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چکیده
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Evolutionary psychology, unlike psychoanalytical approaches, investigates the evolutionary biological factors underlying the cognitive operations of human psyche, including their thoughts, behaviours, and actions. These evolutionary psychological theories could be employed in analyzing the origins of patriarchy and matriarchy in literary works. In this research, this interdisciplinary approach provides a framework for tracing the evolutionary origins of patriarchy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, Cristina Dalcher’s Vox, and Naomi Alderman’s The Power. Barbara Smuts, a remarkable anthropologist and psychologist, spent years studying the evolutionary roots of male aggression and patriarchy itself. Her theories not only frame the methodological background for scrutinizing the evolutionary roots of male aggression and patriarchy, but also offers a group of counterstrategies for resisting patriarchy. This study explains the evolutionary origins of patriarchy in the novels to demonstrate how patriarchal systems are formed within the novels. Meanwhile, the motivations underlying males’ aggression towards females, i.e., the tendency towards reproduction and survival, are stated. Moreover, it also represents the future of patriarchy, i.e., its fall and dissolution. Concerning the findings, the novels analysis depicts the evolutionary movement from the rise of patriarchy to the rise of matriarchy. On the one hand, the analysis demonstrates that the rise of patriarchy in the novels has evolutionary psychological origins and, on the other hand, it indicates that the fall of patriarchy and rise of matriarchy in the novels totally depends on gender power-relations. The investigations conducted within the novels also represent reproduction and survival as the motivation underlying male violence against female. The analysis also indicates that patriarchal system is not permanent and its existence depends on environmental-evolutionary factors. At the end, the research suggests an evolutionary psychological approach appropriate for gender, feminist, and power-relation studies.
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