A Study of Violence Against Women in the Fiction Literature of the 1940s Based on Four Novels (Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, Sang-e Sabour, Shazde Ehtejab, Suvashon)

New Iranian fiction is the birthplace of modern and progressive ideas. For example, it is an arena where women play a role both as writers and as influential heroes in the creation of events. In this new literature, women are the subject of problems in many stories. One of these problems is violence against women. In this paper, we made an attempt to investigate violence, its types and tools and various causes of its occurrence in selected novels of the 1940s entitled Sang-e Sabour, Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, Shazde Ehtejab, and Suvashon by means of which to portray their authors’ attitudes toward women’s rights and issues in the society. Analyzing the contents of the aforementioned works, the most violence in its hidden and overt forms can be seen in Showhar-e Ahou Khanom, followed by Sang-e Sabour, Shazde Ehtejab and Suvashon, respectively. Numerous factors play a role in the occurrence of this violence: culture, customs and traditions, religious beliefs, family and the patriarchal attitude and women’s ignorance of their rights, are among the causes. The issue of violence against women in the novels shows that the writers of this period, as intellectuals and reformers in the society, have a feminist attitude and try to defend women’s rights by protesting against the ruling sexist traditions and criticizing the patriarchal domination and showing the unfavorable social conditions and inferior status of women.