Changing Pieces

Since the dawn of history, women have always been subjected to and condemned by men’s will; their choices and power have been limited by men’s authority and domination in patriarchal societies due to their gender. This paper examines Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters and Parinoush Saniee’s The Book of Fate and demonstrates a reciprocal relationship between cultural capital and women’s subordination in the marriage field, the analysis of which will be based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts of field, capital, and habitus. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical concepts as well as the contextual analysis of the selected novels, the findings of this paper indicate that women’s submissiveness, present in different patriarchal societies throughout history, is the outcome of men’s use of culture as a sort of capital to retain and reproduce their power and domination in all fields, even those related to women, including the field of marriage. Keywords: Pierre Bourdieu, field, cultura...

“More liquor,” said the dark-skinned man holding out his glass.“No more liquor,” said the fat man grabbing the bottle from the counter. “Indian dance now; liquor later.”“Liquor,” said the dark-skinned man stretching for the bottle.“Afterwards,” said the fat man, shielding the bottle behind his vast bulk. “Now Indian dance.” He waggled his hips and his flabby belly shook. “Now Indian dance out front. Everyone watch Indian dancing.”The dark-skinned man stopped and stared at his fat counterpart, stared at him as a famished, skittish dog might at a person chewing a sandwich in a roadside bar. The fat man waggled his hips once more, his arms upraised, the bottle in one hand and a shot glass he was drinking from in the other. The dark-skinned man chuckled.“You like that, eh?” said the fat man. His flabby jowls wobbled with laughter, his eyes vanishing between puffy little lids. “Off you go, Indian. Bwana want to see Indian dance. Me bwana, you Indian, monkey.”“Not monkey.” The Indian shook h...

Yasmina Saleh – Algeria At least five or six of them, maybe even more, had overrun his house and family. He was not a politician, an inciter of dissent, nor a troublesome writer; he was a decent citizen. Yet they permeated his little dreams and reluctant joys. The darkness and gloominess of the Algerian night increased after the first shot was fired; the family was overcome with unspeakable dread. Another scene of horrible confusion, terror, and carnage ensued.Mahmoud Kandeel – Egypt Despite the tombstones surrounding her, the place felt empty. The cemetery stood still but for her nervous figure, sitting and fidgeting beside a green, rusted dumpster. Agitated, the woman stuck her right hand inside her blouse and fiddled with something unseen, as though desperately searching for something lost.“Look, she’s caressing her breasts,” my companion whispered with a snicker.

NOTE: Due to a possible editorial conflict of interest author Tijana Parezanović did not participate in the editing/publishing process of this issue of the journal.This article deals with the spatial aspect of texts about World War II and the post-war period, analyzing Muriel Spark’s 1963 novella The Girls of Slender Means as an example. It observes the novella as a realistic work narrated in the fantastic mode, and the analysis is primarily informed by Patricia García’s concepts of the fantastic of space and the fantastic hole. The article argues that the temporal disruption made by World War II is reflected in texts about the war as spatial perforation. As The Girls of Slender Means is carefully structured around the firmly ordered and intact space of the May of Teck Club, the one location that triggers the major event of the novella is a hole in the building’s structure, the heterotopic perforation conceived as fantastic because it is hidden from sight in the otherwise shattered lan...

This paper analyzes the covers of the weekly newspaper Novosti, on which the current refugee and migrant crisis is depicted with illustrations where various verbal and visual signs recontextualize the motif of barbed and razor wire. The symbolic, satiric, and metaphoric potential of barbed wire is discussed, and its functions in the narrative on migrants are defined. The examples are categorized according to the distinct semantic characteristics of acting on the body and enclosing space, and the presented research model confirms that the pronounced artistic and critical functionality of the motif of barbed wire lies precisely in the potential of establishing an antithesis that is simultaneously also an element of the satirical dialectic and the source of metaphoric interpretations. Keywords: barbed wire, satire, symbol, conceptual metaphor, semanticsWriting a summary for the history of barbed wire, from the prairies and war trenches to concentration camps, Razac (2009) stops at the con...

Characters: Over the chimneys, streaks of clouds and smoke across the sky. It is a wet and dismal night. A Saint-Petersburg mansion. In the lordly entrance, stands ARLEKIN in his tights and bells, and he follows the walkers with his eyes.TEACHER (enters, music is heard in the distance) ARLEKIN: Let me guide you. TEACHER: Impudent! ARLEKIN: Ah, no. Have pity! Please, let me guide you… Just from afar. TEACHER: Where are the police when you need them? ARLEKIN (somewhat breaking): My autumn looooove…TEACHER: Leave me!ARLEKIN (earnestly, and with misunderstood power): My queen…TEACHER (is silent) ARLEKIN: I love… you are so beautiful! Are you always so beautiful on autumn nights? TEACHER (as if in a frenzy): Scoff and scoff again! I am a single, thin woman. They pay me twenty rubles… like I’m a cook! I am tired! My voice is hoarse! You listen to me, my voice is hoarse, on my eternally hoarse lips, and I cannot dream of fantasies! ARLEKIN: Ah, no! It’s just, it seems, I’ve only had one dream...