An Investigation into the Representation of Women in Yadollah Royaee's Seventy Tombstones

Seventy Tombstones by Yadollah Royayee, is a collection of tombstones and inscriptions. In this book, each stone is specified for a name which has occupied a special place in the poet’s mind and has become part of his intellectual identity. There are objects on each stone. Each tombstone is a text and can be read on the grounds of name and objects which are on it. Among the names mentioned in the book, there are seventeen feminine names. This study attempts to review the tombstones which have feminine names. Drawing upon woman-oriented critical theories, this research is based on feminine notions which are the products of the poet’s structural representations. This reading indicates that in Seventy Tombstones, implied relationships and meaningful systems, words and images, emotions and values signify women’s entrance into the realm of language and thought. In representing feminine notions, Royayee' Seventy Tombstones is deconstructive in that it surpasses the restrictions of body, and penetrates into the discursive web of culture and society within the domain of language which is itself constructed by names.