Introduction
This essay examines the ways in which Percy Bysshe Shelley and Haifaa Al-Mansour employ narrative forms to contest prevailing social and political structures while foregrounding the value of individual imagination. Shelley, writing in the aftermath of the French Revolution and amid British political repression, turned to poetry to imagine alternatives to tyranny. Al-Mansour, working in twenty-first-century Saudi Arabia, used film to depict personal aspiration within a conservative patriarchal environment. By placing these writers in their respective historical and cultural settings, the discussion shows how context informs both the techniques they adopt and the values they seek to question.
Shelley’s Poetic Narratives and Romantic Context
In works such as Prometheus Unbound (1820), Shelley constructs mythic narratives that directly challenge monarchical and religious authority. The figure of Prometheus resists Jupiter’s oppressive rule not through force but through visionary speech and creative thought. This emphasis on imaginative resistance reflects the Romantic conviction that poetry can act as an instrument of social change. Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry, though published after his death, articulates the same principle: poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” because they alone perceive truths that lie beyond empirical reality (Shelley, 1840).
The early nineteenth-century context is crucial here. Following the Reign of Terror and the subsequent conservative reaction across Europe, British authorities feared revolutionary ideas. Shelley therefore couched his critiques in classical myth and lyrical abstraction, allowing him to evade censorship while still asserting the primacy of individual vision. His use of elevated diction and symbolic landscapes further distances the narrative from immediate political events, inviting readers to participate imaginatively in the construction of a freer society. Consequently, the poem becomes both a record of oppression and a rehearsal of liberation.
Al-Mansour’s Cinematic Narrative and Contemporary Saudi Context
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s feature film Wadjda (2012) offers a parallel yet distinct deployment of narrative. The story centres on a young girl’s determination to own a bicycle in a society that restricts female mobility and autonomy. Rather than employing overt confrontation, Al-Mansour uses understated domestic scenes and everyday dialogue to expose the constraints placed upon women and girls. The bicycle itself functions as a modest yet potent symbol of individual desire and imaginative freedom.
Al-Mansour’s approach is shaped by the specific conditions of Saudi Arabia in the 2010s. At the time, women were not permitted to drive and required male guardianship for many activities. Filming largely through car windows and inside courtyards, Al-Mansour circumvented restrictions on public interaction between unrelated men and women (Al-Mansour, 2013). This technical necessity became an aesthetic choice that reinforces the theme of limited horizons. At the same time, the film’s gentle tone and focus on a child protagonist enabled it to reach both local and international audiences without immediate accusations of cultural subversion. The narrative therefore works by inviting viewers to recognise the legitimacy of personal imagination within a framework that ostensibly upholds traditional values.
Contextual Differences and Shared Strategies
Despite the temporal and geographic distance separating them, Shelley and Al-Mansour share a strategy of indirection. Shelley displaces political critique into myth; Al-Mansour channels social critique through a child’s perspective. Both methods arise from the need to negotiate censorship or social disapproval. Nevertheless, their contexts produce markedly different imaginative registers. Shelley’s idealism is cosmic and prophetic, reflecting the expansive optimism and subsequent disillusionment of European Romanticism. Al-Mansour’s vision is pragmatic and local, grounded in the incremental aspirations of an individual girl rather than universal revolution.
These distinctions highlight how the assertion of individual imagination remains contingent upon the dominant values each artist encounters. Shelley could draw upon Enlightenment ideas of perfectibility; Al-Mansour works within a society that privileges communal and religious conformity. The resulting narratives therefore illustrate the adaptability of imaginative resistance across different cultural moments.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Shelley and Al-Mansour each mobilise narrative—poetry in one case, film in the other—to question inherited authority while insisting on the dignity of personal vision. Their contrasting historical circumstances determine both the forms they choose and the scope of the futures they project. While Shelley envisions systemic transformation through poetic prophecy, Al-Mansour charts quieter, everyday acts of imaginative self-assertion. Together, their works demonstrate that narrative remains a powerful means of negotiating power and possibility, irrespective of the specific constraints imposed by time and place.
References
- Al-Mansour, H. (2013) Interview with Haifaa Al-Mansour. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/14/haifaa-al-mansour-wadjda-interview (Accessed: 12 October 2024).
- Shelley, P. B. (1840) A Defence of Poetry. In: Shelley, M. W. (ed.) Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments. London: Edward Moxon.
- Shelley, P. B. (1820) Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts. London: C. and J. Ollier.
