Document Type : علمی- پژوهشی
Authors
1 PhD student in Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Iran
2 Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Vahd, Tabriz, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. IRAN
Abstract
Time is a significant and essential component in the creation of a novel. It has such a fundamental position in narrative, some critics believe that the most significant feature of narrative identification is its time. The authors’ playing with time increase the attractiveness of narrative, and indicates the way s/he chooses the events. By going through the authors’ playing with time, we realize the significance of an event in the author's view to achieve her/his goal. Genette, French structuralist theorist, has played a significant role in the development of the concept of time in narrative, as one of the important components of the advancement of narrative. Considering this issue, the present research paper has explored affecting factors on the speed of narrative, through a descriptive-analytical approach in Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar in the light of Genette's Narratology. The speed of narrative is explored to find out the duration of actions/events over time and find out what the portion of a book is devoted to them in a specific span of time. The results of this research indicate that in Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar, the author creates a modern story by creating a narrative, based on non-linear structure, in which the element of the time is very cardinal. Based on the concept of time in Genette's narratology, it can be concluded that in different parts of Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar, due to having a lot of reducing factors of the text narrative speed, the validity is negative and the speed of narration is slow.
Highlights
Investigating the Factors Affecting Narrative Speed in Gholam Hossein Saedi's " Smiling Tatar" Novel Based on Narrative Theory of Gerard Genette[1]
Abstract
Time is a significant and essential component in the creation of a novel. It has such a fundamental position in narrative, some critics believe that the most significant feature of narrative identification is its time. The authors’ playing with time increase the attractiveness of narrative, and indicates the way s/he chooses the events. By going through the authors’ playing with time, we realize the significance of an event in the author's view to achieve her/his goal. Gérard Genette, French structuralist theorist, has played a significant role in the development of the concept of time in narrative, as one of the most important components of the advancement of narrative. Considering this issue, the present research paper has explored affecting factors on the speed of narrative, through a descriptive-analytical approach in Gholam Hossein Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar in the light of Gerard Genette's Narratology. The speed of narrative is explored to find out the duration of actions/events over time and find out what the portion of a book is devoted to them in a specific span of time. The results of this research indicate that in Gholam Hossein Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar, the author creates a modern story by creating a narrative, based on non-linear structure, in which the element of the time is very cardinal. Based on the concept of time in Gerard Genette's narratology, it can be concluded that in different parts of Gholam Hossein Sa'edi’s Smiling Tatar, due to having a lot of reducing factors of the text narrative speed, the validity is negative and the speed of narration is slow.
Keywords: Qolâm Hoseyn Sâʾedi, Gerard Genette, Tâtâr-e Xandân, Narration, Time, Speed.
Introduction
Qolâm Hoseyn Sâʾedi, known as Gowhar Morâd, is a famous Iranian novelist, playwright and screenwriter. He was born on January 15, 1961 in Tabriz and died on December 2, 1985 in Paris. On the whole, Sâʾedi wrote five novels, three of which (Ball, Smiling Tatar, Stranger in the City) are complete and have been published; but his last novel which he himself has called “an unpublished book”, is “The Claw in the Air” is incomplete. Smiling Tatar is an interesting novel and a cross section of Iran’s social history; the result of the author’s lonely days during his captivity in Evin prison in 1974. Walking in social realities, the author helps the reader to accompany the narrator who is a young and frustrated doctor due to a love affair and the role imposed on him by immature modernities. Abandoning all the joys of urban life and custom, he wants to regain his lost peace in exile through meditation. In this article, which aims to show one of the values of Sâʾedi’s novels, the issue of “narrative speed” has been studied as an effective factor in the reputation and permanence of Sâʾedi’s novels. This research has been done in a descriptive-analytical method and with emphasis on the principles of Genette’s chronological narrative theory and the factors that increase and decrease the narrative speed.
Gerard Genette is one of the leading theorists who proposes a comprehensive plan for the study of narrative texts and he distinguishes between calendar time and narrative time. The difference between narrative time and calendar time and its trajectory have been studied by critics such as Gerard Genette, Raymond Kenan and Michael Tolan. In the meantime, Genette is considered as the most important theorist in this field due to his important role in the development of time theory in narration. He examined the trajectory of the change from calendar time to narrative time in three categories: Order, Duration, and Frequency. This became the pattern time theory in the smiling Tatar.
Findings
The narration is not dependent on linear time since the narrator displays his mental disturbances by using the time in the narration events. In the smiling Tatar, anachronism is mainly a retrospective type due to its frequent returns to the previous parts of the story. Prospective anachronism has little use in smiling Tatar; because the author usually looks to the future to set the audience’s mind or advance the plot. One of the features of the smiling Tatar is the author’s great interest in using dialogue in the story. Elimination has the lowest frequency in the novel. The recurring frequency has not been used except in a few cases in time, and in contrast, many singular and frequent frequencies have been used. In some cases, the author uses acceleration to quickly convey his message by eliminating a large part of the time of occurrence and foresight and enjoys singular and recurring frequency, and in some cases uses constant Isochrony.
Conclusion
Due to the volume allocated to the text versus the time of the event, the Smiling Tatar novel has a negative acceleration which, due to the abundance of descriptions, dialogue and great attention to the details, narrates the time of distraction retrospectively and in some places have stopped. The result of this study shows that the factors of narrative speed in Saedi's Smiling Tatar are more applicable and its narrative structure can be adapted to Gerard Genette's narrative ideas.
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[1] Seddiqe Kobrâ Sadaqiyâni: PhD Student of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Iran E-mail:sadagiyani.s@gmail.com.
Hamid Rezâ Farzi: Associate Professor of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Iran. E-mail:hreza2007@yahoo.com
Nâser Dašt-Peymâ: Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Iran. E-mail:dashtpayma_nasser@yahoo.com
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