An Adaptation of Feminist Literature: Sultana's Dream
Introduction
"One evening I was lounging in an easy chair in my bedroom ... I saw the moonlit sky sparkling with thousands of diamond-like stars" (Hossain).
In this fantastical opening of Rokeya Hossain's short story "Sultana's Dream" (1905), a Muslim woman in India named Sultana falls asleep and wakes up in a utopic society known as Ladyland. At Ladyland, there are no wars, no crimes, and no poverty; citizens thrive in a prospering garden surrounded by scientific innovation: solar-powered air-cars hovering in the sky and a large air-balloon collects rainfall. However, amid the idyllic vision is the subversion of contemporary gender roles, where men are confined in zenanas (areas in houses reserved for keeping women) while women freely roam the streets. The fantasy elapses when Sultana wakes up from her dream and returns to her hair. While the story is rooted in a satirical setting, it resembles numerous feminist problems of contemporary society: women's lack of education, contributions for scientific innovation, and patriarchal oppression.
Upon its publication, "Sultana's Dream" gained popularity due to its blend between fantasy, science fiction, and feminism. Following these imaginative themes, during 2018, artist Chitra Banesh adapts "Sultana's Dream" through 27 linocut prints, depicting graphic sequence of surreal imagery: figures with elongated limbs, human-animal combinations, and floating solar panels. These images effectively reinforce the fictitious tone of Hossain and visualize the uncontainable power that feminism could harness in an unconstrained world. However, the emphasis on the fantastical symbolism overshadows the narrative structure that instills plausibility of Hossain's feminist vision in the 21st century. This suggestion raises questions about what constitutes an effective adaptation for "Sultana's Dream": How can texts be visually translated without limiting the impact of the message? What choices must an adaptation make to succeed as feminist work? For this essay, feminist work is considered an effort to advocate for women's liberation from patriarchal systems and achieve equality. Popular feminism in India celebrates women's empowerment through individual accomplishments, such as financial independence, success, or resilience (Rahut 3).
To create a successful adaptation is to meet two arguments, Linda Hutcheon and Mushi Premchand, in the middle. A successful adaptation of "Sultana's Dream" would incorporate feminist ideologies that creates a realistic guideline for women's empowerment in contemporary society. This adaptation will make changes to both Ganesh's print collection and Hossain's original story.
To formulate a successful adaptation of Sultana's Dream, two distinct theories propose ideas as to what makes a narrative effective. Linda Hutcheon's theory of adaptation defines adaptation as a process of "re-interpretation" and "re-creation" (Hutcheon 8). By this definition, an adaptation can adjust a story to a new medium, cultural setting, or audience as long as it contains the "spirit" of the original work, whether it be a character's psychological arc, tone, theme, or format. This theory effectively outlines two concepts: first, an adaptation of Sultana's Dream is motivated by the need to make stories resonate across temporal contexts. Second, despite inevitable changes of the medium and the medium's respective capabilities, successful adaptations require the preservation of core thematic elements; for feminist adaptations, the theme could be the focalization of women's livelihoods. However, the theory provides a vague definition of the "spirit" of a work. For "Sultana's Dream," the story's "spirit" is largely noted by its fantastical and satirical story, but merely keeping the story's lighthearted elements makes it difficult to emphasize the heavier topics involving Hossain's critique of patriarchal structures, limiting its potential as a feminist work.
A contrasting framework is identified by Mushi Premchand in his essay "The Nature and Purpose of Literature" written in 1936. He presents a realist, stating that literature is a "criticism of life" and should only be used for forward-thinking advocacy (Premchand 82). This marked the emergence of India's Progressive Writers' Association, which sparked movements advocating that those capable of pursuing the arts have obligations to advocate against social issues for an equitable future (Premchand 85). According to this theory, adaptations of "Sultana's Dream" should focus solely on representing the objective reality of female repression for it to be valuable. However, this theory is also flawed as it limits the creative potential of many literary works and only appeals to a limited audience. Despite decades of progressive writing, "Sultana's Dream" is still renowned for its fantastical elements of a utopia. (Ferdousi 68). This leads me to the conclusion that a successful adaptation is one which preserves Hossain's imaginative "spirit" of the story while simultaneously engaging contemporary audiences through providing a realistic guideline for the progression of feminism.
Background Context
Building a successful adaptation begins with acknowledging the social context of the audience. The discourse surrounding women's roles in India across the 19th and 20th centuries was associated with radical reform: social reformers argued that the improvement of women's status was crucial to a "progressive" nation (Orsini 139). Hindi women's journals were at the forefront of pushing feminist advocacy, particularly for education access. Regardless, this education was largely role-based and dedicated to training women to compromise their own aspirations for family life, suggesting that women should have just enough freedom to become a partner of the man and home (Orsini 141). After the story's publication, feminist literature evolved significantly. By the 1920s, women's journals had shifted closer to mainstream Hindi press, which reflected growing female readership (Orsini 146). For instance, the increase of first-person fiction introduced the urgency of feminist conversations, as readers were forced to confront face-to-face with the cruelty women experienced and legitimized their voices (Orsini 151). This establishes that the past decades of feminism have already been reflecting on past patriarchal suppression.
"Sultana's Dream" also accompanies Hossain's role as a social reformist. Born in a conservative Zamindar family, Hossain was confined at home but learned English and Bengali in secret. Through education, she channeled all her efforts into enlightening women, acknowledging that ignorance is the root to all problems in practical life. From her perspective, a confined woman like herself could achieve nothing besides feeding into a delusion (Ferdousi 68). Hence, although the primary purpose of "Sultana's Dream" is to reflect on the unfavorable restrictions women endure through the oppression of men, its secondary purpose is to present Hossain's guidelines for a contemporary society where these injustices can be dismantled, emancipating women's intellectual power. Since historical feminist literature made decades of strides to raising awareness about women's mistreatment, present media should shift its focus on making practical suggestions to combating historical cruelties and provide standards for a feminist future.
My Proposal
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My proposal reimagines "Sultana's Dream" by merging the surrealist visual style of Chitra Ganesh's prints while integrating realism in its presentation of the narrative arc. These changes include development of Sultana's character, alternative mediums, and a reimagination of the original ending. While it maintains the fantastical aesthetics common in Indian printmaking culture, this adaptation creates more relatable and pragmatic visions of feminism. This adaptation also addresses a more well-rounded outlook of feminism, not only shedding light on women's social struggles, but providing a positive mindset in striving towards a desirable feminist society.
Visuals
The visual style will be largely identical to Ganesh's print. As opposed to printing on tanned paper, I plan to illustrate each screen with black positive space and off-white negative space.
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Figure 1: My proposed color-combination with hex codes.
This creates an even greater contrast that simplifies the visual style, effectively compensating to the dense compositions of each frame. The production of visual adaptations in India operates within aesthetic traditions that distinguishes itself from other filmic approaches like those in Hollywood: artifice. As opposed to using continuity editing for realism, Indian visual culture uses stylistic approaches like dramatic color saturations or rapid camera movements (Ganti 84). Unlike the filmic capability for continuity editing, printmaking is done in isolated frames that rely on audience interpretation of visual composition, textures, and color. Replicating the dramatic surrealism of some Indian cinema, lines are carved into the linoleum, where uncarved blocks are covered in ink and result in crisp, graphic shapes when pressed on paper (Goel and Singh 153). Even when transitioning to animation, the crispness of printmaking illustrations remain replicable as a surrealist art style. While the story and character arcs are adapted to serve a realistic portrayal of a feminist society as Premchand would support, the graphic visual styles maintain the signature utopic essence Hossain envisioned while keeping with India's distinct visuals, which, by Hutcheon's theory, would constitute the "spirit" of the work.
Costuming
Costuming choices in Ganesh's print collection will be identical in my adaptation due to its effectiveness balancing the fantastical spirit of Hossain's work and realistic depictions of Indian culture.
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Figure 2: "Sultana's Dream": "City in Broad" linocut by Chitra Ganesh (Ganesh).
As observed in this print, some women are wearing traditional South Asian attire like saris and salwar kameez, which are commonly associated with elegance and femininity. On the contrary, people also wear space suits and exotic bodysuits that show women's engagement with science. Importantly, none of the women are wearing veiling themselves for modesty; rather, the emphasis is placed on visibility. The blend of both futuristic clothing and traditional clothing successfully aligns with the goal of establishing a midpoint between realism and fantasy.
Sultana's Character
In the original, Sultana meets Sister Sara––a guide for Sultana as she navigates Ladyland's customs. As a newcomer to the unfamiliar utopia, Sultana begins as a skeptical woman unsure of her own intellectual worth. She admits she "feel[s] somewhat awkward" as a "purdahnishin woman" who's unusual about walking around "unveiled." By capturing her awkwardness––whether to succumb to familiar notions of modesty or embrace this newfound autonomy––Sultana's character mirror the instinctively sheepish reaction of individuals navigating an unfamiliar environment. Comparatively, the print collection portrays Sultana as a dominating, goddess-like figure early-on. While this creates visually compelling iconographies, the absence of Sultana's psychological development makes the story less personalized and rather a mythological concept of feminism.
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Figures 3-5: Two of my drawings and one original print that portray Sultana's character arc.
The sequence of drawings begins with Sultana as a third-party observer of Sister Sara and Ladyland at large. The second panel portrays the Sister Sara walking beside Sultana while she becomes accustomed to Ladyland. Finally the image of Sultana sitting remains identical.
This character arc is productive as it appeals to the popular art depictions in India, making the story more relatable from the perspective of a public sphere. Goel and Singh identify in their analysis of printmaking in modern indian art that since the 19th century, popular art like woodblock printings favoured mythological iconography superimposed on everyday life. This suits the final panel as it is, presenting Sultana as an all-powerful figure in the everyday life of Ladyland after being enlightened. Secondly, the the story humanises Sultana's character by providing a relatable perspective aligned with the social status of many women in early 20th century India. After all, readers empathize with characters most when they share a common identity. While the story takes place in an imaginative setting, by allowing readers to see Ladyland through Sultana's humanistic view, the narrative reinforces the feminist message by inviting women in Sultana's journey of intellectual awakening. As a result, the story keeps its fantastical elements by using visual symbolism to represent Sultana's power while also creating a rational character trope for Sultana, making it easier for viewers to empathize with Sultana's character, and, thus, solidify collective urgency for feminist advocacy.
Medium
My adaptation will include micro-animations to demonstrate the functionality of Ladyland's scientific innovations. In the story, innovations are attributed to two universities for women in Ladyland. In one university, a "water balloon" is linked by pipes and "afloat above the cloud-land," where people are able to "draw as much water from the atmosphere as they pleased." Another university invented an instrument to "collect as much sun-heat" as desirable, keeping the heat "stored up to be distributed." Ladyland's optimization of heating, agriculture, and other material concerns is a key thematic component of the story as it instills a sense of wonder as to how women liberalize themselves from domestic work. Beyond proving their resource-efficiency, citizens travel freely across the open ground and sky, harnessing anticolonial potential and illustrating the extent of their freedom. To counteract the merely idealistic descriptions of the innovations, I would animate specific functions of each product to visualize its practicalities.
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Figure 6: Storyboard illustrations of the water balloon innovation
This change of medium has two benefits. Firstly, animations can preserve the artistry of storytelling in the original prints. The animation would consist of similar illustrative frames composed of two colors, reinforcing the fictional genre. Next, allowing viewers to see the functionality of the product in motion enhances the believability of the innovations. While the design's practicalities are explicitly explained in the original text, the prints have an inability to show the innovations in operation, making women's innovative capacities in "Sultana's Dream" appear unattainable. Effectively, animating these visuals reinforces the feminist message at the heart of "Sultana's Dream": women are capable of designing intellectual solutions.
Finally, compiling these visuals into a continuous video would allow for easier circulation and, eventually, traction. This is endorsed by Hutcheon's theory. Hutcheon identifies three modes of engagement: telling through written text, showing through plays or films, and participating through video games (Hutcheon 22). The issue with this categorization is that it provides a vague framework for Ganesh's linocut series. While art is conventionally associated with showing, it does not replicate scenes through continuous movement and rather uses symbolic imagery dissected by the viewers' interpretation. Nevertheless, the categorization is sensical from a commercial standpoint: it is easier for animated films to circulate as one story than it is for multiple individual prints to be pieced together as a cohesive narrative. Traditionally, prints are easily distributed due to their low cost of production and replicability (Goel and Singh 155). However, Ganesh's prints come in a series of 27 images, and the story can only be complete when viewers consider the entire collection. Beyond adding realism to balance science fiction, an animated medium would allow the story's message maximize its awareness from circulation.
Ending
This alteration focuses on Hossain's original story trope. In the current ending, Sultana wakes up from her dream, "opening [her] eyes" and finding herself "in her own bedroom" on "the easy-chair" (Hossain). While the story's premise revolves around its advocacy for feminism through education, the existing dream trope undermines the message. Authors Farhana Yeasmin and Dil Rifat Sayed explain this with a psychoanalytic theory suggests that a dream is produced through the unconscious mind, serving as an "escape-hatch" where "repressed desires, fears, or memories seek an outlet into the conscious mind" (Yeasmin and Sayed 181). In Hossain's case, they argue that the "images of her dream present an escape from the sad reality" and "into the place where she wishes to be." Through this view, we can assume Hossain's purpose of "Sultana's Dream" is to expel discrimination against women from society (Yeasmin and Sayed 182).
For instance, Hossain resists women's confinement in zenanas––where they are secluded from the outside world––through the voice of Sister Sara. To justify confining men, Sister Sara reminds Sultana that "innocent women" are "shut up in the zenana," asking "[h]ow can you trust those untrained men out of doors?" (Hossain). Yeasmin and Sayed contend that Hossain utilizes Sister Sara's voice when discussing unjust female oppression to signify her personal viewpoints (Yeasmin and Sayed 184).
This interpretation is accurate in that Hossain utilizes "Sultana's Dream" to highlight the unfortunate circumstances of being oppressed in the patriarchy. However, Yeasmin and Sayed also neglect the secondary purpose of "Sultana's Dream": a hopeful guideline for a contemporary feminist society. As stated in the background, post-1920s Hindi journals witnessed an influx of topical articles that carried a women's section, speaking upon problems like treatment of widows, education, and women's seclusion in purdahs (Orsini 151). Beyond proving the patriarchy exists, current feminist storytelling also discusses hopeful yet achievable futures for feminism.
"'After taking leave of the Queen, I visited the famous universities, and was shown some of their manufactories, laboratories, and observatories.'
I turn the page from Sultana's story to the last page of "Sara's Journal." I put down the pen as I clutch the strings of an inflating balloon. Standing by an open window, the chattering rain traces my fingers as the balloon slips through my fingers and into the wind."
My alternative ending suggests that the narrative is written by Sister Sara's. In the present, Sister Sara is an innovator of a fictional setting where climate change, poverty, food insecurity, and other social issues are pertinent. As she prepares to launch her innovations, she writes "Sultana's Dream" as a manifestation that she will become a model for other oppressed women in the past. While Ladyland is still an imagination, Sister Sara is still presented as a real woman who exercised her intellectual capabilities to innovate. Additionally, this perspective offers direct insight into Hossain's voice. Assuming Yeasmin and Sayed correctly interpret Sister Sara reflect Hossain's thoughts, this ending more effectively fulfills the author's intent: to acknowledge that male-domination is repressive, but also to envision a conceivable world in which women can defy gender inequalities.
Conclusion
Through mixing idealistic visual portrayals with the realist psychological journey of empowerment, a successful adaptation of "Sultana's Dream" establishes neutrality between honoring the original text's fantasticality and acting as a guideline for feminism. Though the story was written over a century ago, Rokeya Hossain's work still reflects contemporary feminist efforts, such as advocacy for women's representation in leadership, gender-based violence, access to education, or bodily autonomy. To inspire continuous feminist movements in literature, a singular adaptation of "Sultana's Dream" cannot suffice, given that evolving time periods come with evolving audience receptions to the story. However, fully engaging today's society requires adaptations that align with the audience's cultural values, balancing a preservation of the original "spirit" of the work and advancing social messages. Through engaging in feminist storytelling, we understand how to build upon past inequalities and envisioning an equitable future.
