Comparison of female images in Eastern and European literature in aspects of upbringing and education

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the main female images of novels that belong to radically different cultures – “Western” and “Eastern” in the aspects of female upbringing and education. We single out one of the scandalous novels by the English modernist writer David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) “The Lost Girl” (1920) and the Persian writer Seyed Mortaza Moshfeq Kazemi (1904–1978) “Terrible Tehran” (1922). The purpose of the article is not only the researching of the disclosure of the female image at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries from the point of view of British and Iranian literature, but also their comparison. In the course of the work, a complex analysis was used, involving the concepts of cultural-historical and comparative-historical methods, as well as reference to theoretical works that were created on the basis of feminist criticism. Both characters are depicted by writers in a new way; they are not afraid to challenge the patriarchal system of life and try to move away from stereotypes that have been firmly rooted in people's minds since ancient times. In the characters of the main heroines, a sudden desire for change is highlighted, and each of them is revealed in its own way in “female” and “feminine” concepts. A comparison of the selected female images gives grounds for asserting that the culture of Europe and the East are fundamentally different and are unlikely to ever be identical. D. H. Lawrence's heroine Alvina denies the recognition of women as “Other”, she prefers to get out of the power and control of men, while M. M. Kazemi's heroine Mein-hanum confirms the predicament of women, because she is in the middle of the conflict precisely because belonging to the female gender. Artists depict a socially constructed problem – a woman tries to build her own life, at a time when society categorically denies her desire. According to the community, the only thing a woman should do is limit herself to the categories of “wife”, “mother”, “housewife”. Thus, the writers reveal the mentality of people of both cultures who do not want to perceive a woman as a free person.