Refuge in the Rock: Chthonic Rescue and Other Narrations of Women in Peril

IF 0.2 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Narrative Culture Pub Date : 2021-03-06 DOI:10.13110/NARRCULT.8.1.0082

M. Mills

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Abstract

Abstract:This article explores dimensions of motifs of rescue of women in peril from dangerous others: religious, political, or ethnic enemies; malevolent supernaturals; or unacceptable human suitors. Defense of women's chastity and sexual vulnerability are immediate and pervasive communal concerns. Across an array of Persian-language oral and written narrative genres, what kinds of rescue/escape are possible and impossible? What are the forms of female agency entailed by different scenarios (differentiated by genre)? What is tellable, what is untellable, by whom, to whom? The parameters of possibility align with genre: sacred legend appears to be backed in some cases by older mythic associations; romance and folktale are identified by tellers as fictional and fanciful; local oral historical accounts and personal experience narratives have constraints on tellability related to the social vulnerability of victims. These thematic variations on female peril and rescue may propagate orally in local communities then also appear in written form as legends, tales, memorates, historical and journalistic accounts, and memoirs intended for different audiences. In a cultural area where the peaceful (and consensual) seclusion of women in protected domestic space was traditionally regarded as an index of social order and well-being, a striking element of certain legends is that of immobilized sequestration as both escape and consecrated agency for women. The place of refuge also becomes a locus of female sacred power.

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岩石中的避难所：对处于危险中的女性的Chthonic营救和其他叙述

摘要：本文探讨了从危险的他人手中拯救处于危险中的妇女的主题的维度：宗教、政治或种族敌人；恶毒的超自然现象；或不可接受的人类追求者。捍卫妇女的贞洁和性脆弱性是社区关注的直接和普遍的问题。在一系列波斯语口头和书面叙事流派中，什么样的救援/逃跑是可能的，什么样是不可能的？不同场景（按类型区分）所涉及的女性代理形式是什么？什么是可销售的，什么是不能销售的，由谁销售，对谁销售？可能性的参数与类型一致：在某些情况下，神圣的传说似乎得到了更古老的神话联想的支持；言情和民间故事被说书人认定为虚构的和幻想的；地方口述历史叙述和个人经历叙述对与受害者的社会脆弱性相关的tellability有制约作用。这些关于女性危险和救援的主题变化可能会在当地社区口头传播，然后也会以书面形式出现，如传说、故事、纪念品、历史和新闻报道，以及面向不同受众的回忆录。在一个文化领域，妇女在受保护的家庭空间中的和平（和自愿）隔离传统上被视为社会秩序和福祉的指标，某些传说中的一个引人注目的元素是，固定隔离既是妇女的逃离，也是妇女神圣的代理。避难所也成为女性神圣权力的场所。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Narrative Culture HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

0.50

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Narrative Culture is a new journal that conceptualizes narration as a broad and pervasive human practice, warranting a holistic perspective that grasps the place of narrative comparatively across time and space. The journal invites contributions that document, discuss and theorize narrative culture, and offers a platform that integrates approaches spread across various disciplines. The field of narrative culture thus outlined is defined by a large variety of forms of popular narratives, including not only oral and written texts, but also narratives in images, three-dimensional art, customs, rituals, drama, dance, music, and so forth. Narrative Culture is peer-reviewed and international as well as interdisciplinary in orientation.