Investigating the Cultural, Social, and Biological Considerations of the Body in the Novel "Tokhme Sharr"

The subject of the body and the concept of corporeality are among the issues that have been considered by researchers and scholars in various fields such as sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and cultural and literary studies in recent years. The principle that man has always been in bodily situations throughout history, as well as the fact that the human body is not limited to biological existence, but possesses structural and sociological aspects according to different situations, has raised important questions such as; how can humans make connections between the biological body, individual identity, and collective structures? Furthermore, the impact of power relations on the formation of people's image of their body, or the connection between the gender patterns instilled by cultural forces and the perception of males and females in their bodies have been investigated. The famous writer “Belqeis Soleimani” is one of the creators of Persian fiction that deals with new cultural and social topics and concepts in her novels. In his latest novel, “Tokhme Sharr”, she tries to address the issue of the body and its biological and social effects. In this research, which has been written in a descriptive-analytical manner, an attempt has been made to study and analyze the evidence related to this issue in narrative actions and textual dialogues, focusing on the dual division of the natural body and the social body. The results have indicated that within the biological aspect, the author has paid more attention to the issue of body language and body awareness. However,  in the social aspect, he has analyzed the issue of the effect of patriarchal power relations and culture on the gender image of women's bodies.
Research problem
The new studies of sociologies has indicated that people's perception of their body is more of a cultural and social issue than a biological issue. To be precise, a person's view of his body is influenced by patterns and images, some of which are the flow of power, a number of others are cultural interactions, and the remaining quantity are customary issues. This problem has become much more serious in the new world with strengthening the fashion industry and the development of communication technologies.
A notable point to be addressed is that literary works, especially novels, as a context for reflecting human thoughts and emotions, contain a significant part of concerns, reflections, and ideas related to the body. A process that sometimes happened consciously and sometimes unconsciously. The novel Tokhme Sharr by Belqeis Soleimani is one of the examples of the author's conscious effort to reflect the subject of body. Therefore, in the current research, which was carried out with a descriptive-analytical method, an attempt was made to investigate and analyze the subject of the body and its related biological, philosophical, social, and cultural reflections in the novel Tokhme Sharr based on the social theories proposed in this field. Undoubtedly, critical reading of narrative texts, especially novels, in alignment with the new approaches in sciences such as psychology and sociology, while showing the capacities of this type of literature, can provide a suitable model for young writers to be not only the narrators of stories in their works, but also to use their writings as tools so as to express new social, philosophical, and psychological concepts. Accordingly, in this article, an attempt has been made to answer the following questions by focusing on the text of the novel Tokhme Sharr as well as the theories about the social and cultural functions of the body:
A: Which of the aspects of the body, whether biological, psychological or sociological, is more reflected in the text of the novel?
B: What is the effect of power relations in the field of gender issues on the presented image of the body in the text of the novel?
C: What is the relationship between the gender patterns induced by cultural forces and the characters' perception of their bodies?
Research Literature
In studies addressing the notion of body, apart from biological considerations that examine the body as a biological issue, there are other trends that emphasize the cultural and social aspects of the body. The most important person among this group is the contemporary French philosopher and critic Michel Foucault, who is the first person to the body as a social matter into consideration. Foucault, who paid more attention to power and the ways of its emergence in traditional and modern societies, considers the body to be the first arena of complex power relations. In this way, it makes the power relations of the body the subject of science and in this way imposes the will of power on it. Pierre Bourdieu is another sociologist who dealt with the subject of the body. He introduces the body as the physical capital of mankind and the differentiator of the social status of people, and on this basis, he describes the management of the body as a tool for gaining social status.
Irving Goffman is another well-known sociologist who has addressed the issue of cultural and social aspects of the body. Goffman believed that the members of human societies try to present a perfect and complete image of themselves in their actions, and if there is a gap between the actual and possible social identity of the individual, it will be stigmatized. Goffman divides stigma into physical, personality, and ethnic or national triads, the first type of which is directly related to the subject of the body. One of the concepts used by Goffman is the issue of "personal view". Personal view is the image that a person presents of himself while performing a social action, which consists of two parts that are appearance and character. Sociological theories related to the category of the body are not summarized in these few views and other figures such as Anthony Giddens and Norbert Elias have addressed this issue. Of course, most of all, it is David Le breton, who paid particular attention to the issue of the body and wrote a book called sociology of the body, in which he considers the sociology of the body to be a branch of sociological knowledge that considers the body as a social matter and a symbolic subject.
Discussion and conclusion
The results have indicated that Belqeis Soleimani has been attracted by the issue of the body from various biological, social, and philosophical dimensions in the novel Tokhme Sharr, both in the narrative actions and during the dialogues of the characters. Precisely, distinctive points of view that are categorized in this article under the two axis of natural body and social body.
Under the category of the biological view of the body, the author deals with the serious issue that the body is the main and most loyal friend of man that accompanies him throughout his life. In the author's opinion, although throughout history, various control tools, in the name of civilization and culture, have sacrificed the biological body and ignored its natural desires by hanging the duality of soul/body. But the body, with the tools it has, stands against this current and is firm on its own truth. This is the reason why, in discussions related to the body, special value is given to the body and its natural desires. By addressing the issue of body language, the author points out how the natural body affects its owner by insisting on its needs. This language sometimes appears in the form of feelings such as hunger and thirst and sometimes in the form of diseases and physical tensions.
The considerations related to the social aspect of the body in this novel are mostly related to the issue of gender and include; men's right to own women's bodies, the issue of the influence of power relations on the way women dress, the problem of men's assault on women's bodies, and the influence of strict cultural patterns. People's influence on women's feelings towards their bodies, the influence of men's tastes on the formation of the image of the ideal female body, the existence of some unpleasant customs and traditions in marriage ceremonies, the influence of power relations on the type of women's jobs, the influence of social issues in transforming the body from a physiological matter into a medium for displaying identity, and the influence of language in reproducing the historical dominance of men over women.