Imagology of Iranian Women in Raphael Du Mans’ Travelogue

This paper aims to study the image of Iranian women in the Safavid era within the work of French priest Raphael Du Mans entitled the Status of Iran in 1660 . This book is one of the first works written in French about Safavid Iran and its author is unique among European tourists who traveled to Iran due to the length of his stay in Iran (more than half a century) and is also more famous than many other French  tourists like Jean Chardin or Jean-Baptiste Tavernier. The present research seeks to first thematically classify the descriptions that Du Mans presents of Iranian women, based on the knowledge and method of imagology and then analyze his evaluative attitude towards Iranian women in each of these themes. Then, the reasons for this attitude are investigated based on intra-textual and extra -textual components. For this purpose the images of women within his book are extracted and classified. These images include women of religious minorities, the position of women inside and outside the house, dancing women, issues related to women's marriage and divorce, and polygamy. Then, by referring to historical resources and also checking the intratextual signs based on imagology the positive or negative evaluation of the images and the context of their formation are analyzed and identified. The result of the research is that most of the images that Du Mans presents of Iranian women have a negative connotation; the reason for which can be found in the purpose of his trip his European sense of superiority and also his ideas about women as a Catholic priest. Most of the images presented in Raphael Du Mans 's book can be considered direct images, because the author has lived in Iran for many years and has made numerous observations