JOURNAL OF NARRATIVE STUDIES
Year:2019 | Volume:3 | Issue:5 |Papers Count:12

The emergence of comparative literature bestowed to a great extent the democracy and justice to the world of doing research. One of its branches is interdisciplinary studies which deal with the mutual interactions among different sciences. Before the twentieth century, time was considered as one of the rigid criteria which was used to measure the world. By the advent of Einstein's theory of relativity, time was to be considered relatively. Despite classical authors who viewed time from the outside and considered it as the causal consequences, modern novelists distorted the time sequence and employed the stream of consciousness as a means of their narration. One of the most successful works, in this respect, is Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929) in which he follows the theory of relativity and ignores the linear conception of time. The major concern in this paper is to analyze the impact of Einstein's relativity on the early twentieth novelist in general, and on The Sound and the Fury, in particular.

The Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes )sixth century) is another account of Alexander's life and exploitation, and just like other accounts, has been tampered with and distorted by chroniclers and narrators. In this story, Alexander finds a fairyland, which is the same as the woman's utopia or Horom (Barda city), and contrary to the other narrations, he gets into a fight with the sovereign of the women, captures her and then marries her. The present study, within the framework of the narrative semantics and semiotics, first explores the syntax narratives, and then analyzes the actsants and acteurs based on their modale and figurative identities. The questions, in this respect, raised are: 1. what kind of modale and thematic identities did women wish in their ideal world (utopia)? 2. How do semantic identities experience inaccessible areas of action (regime actionnel)? and 3. How do women experience action areas (regime actionnel) which are prohibited culturally? Women's utopia is centered on the identity of "wanting" and the defiance of "must". Such an identity contrasts with the cultural precepts of the community of the sixth century and Alexander's semantic identity as a Prophet; therefore, the narrator, who narrates the conflict between Alexander and Irakit creates semantic Isotopies through his interpretive work, while opposing logic. The contrast between the two continues in form of the conspiracy of the Harem's women. The value system of the text admonishes following women because it recognizes women as the agent. Women of Harem, whose identities are completely the opposite of Irakit, set the values through conspiracy, and without the awareness of other acteurs. Contrary to syntaxe narratives, the narrator denies the role of women and Alexander's deceit.

Writers have tried to modify the methods of realist narrative as the world goes through changes. War has always had influence on literature. The literary works of the post-World War II changed drastically compared with those of the previous eras. Some authors of the post-World War II illustrated the absurdity of life by employing nonrealistic elements. Coined and introduced by Rudy Rucker, transrealism challenges social institutions and beliefs in that humans consider the world as a plaything in order to demonstrate their power. Transrealism is a postmodern movement that consists of the fantasy and science-fiction elements as well as the realistic features, not to mention that the realism which is used in transrealism is not the sheer one. Time travel, new inventions, alternative worlds, aliens, and supernatural elements can be observed in transrealistic works. Satire is another pivotal element of transrealism. It is employed in order to criticize the society and mankind’ s follies. Metafiction is considered as a method of narrative in postmodern stories which is also observed in transrealistic works. In metafiction, the narrator tries to indicate that the story is artificial. Kurt Vonnegut’ s apocalyptic novel, Cat’ s Cradle, can be regarded as a transrealistic literary work. It indicates elements of science-fiction, fantasy, as well as satire, and employs them as the tools for repressing inhuman deeds. This paper intends to examine the features of transrealism and its objectives in Kurt Vonnegut’ s Cat’ s Cradle.

The subject of this research is to explore the potentials of cultural criticism in narrative fiction. Its objective is to help narrative fiction find larger readership for the purposes of cultural criticism. Cultural criticism and cultural studies have several targets. One of their targets is that they want to be a project for the productive use of narrative fiction in modern society, because modern society is no longer much interested in narrative and seemingly takes little responsibility towards it. This is a real cultural challenge in the modern society with which the researchers in narratology and cultural studies are concerned hoping to provide practical solutions for it. In this climate of cultural lag, if narrative is to find enough readership, it should have certain qualities. Some qualities of narrative fiction are: its language is symbolic, it is representational, and it takes outstanding semiotic functions. However, these generic and productive features bring about many other potentials in narrative that make it a suitable space for cultural criticism. Crystallization of cultural criticism, cultural role of the symbol, documentary illustration of the society, elucidation of subjectivity, and concept of form are among the potentials of narrative fiction that the present research is intending to examine, rendering narrative into a productive field of cultural criticism. All of these potentials add to the critical values of narrative discourse, and via the rendition of narrative fiction into a space of critical innovation, strengthen the narrative potentials in the production and criticism of culture. Therefore, the significance of this research is that it analyzes the potentials of narrative fiction in cultural criticism, and via helping it find larger readership, adds to the possibilities of cultural criticism and cultural studies.

The current paper, relying on narrative in the museum, aims to show that part of the museum narrative could be analyzed as a story. This narrative has story development, dramatic scene, and complication, and pushes the viewers to follow the story of museum so that they become involved with the narrative. Thus, first the concept of museum narrative will be explicated, and then the challenges will be put forth assuming museum as a narrative. The major challenge is to pinpoint the role and the presence of the narrator in the process of museum narrative on the one hand, and the relationship between the narrative plot and the object shown in the museum on the other. The paper, considering the concept of enunciation and its application in museum, attempts to show that all museums could have a narrative structure. Then, it tries to explain the design of the museum as a site of narrative, and suggest some methods and techniques bearing in mind the mise en scene as the main tool of the matter. Finally, the study takes the museum of the Islamic revolution and the holy war (Iran-Iraq war) in Tehran as case studies to show how the designers of such museums have tried to embed a story for such settings.

Corpse, like text, soma, body, and media is one of the important substances and discursive mediation in the art of performance. Corpse is always mixed with the concepts of soma and body; however, its applications in performance and narrative are different. Corpse is an object on the scene which has an identity, making sense from culture, history, tales, contexts, and individual and public memories. The performance of ‘ catwalk’ shows mostly deals with simple approaches, but Thom Browne, the senior designer of the American ‘ Channel’ brand, has changed the borders of discursive substances and their relations. His performance makes different discursive situations either on the scene or in the narrative. The current paper aims to study those aspects in performative manifestation. The paper, in other words, aims to explain how, in Browne's performance, corpse makes different images of the place in the show? It seems corpse, as a discursive mediation, is able to cut its own physical connection with the place by two features of deterritorialization and disintermediation borrowed from the principles of the narrative. The study, then, explores what the inter-corpse discursive condition is through which a corpse changes the ready-to-wear clothes. It seems that through forming a compound corpse in the multi-corporeal discursive situation, corpses are able to put the ready-to-wear or cutting-clothes, which carry a sign of casual sewing, into a new layer.

Most definitions encompassing the concept of identity refer to the "sense of belonging to categories and social groups". Accordingly, sociologists as well as linguists and specialists of discourse analysis have tried to provide a comprehensive definition of the term. Based on the scholars of the first category, identity is part of a person's "self-concept", which stems from his knowledge of his membership to a social group. Linguists and discourse analysts such as Kroskrity (2000, p. 14) have defined identity as the result of language function in the process of linguistic and narrative production. In other words, identity has a kind of discursive – linguistic mechanism of belonging to one or more groups and communities in which language and discourse play a key role in its formation. Given this theoretical framework, the present study seeks to analyze and investigate the emergence and formation of narrative identity in the literary discourse of Goli Taraghi – an Iranian immigrant writer-by adopting a descriptive – analytical research methodology. In this approach, "self" and "other” are no longer considered as fixed, predetermined, and stable elements, but rather they are taken into account as dynamic elements emerging in the context of discourse and narrative action. However, this research seeks to answer two fundamental questions: 1. what are the main discursive components involved in the formation of literary narrative identity? 2. What are the major levels of analysis in this case? The results showed that social bias and representation, categorization, and agency as discursive components are analyzable at the semio-textual levels.

The mythical language happens when the temporal, spatial, and semiotic methods in the structure of a myth are regenerated. This paper aims to analyze and explain Sang-o Saye (The Stone and the Shade), a novel by Mohammad Reza Safdari as a case study, as to how such a reconstruction of myths occurs in language. In the course of such an analysis, the status of history, as the temporal representation of myths, and nature, as the spatial representation of myths, are of great significance. It is in regard to the very status of history and nature confronting or corresponding to each other that linguistic implications make sense. Linguistic implications of human beings’ cognitive signs specify their status as subjects or objects, and it can be perceived from the very methods of semiotic implication how myths take shape in language. Mohammad Reza Safdari seems to have achieved such a system in language through writing Sang-o Saye.

The current paper assumes that the objects having a universalizing nature can play different subjective, intersubjective, interobjective, phenomenalogical, and bodily roles. Accordingly, it is wondered where the object stands in social issues, how the object can attain the subject and the narrator's point of view, and coordinate the intersubjective and interobjective relationships through structuring the agentive scenes. In particular, the study attempts to explain the role and status of the object in intersemiotic, interobjective, and social issues from a semiotic-semantic perspective considering the case study of Khaneh-Roshan written by Golshiri. The semiotic-semantic analysis of the object in Khaneh-Roshan shows that the status of object increases to that of the subject-agent, and this role is fulfilled in an intersubjective and social context. The narrative of Khaneh-Roshan is nonlinear and it is one of the rare novels in which the object plays the role of the narrator, representing everything from its own point of view. The object, in the novel, uses the intersubjective and interobjective roles and functions to control the narration, and thus it has affective and bodily interaction with other subjects through social actions so that it obtains the subject-agent status.

One of the aims of narratology is investigating the manners of reception and interpretation of narrations. This neglected view in Persian studies is based on the relationship between the structure of the text and the understanding of the author and interpreter. Accordingly, this study attempts to explain the process of Attar’ s interpretations of the stories in Mantiq-ut-Tayr. In other words, it aims to analyze what patterns there are beyond these interpretations. Thus, it can be said “ nothingness” as a central concept in Attar’ s mysticism has had a clear effect on the structure of reading and interpretation of stories in Mantiq-ut-Tayr. Through the multiple story lines in a story, Attar selects one that contains one of the components of “ nothingness” . The laws of the selected story line affected by these components, and the actants should also follow these laws. On the other hand, the interpretation of the stories is based on the actants who do not do any act and mostly have a reactive function. These properties are in relation with the centrality of “ nothingness” in Attar’ s mystical view. In other words, laws and actatnts that Attar attends to in the process of interpretation are structural categories which indicate the ruling discourse on Attar’ s mind in the reading of stories.

Attributing human traits to non-human is the traditional definition of the term personification. This article goes beyond the limits of this definition. It is hypothesized that personification is a process which is formed by many factors in a context, and without considering these factors, one cannot get into an appropriate conclusion that matches up with the real nature of discourse. A short Persian story, Blind Owl, written by Hedayat, a famous Iranian writer, is chosen to be studied on the basis of discursive-semiotics, in order to show how the process of personification forms. It was estimated that the socio-cultural factor and mythical, ecstatic and nostalgic functions affect the formation of the process of personification. Moreover, discontinuity is a crucial factor that can change the subject to an object and make another kind of personification. Finally, the results confirmed our hypothesis indicating that if attributing human traits decreases, the process of personification leads to its minimal side.

The purpose of this article is to show how the magic of language is realized in magic realism novels. Language, as an important factor in creating astonishing reality, has a contradictory function. On the one hand, through expanding the imagination, it burnishes the literature of novels and reinforces its magical aspect in a way that it separates the readers from this real world. On the other hand, through a linguistic function in creating fictional logic and strengthening the casual relationship, it returns the readers to the real space so that at the peak of wonder, they accept the magical phenomena as realities. This research examines the linguistic features of the novel The Passed Days of the Old People written by Mahmoud Dowlat Abadi. The findings suggest that the language of the novel changes at the levels of sound, word, and syntax due to its narrative on the one hand, and the contradictory functions of language, on the other hand, mixes the real and the magic so that the readers believe the spiritual excitement within the novel.