A Study of Ecofeminism in Reza Amirkhani’s Rahesh based on Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis

Environmental problems and the destruction of natural resources have become a significant concern in the modern era. The study of different aspects of these problems and their association with the fields of social sciences and humanities draw our attention to the important role mankind plays in increasing and decreasing the rate of environmental damages. Pierre Schoentjes, an environmental theorist, highlights the pivotal role of language and literature in teaching social responsibility to the next generation so as to achieve sustainable development and enhance environmental protection. Ecofeminism is an intellectual movement that sees a connection between the exploitation, degradation and empowerment of women in society; hence, the elimination of gender discrimination and inequality is directly associated with environmental protection. The present study endeavours to examine how components of ecofeminism are reflected in Reza Amirkhani’s novel Rahesh. Building on Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis on the three levels of description, interpretation and explanation, we explore the relationship between environmental destruction and a tendency towards the dominance of men over women in a patriarchal system. The findings suggest that that a woman gives her body to the world to express her thought. The interplay between women’s body and the fabric of the world and the manifestation of the world in women is a symbolic message which represents how men are unjustifiably at the top of the power hierarchy in a patriarchal society. This, in turn, has led to ruthless exploitation of natural resources.