Evaluation and Critical Sociological Analysis of the Representation of Feminine Identity in the Novels of Mohammad Hejazi

While the quality of women's lives and their status and position can be indicative of the prominent cultural and civilizational features of a society, in most societies, especially in our patriarchal society, we witness a kind of liminality, insignificance, and "persistence" of women in the face of both tangible opportunities and imaginary constraints and stereotypes. Since the genre of the novel is one of the most significant mediums that indirectly reflect the symbols of this situation, this study explores the representation of women and the dominant but implicit assumptions in the selected novels of the First Pahlavi era (Mohammad Hejazi's trilogy) from a sociological perspective, using a critical discourse analysis approach. The data analysis was conducted thematically, with the unit of analysis being the "sentence," and utilizing previous research as a foundation for credibility assessment. The results of this study showed that women in Hejazi's stories in the trilogy of Superior Spear and the Religion-Tradition-Modernism trilogy are represented in binary and ternary categorizations. Contrary to the prevailing mental stereotype of the "oppressed woman," the role, characteristics, caricature, and narrative have not been reduced to a single attribute for all women. Based on this, we observe a commitment to both discourse patterns, both conservative and progressive, fuzzy and middle-ground, oscillating between religion and modernity, conservatism and progressivism, which has sometimes led to a "discourse conflict”.