Analyzing Signs of Women’s Activism in Marzban-NamaBased on Fairclough’s Approach

Despite the marginalization of women throughout history, their influence remains in ancient texts. The purpose of this article is to represent the role of women and their signs of activism in three anecdotes of Marzban-Nama based on Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis, and to find the answer to this question: did women, given the patriarchal rule in society, accept the status quo, or change it in their favor? If so, how did they do it and what were the components of this activism? In this study, Marzban-Nama has been examined at three levels of description, interpretation, and explanation, and the signs of women’s power and how they exerted their agency have been represented. Considering the cultural and social situation in Iran at the time of writing the book, the results indicated that women had access to a kind of latent power in these anecdotes and played an active role in the development of the anecdote process. In Marzban-Nama, women often played an active role by symbolizing prudence, wisdom, and morality. Based on the social situation at the time of writing or rewriting this work, while power inequality between men and women was evident, women had access to power as silent rulers and their active role in shaping the process of the story was manifest. In sum, many signs of women’s power and agency were found in these anecdotes, such as having the right to choose, tact and decision-making power.