power can be their weapon in fighting against patriarchy and forceful power exertion, paving the way for women to achieve their true essence. The findings of this study demonstrate that The Cleft is Lessing’s invitation to refresh women’s historical consciousness, to understand and believe that most personal problems and suffering have their equivalent in others’ lives, even in the lives of the ancestral mothers a long time before history begins

The city in man: foregrounding psychogeography in The Blind Owl and City of Glass

New York City in Paul Auster’s City of Glass and Ray in Sadeq Hedayat’s The Blind Owl testify to the presence of a wasteland, setting in motion an unavoidable sense of nostalgia, confusion and fragmentation upon the protagonists. The present article argues that the pictures painted of the two metropolises with their specific cramped urban spaces function as culpable agents influencing Quinn as a New Yorker and Hedayat’s narrator as a resident of Ray. The paper builds its argument upon Merlin Coverley’s concept of psychogeography which supports transformation of the city as an integral part of the main characters’ fates. Further, the article illustrates how in Hedayat and Auster’s pieces the city reigns triumphant as the main characters fall victim to hallucination and isolation, or are left with desperate choices: in Hedayat’s novella murder or acceptance of misery and in Auster’s the sudden disappearance from the city and the plot horizons. To further support the argument advanced in this research, we take into account Tötösy de Zepetnek’s method of comparative literature and culture and its idea of parallelization that emphasizes the existence of similar social evolutions represented through the literature of various nations and carried out through the use of comparable literary conventions and symbols to stress their concerns

The subversive feminine : sexual oppression and sexual identity in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook.

Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook adopts a complex profile to present its characters’ complex lives. However, of all existing novel’s themes it is women’s oppression and subjugation that come under scrutiny here. The world this novel pictures is a patriarchal capitalist world highly unfavorable to women, and the society it portrays is marked by male-dominance and genderbased discrimination; a society in which – no matter how capable women are – their identity is defined by men and male-defined relations. Accordingly, this paper is looking at this novel from a socialist feminist point of view to identify the facets of sexual oppression and to show how the female characters resist, fight back and rely on their self-defined identity to subvert the oppressive structure they are living in. Based on the findings of this paper we argue that in the novel’s world sexuality, motherhood and mothering are outstanding facets of oppression through which women are overwhelmingly oppressed and exploited by the male-dominated society that discriminates against women as a secondary inferior class. To our understanding, while female characters of the novel have to deal with a lot of pressure imposed by society’s institutions (family and family-like circles) they are capable enough to shrewdly rely on their power and self-defined identity to fight back and subvert the patriarchal capitalist systems that intrude women’s lives in a variety of ways. As we conclude Lessing confirms socialist feminism’s argument that mothering and motherhood are facets of women’s oppression, but she also believes that these two aspects of feminine life can be a part of feminine power to subvert the oppressive systems that are designed to define and enfeeble women’s genuine identity

Juxtaposition of Women, Culture, and Nature in Alice Walker’s Possessing The Secret Of Joy

The present paper focuses on the tradition of women’s circumsicion in the African tribe of Olinkan in Alice Walker’s Possesing the Secret of Joy. The Olinkans are asked by the white settlers to stop women’s mutilation, but Olinkan men continue this custom stealthily to ensure their patriarchial dominance. This novel is a complicated juxtaposition of two different types of oppression: one by White male colonizers over an African native land, and the other one by the native Olinkan men over native women. In this juxtaposition women and land are both victims exploited and manipulated by men, no matter Black or White. This novel is also seen as a fertile ground to analyze the dual domination of both nature and women by the Olinkan men and White colonizers who are both trying to impose their androcentric rules that are created to dominate women and land, respectively

Juxtaposition of Women, Culture, and Nature in Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy

The present paper focuses on the tradition of women's circumsicion in the African tribe of Olinkan in Alice Walker's Possesing the Secret of Joy. The Olinkans are asked by the white settlers to stop women's mutilation, but Olinkan men continue this custom stealthily to ensure their patriarchial dominance. This novel is a complicated juxtaposition of two different types of oppression: one by White male colonizers over an African native land, and the other one by the native Olinkan men over native women. In this juxtaposition women and land are both victims exploited and manipulated by men, no matter Black or White. This novel is also seen as a fertile ground to analyze the dual domination of both nature and women by the Olinkan men and White colonizers who are both trying to impose their androcentric rules that are created to dominate women and land, respectively

Kate Chopin`s early fiction as a prologue to the emergence of the new woman

Despite the revival of interest in Kate Chopin’s works during the twentieth century, her early fiction has not yet elicited as much critical appreciation as The Awakening has. The aim of this study is to show that Chopin’s first novel, At Fault, and the tale, “Lilacs”, exhibit the same genius and modern forms and features of her later fiction. Chopin’s authorial voice, strongly but covertly, addresses society’s flaws which are rooted in the illogical demands of the Christian religion and male moral philosophy. This study attempts to demonstrate that Chopin’s hidden anti-religious sentiment is one of her earliest attacks on the role of the Church in prescribing religious codes and social mores and that Chopin blames the Church for being indifferent to women’s needs. Although Chopin portrays female characters who feel constrained by the societal definition of their duties and responsibilities, she shows them enjoying various means of satisfaction and fulfillment. In spite of that, however, they experience a decisive transformation in their religious lives and mentality. The protagonists that Chopin depicts share some traits, ideals and visions of the New Woman, but their interests diverge according to their different needs. This study attempts to introduce Chopin’s portrayal of her protagonists as early versions of the New Woman that can promise fuller and a more complex emergence in her later fiction

Orientalism on the margins: inter-subjective space in Edward Granville Browne’s A Year amongst the Persians

The aim of the present study is to analyse the image of Iran, created by E. G. Browne (1862-1926) in his travelogue A Year amongst the Persians. In his representation, Browne vacillates between two poles of Romantic and scientific discourses. On the one hand, he is a Romantic wanderer, who embarks on a quest of Departure, Initiation and Return in the space of the Other (Campbell, 2004, p. 28). Based on such an idealistic perspective, in his one year quest in Iran which is mainly spend among the marginalized believers of the Bahai faith, Browne (1893) seeks for a rebirth of the decaying Iranian nation, “which slumbers, but is not dead”(p. 219). On the other hand, Browne (1893) regards himself as an “inquirer” who in his observations maintains a detached scientific perspective towards Iranian culture and society, and does not hesitate to question the principles which he finds unacceptable (p. 529). In the course of his journey, the tension between these two discourses leads to a subversion of both of them, which finally mirrors in a breakdown of Browne’s conception of Self and the Other. Browne’s recognition of the Self and the Iranian nation, at the end of his journey is through the space of inter-subjectivity. This final state of in-betweenness makes it possible for him to recognize the Other from the perspective of cultural difference, through which a possibility is created in his image of Iran to escape the “urge to possess” that the Orientalist discourse of travel writing entails. (Ashcroft, 2009, p. 230

Psychogeography and the Victims of the City in McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City

The present article approaches Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City (1984) in light of Merlin Coverley’s concept of psychogeography to demonstrate the direct authority of the city as an integral part of the protagonist’s persona. The idea is to emphasize that urbanity, in its postmodern sense, can function as a culpable agent in shaping up the protagonist’s behavior and determining his fate. Therefore, this research studies McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City to reveal how the life of the leading character – with his unstable state of mind – takes root primarily in his chaotic living environment. A psychogeographic evaluation of this novel allows us to see that urbanity influences the protagonist’s psyche who evinces this deep impact through wandering in the metropolitan Manhattan. Further, this research demonstrates how the city remains triumphant as the protagonist falls into disease and alienation, or is left with an aporetic moment of decision: to unify with the force of urbanity or lose everything to its power

Sexual politics in Ian McEwan's The Innocent

Rape and sexual abuse as a global conflict has always been an inevitable part of war, used as a tactic both for humiliation and domination. Recent studies show that despite several attempts to stop sexual torture as the consequences of war it is an ongoing process in every part of the world. This necessitates an urgent solution for this epidemic problem. As a contemporary author, in his The Innocent, McEwan reflects this universal problem and presents the sexual relationships within war circumstances. His well known novel is set in the middle of Cold War and portrays sexual relationship between Leonard and Maria. Leonard’s process of transformation from an ordinary person to a real conqueror of the Second World War is investigated to show how war can change individual’s attitude toward human. This study is a critical analysis of The Innocent in the light of Kate Millett’s theory of sexual politics. Millett explicates that sex has political implications, and that it is always under the influence of border issues in the society. By politics she means power-structured relationships between male and female. It reveals the impact of war circumstances on the individual’s personality and investigates how wars can change people. This study highlights that as a result of war Leonard, a naïve, innocent, and harmless character of the story transforms to a brutal sexual predator, and acts like any other victor soldiers to dominate and sexually torture women from the defeated country. The findings of the study demonstrate that McEwan’s emphasis on war and its destructive effects on civilians, especially women, is his call to invite the world look at wars in a new and different way. Such understanding and demonstration of the bitter condition of women at wartime foregrounds the dire need for certain effective law to prevent sexual crimes and violence that target women during wartime

Double Effect and Black Revenge in Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing

A white woman’s murder by a black man, as depicted in Doris Lessing’s The Grass IS Singing, incorporates the revengeful act of an abandonment-neurotic black servant against a white female master with tactile delirium in the course of a paradoxical relationship of love and hate. The final homicide and the consequent act of surrender by Moses, the murderer, convey his paradoxical attitude toward his white master-beloved. This attitude begins with hatred, intensifies with mutual affection, and ends in murder. Focusing on the interracial revenge that takes place in the novel under study, the authors of this paper argue that Moses’ motivation in killing Mary originates from the ambivalence of his state of living under colonization and his learnings in Christianity, struggling with the Double-Effect Reasoning inaugurated by and in defense of black honor or negritude. As such, Moses’ sense of guilt and his subsequent surrender are the consequences of traditional and colonial internalization of sin, already present in him as a native of his revenge or honor-based society, influenced by Lobengula’s rule in which the criminal submits to punishment willingly, as well as missionary teachings. Through an interdisciplinary link between the Double-Effect Reasoning and the psychoanalytical perspective to the black problem promoted by Frantz Fanon, The Grass Is Singing thus seems to exempt Moses in his crime against the white race, represented by Mary, as well as to justify Moses self-surrender in defense of negritude and black honor