Visions of Women’s emancipation and empowerment: An exploration of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream”

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s brilliant feminist utopia entitled “Sultana’s Dream’ throws a flood of light on women’s emancipation and empowerment through education. It is a dream vision, set in an imaginary country called Ladyland where women live, move and breathe freely. As a Contrast to the real world of Rokeya’s time in the first decade of twentieth century, Ladyland represents a world where women have an access to education, can cultivate their minds and develop their potentialities to the fullest extent possible. This paper is a thoroughgoing analysis of Rokeya Hossain’s scathing Criticism of a deeply conservative patriarchal society which tries to suppress and oppress women by confining them within narrow domestic walls and denying them the rights to fulfil their potentials. “Sultana’s Dream” is a pioneering work in so far as it highlights the supreme importance of women’s education in paving the way for the emancipation of women and their empowerment in a male-dominated society.