To
her, education is the main key to gain a successful life ahead and there are
many advantages that women can gain throughout the exposure to education. As we
read Sultana’s Dream, we can see how she portrays women in the story. Rokeya is
a self-reliant woman, thus she can see how women in Bangladesh or Indian
society were treated and how they were deprived of education (Mahmud, 2016). As
she can see the miseries face by the women, she promised to herself to fight
for the equality that women should get especially in receiving education. Other
than that, Rokeya also realized that education is the most important thing for
everyone in this world thus she wants to write against the oppression in order
to help them build their self-reliant. Based on the story, she change the real
norm of the patriarchal society into a matriarchal society where she made women
are the most important figure in this story. Rokeya creates a different kind of
society who live in a land that is led by women and she change the role of men
and women in daily life. By writing a story in such way may be an eye opener to
the reader as she knows how the patriarchal society has deprived women’s right
in the society and also in education. In the story, she portrays an imaginative
land where people who live in there will get equal knowledge, thinking,
intelligence and also vision no matter what gender are they.
Moreover,
we can say that Rokeya has successfully create a story that has interesting plot
where it focuses on the hidden meaning that need to be realized by the reader. Instead
of having a leisure reading, readers can also get to know the reality of how
women are being treated in the Indian society. They only think that education
is meant for men and not for women as they will end up live in the house and do
all the house chores. Based on this argument, there is a Quranic verse that
says “O our Lord! You encompass everything in (Your) mercy and knowledge, so
forgive those who repent (of disbelief) and follow Your path, and save them
from the torment of Hell.” (25:70) and “O our Lord! Grant us in our wives and
offspring the coolness of eyes and make us a leader of those who guard
themselves against evil.” (25:74) Based on these two Quranic verses, we can say
that Allah swt never limits the education to only one gender but it is clearly
mentioned that Allah swt wants all the human being to seek for knowledge. It is
important to be an educated woman because it will helps woman to educate her
children in the future. To add, it is also important for children to adapt
moral education since childhood and the best person to teach moral education is
the mother. This is what Rokeya wants to raise in her story, Sultana’s Dream.
She wants to make the society realize that education is very important for
women as they will help their children since the early phase. If women cannot
get a proper education, how can they be a good mother and teacher to her
children later?
In
the other hand, Rokeya also highlights the capability of women in Sultana’s
Dream where she portrays women as the leader, workers and many more. She wants
to show to the reader that women are also capable to do what men can do and she
wants to change the mentality of Indian society; women are the weakest and they
are only expert in the house chores. This is a very good attempt she has made
because in the real life, we rarely sees men to be in the house for 24 hours
and the only thing they can do is doing the house works. Rokeya has
successfully raised the real societal problem in her short story and thus, we
want to conclude that this story is a very interesting literary work made by
Rokeya. It portrays so many feminist elements and change our perception towards
feminism.
References:
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