Addressing and Interpellation of Subjects’ gender in Hedayat's Stories

Due to the post-Reformation socio-cultural events in Iran, forms of the Interpellation of humane subjects and the origin of their identity formation have changed, and this has consequently affected the construction of story subjects. Unique Interpellation of female subjects in the early stories of Persian literature, especially in those of Hedayat's, could be cited as a great example of this phenomenon. Employing a constructivist viewpoint, the present paper seeks to interpret and classify the gender-based addressing and Interpellation of subjects in Hedayat's stories. In doing so, Althusser's theory has been referred to for macro discussions, and for more micro analyses of textual signs, Goffman, Brown and Lewinson's theories have been used. The results show that the construction of location-situation of each fictional subject is in fact resulted in three layers of bodily, reaction-oriented and belonging-oriented interpellation which have been expressed by narrators and fictional subjects and have accordingly created positive or negative faces for the subjects. Although bodies have been objectively described in bodily Interpellation, the final assessment of the same bodies, as the main criterion of face-formation, is basically done by mental factors, on the basis of classical aesthetics. On the contrary, due to the dominance of realism on texts, in reaction-oriented and belongings-oriented layers of interpellation, class relations, forms of consumption, and taste of subjects are among the main criteria for face-formation. Though the gender-based construction of female subjects in Hedayat's stories, in line with the attested individuality in the contemporary world, is mainly based on personal and historical relations of subjects, its face-forming criteria have been formulated on the basis of a variety of epistemic and aesthetical factors.