Evaluate Begum Rokeya's Sultana's Dream as a feminist science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future setting, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovation is one purpose of science fiction, making it a literature of ideas. Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures.

Fantasy is closely associated with science fiction.. Fantasy is a fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements. Some narratives are described as being essentially science fiction but with fantasy elements. The term 'science fantasy' is sometimes used to describe such material.

Begum Rokeya

Feminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women's role in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles,the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and personal power of men and women. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopia to explore a society in which gender differences do in exist.

Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect so cool politicos legal system. The word was imported from sir Thomas more's book Utopia (1516),describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term is used to embody a dream of an imaginary ideal place or society.

Sultan's dream is a classic work of Bengali science fiction and one of the first examples of feminist science fiction. This Utopian fantasy was written in 1905 by Begum Rokeya ,a Muslim feminist, writer,social reformer and the harbinger of Muslim women's emancipation. It depictions a feminist utopia in which women run everything and men are confined to mardana(secluded male quarters). The women are aided by science fiction-esque 'electrical' technology which enables labourless farming and flying cars ;the female scientists have discovered how to trap solar power and control the weather.

The dream that Rokeya designs in her sultana's dream is much visionary. In one evening Sultana ,the narrator of the story,half-awake and half-sleepy ,was musing upon the miserable condition of the Indian womanhood. All on a sudden she saw a lady before her ,whom she takes to be her friend, Sister Sara .The lady brings her,whom she takes to be her friend, Sister Sara.The lady brings her to the Lady land, a country where gender roles have been reversed,where class inequalities are absent,where religious differences do not matter.

In this unconventional and inverted world ,the men whose advantage is brawn rather than brain,live in seclusion and perform the daily mundane chores while the women, headed by a queen,use their intellect to govern the country wisely and well. The inversion was caused by the failure of the male soldiers to protect the country from foreign invasion. It was the women who came forward with their scientific inventions to save the country.

Women had been able to establish a distinct female realm and order in Lady land because while men had busied themselves in fighting wars,women had engaged themselves in scientific researches.Thus the physical might of the male sex bows to the intelligence of women. The queen of lady land tells sultana that they dive deep into the ocean of knowledge and try to find out the precious gems as the gifts of nature. Lady land is free form sin and crime. Sultana,the narrator, gazes in wonder and amazement at the crowded streets in which not a single man is visible. The whole place looks like a garden. No smoke ,coal or fire is seen in the kitchens, because cooking, as sister Sara explains ,is done through stored sun-heat. There are no epidemic diseases and no deaths occur except those caused by rare accidents. Women scientists have been able to work out how to store water ,how to generate electricity which helps till the field, which provides the power for other hard manual works and the energy required for air -cars ,the only means of transport.

In Lady land,which has schools and universities for women ,education is far and wide among women. Early marriage has been stopped in the country. Crime is eliminated, since men were responsible for all of it. The workday is only two hours long,since men used to waste six hours of each day in smoking. The religion is one of love and truth. Virtue and purity reigns over the country. In sultana's Dream, the driving force behind the success of the  Utopian feminist country of Lady land is women's education. All of Rokeya's writing called upon women to protest against injustices, social barriers and social repression. She led the movement for women's education and awakening. She broke out of the fetters of the purdah system and advocated women's emancipation. She understood that nothing but education would emancipate Muslim women, and she worked toward that end with the intellect of a teacher, zeal of a social reformer and conscience of a humanitarian. Rokeya also laid particular emphasis on the importance of knowledge of science for the upliftment  of women.Thus Rokeya's Sultana's Dream reflects the triumph of female virtue and the scientific spirit in women. As a fable, sultana's Dream has a compact and clever ploty line and a clear moral. In fact,this vision of Utopian Lady land originated in Rokeya's imagination from an utmost desire of having a world where the men and the women could equally be treated.It can readily be concluded from above discussion that Begum Rokeya's Sultana's Dream serves as a striking example of science fiction \feminist science fiction \feminist Utopia \fantasy \ fable..