Rokeya Hossain, Sultana’s Dream

What conventions are represented in the fact that the author, though dreaming, considers herself awake? What language may indicate that her experience is visionary?

What is indicated by names of the two characters? What is the effect of confining the narration to only two speakers?

To what does “Sister Sara” invite the narrator? What does she remember about her past with Sister Sara, and what may this foreshadow about their future?

What is symbolic about the change in time of day?

What seems different about the population filling the streets? How would this have been different from Hossain’s Bengali experience?

How have men allegedly changed? How is virtue defined in this new Ladyland?

How and where to the men spend their time? How has this shift in positions allegedly come about? What arguments for male hegemony does Hossain attempt to undercut? What contemporary views of women’s roles does she parody? (9)

Why do the women still find time for fine embroidery? How does Hossain critique the conventional office/civil service workday?

What are the priorities of this new land? What are some achievements their inhabitants have managed through horticulture, science, and technology? How have they managed to use alternative energies? To alter their climate?

What is the history and qualities of their present Queen? What new laws had she proclaimed? What universities were founded?

What stand does she take that precipitates a final conflict, and how is this won?

What has happened to the filth and pollution of the past? Why have railroads and other forms of land transportation been removed?

What change in priorities causes an end to internal and external quarrels? Why is there no need for a police force?

How do their air machines differ from those of the Wright brothers, invented in 1903?

Why do you think such emphasis is place on the new bathrooms? What are the new conditions for foreign trade?

How are male-female relationships structured? Is any provision made for reproduction?

What has happened to former conceptions of wealth and value? (17)

Are there topics this brief female utopia fails to address? What do you think are its merits? Its unlikely elements? To what extent do the latter detract from the writer’s main points?

Could the world imagined by Hossain have been genuinely egalitarian? What gender assumptions lie behind its plot elements? To what extent would these have been typical at the time, both in India and in the UK?

For a fantasy published in 1905, what seems innovative about Sultana’s Dream? If you have read other utopias/dystopias (such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1915 Herland), how does this compare?

If you were to rewrite this for 2022, what changes might you make?

Rokeya Hossain, Sultana’s Dream

What conventions are represented in the fact that the author, though dreaming, considers herself awake? What language may indicate that her experience is visionary?

What is indicated by names of the two characters? What is the effect of confining the narration to only two speakers?

To what does “Sister Sara” invite the narrator? What does she remember about her past with Sister Sara, and what may this foreshadow about their future?

What is symbolic about the change in time of day?

What seems different about the population filling the streets? How would this have been different from Hossain’s Bengali experience?

How have men allegedly changed? How is virtue defined in this new Ladyland?

How and where to the men spend their time? How has this shift in positions allegedly come about? What arguments for male hegemony does Hossain attempt to undercut? What contemporary views of women’s roles does she parody? (9)

Why do the women still find time for fine embroidery? How does Hossain critique the conventional office/civil service workday?

What are the priorities of this new land? What are some achievements their inhabitants have managed through horticulture, science, and technology? How have they managed to use alternative energies? To alter their climate?

What is the history and qualities of their present Queen? What new laws had she proclaimed? What universities were founded?

What stand does she take that precipitates a final conflict, and how is this won?

What has happened to the filth and pollution of the past? Why have railroads and other forms of land transportation been removed?

What change in priorities causes an end to internal and external quarrels? Why is there no need for a police force?

How do their air machines differ from those of the Wright brothers, invented in 1903?

Why do you think such emphasis is place on the new bathrooms? What are the new conditions for foreign trade?

How are male-female relationships structured? Is any provision made for reproduction?

What has happened to former conceptions of wealth and value? (17)

Are there topics this brief female utopia fails to address? What do you think are its merits? Its unlikely elements? To what extent do the latter detract from the writer’s main points?

Could the world imagined by Hossain have been genuinely egalitarian? What gender assumptions lie behind its plot elements? To what extent would these have been typical at the time, both in India and in the UK?

For a fantasy published in 1905, what seems innovative about Sultana’s Dream? If you have read other utopias/dystopias (such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1915 Herland), how does this compare? (note parallel emphasis on gardens)

If you were to rewrite this for 2022, what changes might you make?