An analysis of the portrayal of women in the novels “Body Memory” and“Prune” through the lens of Elaine Showalter’s linguistic theory

Abstract

Today, feminist ideas and images are a suitable tool for checking the feminist level of thework, its author and the extent to which it has a feminist structure. In the meantime, thetheory of the four dimensions of "Elaine Showalter" including the biological, cultural,psychoanalytical and linguistic approaches provides this opportunity for women's criticismwork, and by relying on it, the position of women can be in the literary works of femalewriters and male writers recognition. Therefore, the present research has selected a novel byby Ahlam Mosteghanemi "Body memory" and a novel by an Iranian female writer NasimMarashi entitled "prune" for criticism of women's writing and based on the linguisticdimension of Elaine Showalter's theory. It can be said that both novels are in the stage offeminism. Therefore, due to the fact that the novels belong to the feminist and femininewriting tradition, they significantly have the characteristics of female criticism. In terms ofthe use of linguistic components, for example, the word hey related to colors and itsabundant and combined use, as the main component of women, it has occupied the mostplace in both works. However, regarding the vocabulary related to women, this componenthas a lower frequency in both works. Detail and short sentences are widely used in bothworks. This linguistic component has been used explicitly and repeatedly with lessinterference from culture and the transfigured minds of village characters from the heart ofcult significantly.

Keywords

• body memory
• elaine showalter
• feminine writing
• prune