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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?
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?
More Questions
1. Are there aspects of this gender-reversal utopia that indicate its author's interest in educational reform for Muslim/Indian women?
2. What are some advantages of the use of a dream narrative frame?
3. How does this work resemble other utopian/science fiction works you have read? For example, does it resemble Christine de Pisan "The City of Ladies," William Morris's News from Nowhere, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915)? What are some similarities in tone, as well as clear differences in emphasis? (preoccupied with ending institution of purdah)
4. What is purdah, and why does the author consider it offensive? What alternative does she propose? Why do you think she is unable to imagine a world in which men and women cooperate?
5. What do you make of the use of the figure of a queen? Could this have been influenced by the fact that England had long been nominally headed by a female monarch? (Britain ruled India until 1947).
6. What character traits are ascribed to women in general in this utopia? Have other feminists/feminist theorists made such claims? Would you describe this as essentialist?
7. How do the members of this female world respond to nature and to science? (keen on using science for agriculture, aviation, and medicine) What are some inventions which have improved life? (weather is controlled, electric power is widely used)
8. How are sexual/personal relationships conducted in the new female society? What is the aim of these changes? Can you see how these will be worked out? (continued regulation of relations between women and their male relatives, though more relaxed than in her society)
9. Why does this new society place so much emphasis on gardens and nature? Does the new land of Sultana's dream resemble its author's native Calcutta? Are the gardens of "Sultana's Dream" similar to those in News from Nowhere and Herland?
10. Does the writer seem preoccupied with British colonialism or the British presence in her country?
11. What does the narrator/guide believe women should do to better themselves? (they must fight for self-determination and respect: "You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests")
12. What has caused a decline in infant and child deaths? (better medicine)
13. How have kitchens changed? What does this indicate about the projected future of domestic work? Who tends to cooking and other domestic arts?
14. What US/European inventions resemble the dream's suggestion that agriculture be electrified? (compare use of tractors at beginning of 20th century)
15. Is it consistent to describe men as meekly accepting their subjection yet at the same time as violent and competitive by nature?
16. Considering its length, how successful do you think this is as a literary projection? Are there problematic aspects to the author's imagined world? How may these be accounted for by aspects of her cultural background? (unable to imagine a society in which men and women mingle freely and share public endeavors)