[Discuss “Sultana's Dream” by Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain as a feminist short story .]
Rokeya’s “Sultana’s Dream” is structured around the depiction of a feminist utopia. The
presentation is typically feminine. The feminine aspect is at work of the story from the very
beginning of it. However, as the story opens we notice the narrator, Sultana, thinking idly of
“the condition of Indian womanhood". She suddenly realizes the arrival of a stranger, a lady,
before her whom she thought to be her friend Sister Sara. Sultana comes out of her chamber
with the stranger to visit the garden and the unknown country named Ladyland, the place where
women are free to talk or walk in public. In Sultana's society, women are forced to remain
behind purdah- seclusion from the outer world which is called zennana. To her utter
astonishment when Sultana comes out on the streets of the Ladyland, she discovers to her utter
surprise that there is no man outside, only women. At first, it is embarrassing to her as she is
accustomed to travelling in a veil but here she finds everyone unveiled in public and so is she.
Realising her embarrassment, the stranger, who is still addressed as sister Sara, says, “you
need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm.
Virtue herself reigns here .”
The narrator creates the imaginary setting of a utopian place where women have successfully
freed themselves from the control of men. Here Rokeya envisions a society for women that is
typically feminine. Where women are free to pursue knowledge. That is the reason Sultana is
astonished to learn that men are kept indoors in Ladyland as they are not worthy enough of
being kept loose. Sultana's encounter with an opposite world than her own shows how
patriarchal ideology has so much oppressed and restricted women in society .The long
sustained ideology has taken away the power of thought. Rather, driven by the ideology they
take it for granted that women are naturally weak, even to protect themselves, so they should
not roam in public and should continue themselves indoors. Sultana speaks for Indian women, "
We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and
master. He has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in zenana".
But in Ladyland men are put in seclusion, which is termed as ‘mardana’.
In Lady Land, there is no police or jail as all men are in seclusion . As the story suggests, men
are the source of all crime. So far as the women are engaged in governing the country and to
the development of their land, there is no crime in the Ladyland. In this utopian land, women
are masters of their own,and they are no more under patriarchal dominance and oppression.
The transformation that speaks for feminine empowerment has been called on with no magical
or change of power, but a paradigm shift - a systematic and scientific revolution. And the driving
force behind the success of the utopian feminist country of this Ladyland is women's education.
Rokeya demands women's rights in this fictionalised form, she emphasizes the importance of
women's education that will provide power in social structure. The paradigm shift is temporal as
the dream ends, the narrator is yet to create the ideal land for women. But Ladyland shows us
how to do this. The voice is obviously feminine, and it is expressed through the imagination of a
woman.
Rokeya’s “Sultana’s Dream” is structured around the depiction of a feminist utopia. The
presentation is typically feminine. The feminine aspect is at work of the story from the very
beginning of it. However, as the story opens we notice the narrator, Sultana, thinking idly of
“the condition of Indian womanhood". She suddenly realizes the arrival of a stranger, a lady,
before her whom she thought to be her friend Sister Sara. Sultana comes out of her chamber
with the stranger to visit the garden and the unknown country named Ladyland, the place where
women are free to talk or walk in public. In Sultana's society, women are forced to remain
behind purdah- seclusion from the outer world which is called zennana. To her utter
astonishment when Sultana comes out on the streets of the Ladyland, she discovers to her utter
surprise that there is no man outside, only women. At first, it is embarrassing to her as she is
accustomed to travelling in a veil but here she finds everyone unveiled in public and so is she.
Realising her embarrassment, the stranger, who is still addressed as sister Sara, says, “you
need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm.
Virtue herself reigns here .”
The narrator creates the imaginary setting of a utopian place where women have successfully
freed themselves from the control of men. Here Rokeya envisions a society for women that is
typically feminine. Where women are free to pursue knowledge. That is the reason Sultana is
astonished to learn that men are kept indoors in Ladyland as they are not worthy enough of
being kept loose. Sultana's encounter with an opposite world than her own shows how
patriarchal ideology has so much oppressed and restricted women in society .The long
sustained ideology has taken away the power of thought. Rather, driven by the ideology they
take it for granted that women are naturally weak, even to protect themselves, so they should
not roam in public and should continue themselves indoors. Sultana speaks for Indian women, "
We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and
master. He has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in zenana".
But in Ladyland men are put in seclusion, which is termed as ‘mardana’.
In Lady Land, there is no police or jail as all men are in seclusion . As the story suggests, men
are the source of all crime. So far as the women are engaged in governing the country and to
the development of their land, there is no crime in the Ladyland. In this utopian land, women
are masters of their own,and they are no more under patriarchal dominance and oppression.
The transformation that speaks for feminine empowerment has been called on with no magical
or change of power, but a paradigm shift - a systematic and scientific revolution. And the driving
force behind the success of the utopian feminist country of this Ladyland is women's education.
Rokeya demands women's rights in this fictionalised form, she emphasizes the importance of
women's education that will provide power in social structure. The paradigm shift is temporal as
the dream ends, the narrator is yet to create the ideal land for women. But Ladyland shows us
how to do this. The voice is obviously feminine, and it is expressed through the imagination of a
woman.
