Literary Arts (Jun 2022)
Comparing the Effect of Gender Factors on the Writing Style of the Novels Sal-e Balva and Khaneye Edrisi Ha
Abstract
Extended AbstractThe author's gender and the reflection of the elements arising from gender in terms of writing techniques are influential in how the narrative is formed. In this regard, the present study aims to compare the narrative style of Khaneye Edrisi Ha by Ghazaleh Alizadeh, and Sal-e Balva by Abbas Maroufi from the same perspective. Feminist theorists believe that the gender of the author is influential in the texts. Due to the spread of feminist issues in the field of literary criticism in today's world, the component of ‘women's writing style’ has become one of the main topics of text analysis based on the methodology of women's criticism. One of the methods that can be widely used in feminist literary criticism is to study examples of women writing styles in literary works.In this study, most of the important coordinates of women's writing style, consisting of fourteen main and influential components, as criteria for measurement and comparison, are considered by the authors: 1) the strong presence of female characters, 2) maximum use of point of view to reflect the author's views, 3) the saliency of the nature of nostalgia or homesickness as one of the common themes in women's writing style, 4) the reflection of ‘waiting’ as an inseparable feature of women's personality, 5) women's meticulousness, 6) the clear manifestation of the concept of ‘love’ and its related feelings and emotions, 7) anti-masculinity, 8) attention to women's body and physical abilities, 9) the manifestation of a kind of solidarity and cooperation between women, which is called ‘sisterhood’, 10) the use of a formal and polite form of language, 11) the use of special vocabulary that indicates the family issues and a woman's preoccupation, 12) the color words, 13) words and emotional reactions, and 14) multilingual signsThe results of the study show that although the author of the novel Sal-e Balva is male, based on the gender of the protagonist who is Nooshafarin as the basis of his narrative style, except in a few cases (such as pornography and the use of incomplete sentences), he was well able to create feminine writing. As in most of these components, the narrative of Sal-e Balva has many similarities with the narrative of Khaneye Edrisi Ha. As far as can be said, the author of the novel Sal-e Balva has used feminine writing techniques in a way that conflicts with her gender. Although Khaneye Edrisi Ha is a feminist novel in general, and in most of the characteristics of feminine writing, this kind of author’s attitude is clearly reflected. But the author's narrative, contrary to expectations, in a few cases (such as the characterization of Shaukat as the hero and the use of female characters in words), clearly shows manifestations of masculine writing. In sum, the authors of both novels have creatively and coherently used feminine writing techniques to achieve their goals, and this fact has brought advantages to both novels.
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