The Reflection of the Second Sex in the Characters of the Stories by Female Writers

The unconscious patriarchal belief leads the literary works of fiction to be created and written by men; as a result, the major part of literature is usually focused on male protagonists. In the sexist literature, women either have no role or are defined as marginal compared to the main characters in the story. Considering the fact that literature (especially fiction) reflects the common beliefs in society, therefore, our stories and their characters depict a sexist society in which the being of male and female characters are replaced with the gender stereotypes in society. This study relies on descriptive analysis and focuses on a couple of Persian novels narrating emotional challenges and obstacles related to sexism as well as the solutions used by the characters to overcome existing clichés in society. In this regard, this article aims to delve deep into these questions that whether humans in every culture and community are trained to do their predetermined sexist obligations and whether the characters in the story are aware of this fact and if they contemplate on that. The results of the study showed that the selected authors have often consciously and sometimes unconsciously represented this subject in their stories. In the novels Surud-e Arvand Roud (The Anthem of Arvand Roud), "Del-e Foulad" (Cold-hearted), "Bazi-e Akhar-e Banou" (The Last Play of the Lady), and "Khale Bazi", the authors have respectively narrated doomed people in society, conflicts in the life of characters, peasant life in a very traditional setting, and the opposition and anger of society against a character who cannot fulfill his obligations. Thus, we witness in the above stories that some characters sometimes get accustomed to the stereotypes in society such that they even do not care about overcoming those clichés.