Call Her Mergan: Worlding a “Defiant Subject”

Abstract

This chapter turns to Mergan and Umm Saad, female protagonists of Dowlatabadi’s Missing Soluch set in Iran and Kanafani’s Umm Saad in Palestine, as articulate manifestations of Fedallah’s proleptic narrative. Historicizing the Parsee beyond the critique of Orientalism, Mergan particularly is a rural woman whose story of resilience against locally patriarchal, nationally tyrannical, and globally neocolonial forces reiterate Fedallah’s defiance of textual violence within and beyond Moby-Dick. Building on Dabashi’s critique of postcolonialism, the chapter identifies Mergan as a “defiant subject” who transcends narrative and critical endeavors that undermine her autonomy in perceptions of her narrative as World Literature. In textually transcending sites of epistemic violence, Mergan stands by Fedallah and Umm Saad as their expressive words envision an egalitarian dialogue among histories and cultures.