Examining Male and Female Utopias and Their Confrontations in Six Contemporary Novels

Abstract

This study explores the concept of male and female utopias and the confrontations between them in six contemporary Iranian novels. The male utopia is often depicted through symbols of traditional power, cultural identity, and resistance to modern social changes, whereas the female utopia emphasizes individual freedom, gender equality, and spiritual pursuit against social constraints. In The School Principal by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the male utopia emerges in the struggle against a corrupt educational system and Western influence, confronting the crisis of cultural identity. In Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel, the 1979 Revolution is highlighted as a turning point of confrontation between ideological male utopias (military power) and female utopias (family relations and social change). Ahmad Mahmoud’s Scorched Earth presents the Iran–Iraq War as a field of gendered confrontation, where war propaganda strengthens the male utopia, but women’s suffering points to an alternative utopian vision. In contrast, women-centered novels such as Parinoush Saniee’s My Share examine the lives of generations of Iranian women under patriarchal structures and depict the female utopia through individual resistance. Shahrnush Parsipur’s Touba and the Meaning of Night combines history and mysticism to portray the confrontation between the traditional male utopia and the female spiritual quest in twentieth-century Iran. Finally, Simin Daneshvar’s The Wandering Island reflects the identity crisis of women in modern society, where the female utopia faces the challenges of social disorientation. This examination reveals that the confrontation of these utopias mirrors the social, political, and gender transformations of contemporary Iran and points toward the redefinition of collective identity.