An investigation of feminist elements in Sophocles’ Antigone and Ferdowsi’s Gordâfarid

The women’s' movement has won women the right to vote, moved women out of the kitchen, and, in many ways, made women socio-economically competitive with men. While not exactly definite most researchers agree that the feminist movement has begun sometime in the past two centuries. One of the most important goals of feminism is to bring about gender equality. Such movements can be considered as a product of classic fictional women characters such as Sophocles’ Antigone and Ferdowsi’s Gordâfarid. Sophocles’s play Antigone, as well as its 1944 representation by French playwright Jean Anouilh,,is an essential literary space for the examination of gendered roles. Antigone is a historical literary example of a woman whose behavior and actions do not conform to the prevailing ideology of what it means to be a woman.Another example of a woman who fights against males’ supremacy is Gordâfarid in Shahnameh When she becomes aware of her brother’s slavery she puts on armor and hides her hair under her helmet and takes part in a battle against Sohrâb. This study is an attempt to find out the feminist logic in these two women’s characters based on the feminist identity model (Downing, N.E. & Roush, K.L. 1985). The main feminist stages (passive acceptance, revelation, embeddedness-emanation, synthesis, active commitment) were examined in Antigone’s speeches and Gordâfarid’s stanzas. The results of the present study show that both Antigone and Gordâfarid demonstrate strong feminist thoughts in several ways such as challenging a powerful male establishment and also demonstrate feminist mentality in their search for popularity. They demonstrate feminist thought when they show their strong will. These three characteristics are combined to make these two characters appear as feminists. The results of this investigation led the researchers to come to the conclusion that literary masterpieces, even the classic ones, may haven great influences on the modern and current movements since there are a large number of similarities between the modern feminist characters and the two above mentioned. On the other hand such a great impact which has led to a movement this much worldwide and gigantic shows the popularity and influence of these literary masterpieces

کلیدواژه ها:

feminism ، feminist ، gendered role ، Antigone ، Gordâfarid