A Comparative Analysis of the Search for Identity in Fear and Trembling and Learned from Devil and Burned in Light of Elaine Showalter’s Literary Gynocriticism

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Tahereh Jafari Hessarlou ¹
• Seyed Heidar Jafari Hessarlou ²
• Hamid Reza Saeili ³

¹ PhD in French Language and Literature, Department of French Language and Literature, Tehran Central Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

² Master in International Law, Ghom Seminary, Ghom, Iran.

³ Master Student, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22067/rltf.2024.90240.1131

Abstract

Comparative literature describes literary relationships of different nations and the reflection of the literature of different countries on each other. Woman writers had often been facing the same concerns, goals and problems. In most of their works, they illustrate the rules and masculine order that governs society. Female authors criticize the belief system and the outcome of masculine society and represent women’s worries, tendencies, goals and anxieties. The present article, through a descriptive, analytical and comparative method compared Amélie Nothomb’s Fear and Trembling and Farkhondeh Aghaei’s Learned from Devil and Burned. This study is based on the cultural model of Anglo-American female literary criticism of Elaine Showalter. Nothomb and Aghaei investigated the status and position of women by selecting women as the main character of their novels and describe painful life of women. Sometimes both authors talk about women’s worries and anxieties, and sometimes they illustrate their occasional complaints and revolts. Both authors have highlighted the femininity dimension of their novels by taking benefit from specific to the thoughts of women. A critique of patriarchy is observable in these two novels. The partiality of both authors in favor of women is clear to reader. The results of this research indicate that two authors pay attention to women’s situation and social role with a critical view and they want basic alterations in the society’s opinion for women’s problems and difficulties and patriarchal interpretations.

Keywords

• Literary Gynocriticism'
• Elaine Showalter'
• Amélie Nothomb'
• Farkhondeh Aghaei'
• '
• Identity'

Main Subjects

• french literature

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