Ideological Anxieties and Defense Mechanisms in the Tragic Works of Shakespeare and Ferdowsi

Abstract

At the time of subversion and containment, the power structure applies various strategies for its survival. It manages ideological anxieties and employs defense mechanisms to contain dissident forces. Tragic works have the potential to display tensions in the power structure, its ideological anxieties of subversive forces and appliance of various strategies to survive. By comparing classical tragic works, it is possible to reach a comparative schema of the monarchist power structure. Hence, the tragic works of two national writers, Shakespeare and Ferdowsi, from two cultures with monarchist power structures and similarities in story themes have been selected. This paper has aimed to compare ideological anxieties and defense mechanisms in William Shakespeare’s plays Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello with their counterparts in the tragic stories in Abol Qasem Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, “Zahhak the Snake Holder”, “Fereydoun and His Sons” and “Siavash”. The tragic works of Ferdowsi and Shakespeare provide an exceptional opportunity to observe the operation of power; how power restrains subversion in cultural narratives and displays it to prevent its realization in reality. In addition, by displaying the subcultures, these works surpass the existing level of awareness, which is beyond the dominant culture and the subcultures. By examining cultural narratives of the Persian and the British literatures, this research has achieved a trans-cultural awareness.