عرفان رجبی

Subject positioning theory is one of the recent contributions in the field of discourse analysis and has been used widely in pedagogy. In this research the theory is applied to Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam to illu-minate how the characters (or subjects) are positioned or, to use an Althusserian term, interpellated. MaddAddam Trilogy offers such deep layers of meaning that enables one to embark on a vast discourse analysis concerning those texts. By utilizing subject po-sitioning theory the possible [meta]discourses (or meta-narratives), that are defining the subjectivity of the novels’ characters, are unveiled. In other words, this research demonstrates how discourses, such as the scientific-technological or consumerist dis-courses, govern and regulate the characters’ subjectivity throughout the novels. Ac-cordingly, the scientific-technological discourse leads to immoral experimentalism, consumerism, and corruption in the novels’ society. Moreover, the commodifying and corrupting discourses are traced in the light of a scientific metanarrative. In another section, the influence and role of religious discourses are scrutinized to explain some of characters’ actions, such as atheism or extremist acts like creating new species. Fi-nally, the discourse of violence and the normalization of violence is explored to elabo-rate on the characters immoral and violent behaviors and actions. This study identifies the positions of the characters through their discursive practices; then, by investigating the very discursive statements the characters use in a specific position, the dominating discourses are uncovered. This thesis provides a genuine method of discourse analysis within the field of literature as well as a totally contributive readings of the novels.

Upton Sinclair’s novel, Oil!, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s film adaptation, There Will Be Blood, both offer insightful depictions of the subjectivities of their characters. These works present characters whose identities are shaped by unconscious desires, as well as societal and cultural constructions of gender and power. Jacques Lacan’s theory of the unconscious and Julia Kristeva’s theory of the semiotic and the symbolic provide fruitful frameworks for analyzing these characters’ subjectivities. Lacan’s theory posits that the self is constructed through a complex interplay of conscious and unconscious desires. From his early days as a struggling prospector to his rise to power as an oil magnate, Mr. Ross’ identity, for instance, is shaped by his relentless pursuit of wealth and power as his desires. Besides, the conflicts he faced with other characters formed the narratives of both the novel and the screenplay. Kristeva’s theory of the semiotic and the symbolic serves as a beneficial framework in understanding the subjectivity formation of these characters. Kristeva suggests that language and culture shape our identities, and that we are constantly negotiating between two modes of meaning-making: the semiotic and the symbolic. The semiotic, for Kristeva, refers to pre-linguistic expressions of emotion and bodily experience, while the symbolic is associated with rational thought and language. In light of the aforementioned information, this thesis seeks to analyze the oscillation between the semiotic and the symbolic dispositions of the characters’ language and to consider their desires that create their subjectivities as they enter their symbolic orders. Finally, the researcher investigates whether patriarchy is supported or undermined by the novel and its film adaptation.

The present research seeks to critically study David Hare’s Knuckle (1974), Plenty (1978), and Skylight (1995) in light of Kate Millett’s feminist concepts in her book, Sexual Politics and Christine Delphy’s theories about family and patriarchy in her book, Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression. Kate Millett in Sexual Politics believes that, there is a power-structured relationship whereby females are controlled by males in the context of sexual politics in society. Moreover, Christine Delphy believes that men and women as husband and wife perform the role of employer and employee at home which leads to oppressive measures. David Hare’s female characters in the plays above are explored through ideology, biology, sociological matters, force, class, and economy as sexual matters and the effect of these factors on them. More specifically, love, madness, and alienation are the consequences of these sexual matters related to Delphy’s theory which make a connection between sexual politics and the identity of female characters in selected plays. The thesis found out that sexual politics psychologically shape the lives of these characters as oppressed subjects in a capitalist patriarchal society.

This study aims to analyze the novel A Clockwork Orange, written by Anthony Burgess, along with its film adaptation with the same title directed by Stanley Kubrick. Since self-knowledge has become a significant and important issue in the modern age, the necessity of a leading thought in this field is required. Therefore, the present project begins with analyzing the most controversial ideas and theories of Carl Gustav Jung, in terms of a psychoanalytical reading of the mentioned works. Jung presents remarkable theories regarding human self-knowledge, including the theories of evil, individuation and wholeness. These theories take an important step in the world of modern psychoanalysis in connection with the knowledge and awareness of man’s both conscious and unconscious. In completing and further processing these theories, we take a glance at the works of a contemporary Jungian, Murray Stein, who works as a practicing psychoanalyst in Zurich. In addition to analyzing the concepts of Jung's psychoanalysis, Stein follows Jung’s mainstream and presents his own complementary ideas regarding the human unconscious. Inspired by Jung's theory of shadow and man’s institutionalized dark aspects, Stein does research on unconscious areas in order to further explain the idea of wholeness, which in Jung’s psychology, is the final purpose of individuation. Based on Jung and Stein’s thoughts which have been formed considering the main issues of contemporary men, the researcher focuses on a psychoanalysis approach to fulfill the aims of the present study. Furthermore, Burgess as a novelist, has paid attention to how his characters go through a change. The main issue of this project is to investigate Burgess and Kubrick’s objectives of referring to these changes and to clarify in what manners they use this dynamism to accomplish their objectives. On one hand, the novel and the film are examined through psychoanalytical intertexts and on the other hand the researcher goes through the similarities, differences and how the author and the director depict the main character’s change and his path to wholeness.

This study examines the psychological changes and identity development of the protagonist in Colm Tóibín's novel Brooklyn (2009) through the lens of the migration process. Drawing upon psychological concepts such as intrapsychic conflict, refuelling, temporal continuity, subjective-selfsameness, second individuation of adolescence, and ethnic conscience, proposed by Salman Akhtar, an influential psychoanalyst and author, in his book Identity and Immigration (1999), this research explores the protagonist's journey as the protagonist relocates from Ireland to America. Other related concepts such as diaspora, displacement, diaspora identity, host population, and ethnicity that are embedded within the context of migration, are frequently referred to and discussed. By analysing key moments in the narrative, the study reveals the protagonist’s psychoanalytical struggles and the subsequent outcomes of sacrifice and reward, which contribute to her personal growth in the context of migration. The study highlights the protagonist's navigation of the tensions between her understanding of the homeland and the promises of a new country, leading to a more developed sense of self-discovery and self-fulfilment. By examining the psychological mechanisms involved in migration, this study sheds light on the potential effects on identity development. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities and costs associated with carving an accomplished identity in the face of migration.

In the recent years, literary historians and critics have begun to reevaluate the role of oil in politics, society and literature. Oil as a valuable material has dominated many aspects of people’s life especially those who live in oil rich areas. In fact, oil, as an inextricably linked social issue rather than a mere source of energy, has become the identity of people and has dominated their hidden desires. The present study tried to find out the impact of oil both as a material wealth and value form on two novels namely Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and Ahmad Mahmoud’s The Neighbors. In analyzing these novels due to the eligibility of them to be placed in the Petrofiction category, Amitav Ghosh's framework was utilized. Based on Ghosh, fiction has a gap named oil conflict, which he called petrofiction in his 1992 article. The results of the analyses revealed that oil as a material wealth and value form affects politics of a society and this in turn impacts the lives of the characters in both novels. The dual forms of oil create a set of relations among the characters who undergo a social change. This thesis examines the intellectual growth of the main characters in two novels as they undergo social change, leading them to adopt strong socialist ideologies in response to the cruelties of a capitalist society. Through a close textual analysis, the study argues that the characters' experiences prompt a reevaluation of their beliefs, resulting in a transformative intellectual journey. Drawing on socialist ideology and political philosophy, the thesis shows how the characters develop a critical consciousness and reject the dominant socioeconomic order.

The Elizabethan period, a dynamic era in which literature and specially poetry flourished, has been the center of focus in many research projects. The aim of the present thesis was to analyze the selected sonnets composed by two Elizabethan sonneteers, Sydney and Spenser, based on Van Leeuwen’s Critical Discourse Analysis theory in order to reconstruct the underlying discourse through which the social actors were represented. To this end, following an overview of Leeuwen’s sociosemantic model in the present project, an analysis of the representation of the social actors was conducted. The results of the analysis indicated an identical pattern of representation in all of the sonnets: while the masculine social actors were legitimized as the central voice, the female social actors were marginalized and unvoiced. This proved that there were ideological implications in the representation of the social actors in the sonnets. In conclusion, it was finally argued that the mentioned pattern of representation provided an image of power relations in the Elizabethan era in which the social actors were empowered or disempowered according to their gender.

The present study aims to explore Gina Nahai’s Caspain Rain (2007), Moonlight in The Avenue of Faith (1999), and Sunday’s Silence (2001) in terms of geographical concepts of space, place, and gender. Gina Nahai, in her novels, demonstrates the life of low-class Jewish people especially female characters and their relationships. In the selected novels, she also uses the social and economic differences to describe the characters of the novels in various places and spaces. Hence, the three novels can be studied through the lens of Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey’s concepts. They argue that there is a dialectical relation between space and gender, in such a way that not only gender relations produce space but also space constructs gender. Judith butler presents performative gender that is constructed rather than being biological sex. The concept of gendered space, in particular, does not indicate that space has a gender, but there is a system in which gender is constructed. Doreen Massey in her book Space, Place and Gender claims that geography affects cultural forms, genders and their relations in different ways. She points out that social, economic and physical factors in a specific space and place have a significant impact on the formation of gender; moreover, identity is constructed in these interactions and relations for making gender issues. Space and place, the key terms of this research, are produced and constructed through the local place and political and economic situations in these novels.

فرانقد (نقدِنقد ادبی) در بارۀ نقد و نظریه های ادبی و شیوۀ کاربست و کاربرد آن ها در آثاری است که به نقد ادبی می پردازند. به این منظور، دو مجلۀ دانشگاهی نقد ادبی و زانکوی سلیمانی برای مطالعه انتخاب شدند. از میان مقاله های آن دومجله، با فرمول کوکران188 مقالۀ فارسی و 76 مقالۀ کردی، به صورت کاملا تصادفی، برگزیده شدند. دو هدف عام و خاص در نظر بود. هدف عام این است که نسبت میان شیوه های نقد ادبی و متون ادبی در دو مجلۀ دانشگاهی در ایران و اقلیم کردستان سنجیده و ارزیابی شود و دلایل اقبال یا عدم اقبال هر مجله به شیوه های نقد ادبی، به دست داده شود. هدف خاص ارتباط میان ـ دانشگاهی بود تا از این راه پلی میان دانشگاه های دو کشور زده شود تا پژوهشگران و استادان ادبیات و نقد ادبی دانشگاه های هر دو کشور به مبادلۀ تجربه های خود در زمینۀ نقد و نظریۀ ادبی بپردازند و در بومی کردن این نظریه ها یا تولید نظریه های برآمده از ادبیات بومی بکوشند و به تقویت و رشد ادبیات بومی خود و منطقه یاری رسانند. آن چه حاصل آمد: در هر دو مجله سیطرۀ نظریه مشهود است. در میان نظریه های ادبی از قدیم تا کنون که در شرق و در غرب بالیده شده اند، نگاه هر دو مجله به نظریه های نقد ادبی غربی است. توجه به نقد ساختارگرا در هر دو مجله گوی سبقت را از سایر شیوه های نقد ادبی ربوده است. غالبا، ابتدا نظریه به عنوان مبانی نظری معرفی می شود، سپس، شواهدی از متن مورد نظر بر اساس آن نظریه شرح یا توضیح داده شده یا تحلیل گردیده است. در کنار توجه به شیوه های نقد ادبی نوین می توان نشانی از مقالاتی انگشت شمار با بهره از نقد بلاغی و سبک شناسی به شیوۀ قدما نیز یافت. جالب است، که توجه به مسائل زنان در هر دو مجله تقریبا مسکوت باقی مانده است. هیچ یک از آن ها، دغدغۀ مسائل زنان را نداشته اند یا اگر پژوهشی در این زمینه نیز دریافت کرده اند در اولویت قرار نگرفته است. در مقاله های مجلۀ زانکو به نقد و نظریه کمتر توجه شده است. اگر هم توجهی دیده می شود ابتدایی است و تقریبا، نشانی از کاربست نظریه های تازه تر و مرتبط با دیدگاه های فلسفی در این مجله دیده نمی شود. در حقیقت می توان گفت که مجلۀ نقد ادبی چند گامی جلوتر از مجلۀ زانکو حرکت می کند

The dissertation in hand is an attempt to investigate the transition of culture, text, and identity from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) to Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman (2015). This interdisciplinary reading employs several concepts and theories of literature and cinema, including intertextuality, adaptation, and cinematic metaphor; a brief elaboration of Raymond Williams’ culture and its reflection in identity construction, along with chaos theory, the butterfly effect; and psychology and identity, including Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne, Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger, Self-Perception theory by Daryl Bem, and Stanislavski’s Emotional Memory. Williams defines culture as the product of struggle for making social and political change. Chaos – TA – Dissonance – Stanislavski. Chaos implies that a void is a space of creation of something out of nothing, and the Butterfly Effect notes that a small fraction could result in a catastrophe. Raymond Williams’ defines culture as a product of struggle to make social and political change, and divides communities to Solidarity and Service. Transactional Analysis illustrates that human behavior is rooted in three ego states of Child, Parent, and Adult, and the shifts between them represents human identity. Death of a Salesman is dominated by a culture of chaos and dissidence, commodity, dehumanization, and service, while The Salesman, affected by butterfly effects, is shifting from a culture of morals and solidarity to a culture similar to the former text. Death of a Salesman is a world of Parent and Child ego states, and cognitive dissonance, while The Salesman is one of transition from Adult to Child and Parent, and Self-Perception. The Salesman’s world is embracing the cultural elements of Death of a Salesman world through adaptation, intertextuality, and emotional theory; consequently, the result is a cracked world. It was concluded that the transition process of identity, text, and culture from Miller’s Death of a Salesman to Farhadi’s The Salesman is a continuous circle of one affecting the other, on the way to create a fundamentally deformed and new culture, text, and identity, or in better terms, an intertextual and intercultural multiple identity.

The present study seeks to delineate the matter of functionality and dysfunctionality of family members by considering the roles of father, mother and their relationships with children in the novels of The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Home (2012) and Love (2003) written by Toni Morrison (1931-2019). In order to analyze functionality and dysfunctionality of the families, in the novels, Family systems theory and approach have been selected as a paradigm onto which family is observed like a system with incorporated components which are individuals and members. Systems theory is a research methodology based on the application of a systematic approach which suggests that the activity of each component of the family affects the activity of the other components. The tendency in cybernetics and system theory in approaching family is not to solve issues in clinical manner but to identify the roots of functionality or dysfunctionality. The present study has found that the families wherein the relationship between parents with children has been damaged or parents have ignored their child support roles are considered dysfunctional in terms of systems theory. By observing the families mentioned in the novels and based on the existing theory, the research came to the understanding that in families where there is anxiety and carelessness among its members, it leads to dysfunctionality of the family. This means that the relationship between family members, each member's defined role, and the socioeconomic status of families have a direct impact on functionality or dysfunctionality of the families. It seems appropriate to use the family systems approach to analyze the functionality and dysfunctionality of families.

The present study seeks to address Lisa Unger’s In the Blood (2014) and Crazy Love You (2015) in terms of Jacques Derrida's hauntology, which asserts that the effect of the past on the present and the future is undeniable; Judith Butler's gender performativity, which refers to the idea of gender as just an act, or performance in response to social expectations; and Julia Kristeva's mosaic of quotations, referring to the absorption and transformation of texts within texts. The fear of the past forecasting present and future is rampant in the novels of the aforementioned author. The fear of sex changes in the past is hanging with the characters of the novels, giving it a unique stature of being studied in terms of hauntology. Notwithstanding to say, the sex change mentioned here is not that of a biological one. However, the desires and the roots of the protagonists toward sex change are issued; hence, taking recourse to the mosaic of quotations to analyze such issues seems fit. Moreover, the presence of a character named Priss is questioned. The significance of the following study is that no previous research has ever applied mosaic of quotations on two texts within the same novel; it is argued that Unger writes parallel stories in order to stretch her books enough to form a novel. Also, it is the first time the two novels are studied based on gender performativity and hauntology as two complementary concepts. The following study tries to prove that the texts are not completely distinct and original, and also to put an emphasis upon a character's past to bold the impressions it has received for now; in another word, present is haunted by past.

The present thesis seeks to scrutinize Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003) and Falling Man (2007) in terms of Benjaminian’s concepts of reproducibility, aura, and storytelling. Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish philosopher and literary and cultural critic, argues that the emergence of new technologies including film, photography and printing press not only has drastically changed the function of works of art in society, but also has inevitably led to a sharp decline of aura in those artworks. According to Benjamin, the concept of storytelling has diminished by the act of dissemination of the novels and the information in the modern age. For Benjamin, the act of replication of artworks led to the disappearance of other significant features such as uniqueness and authenticity, which are in close affinity with aura of artworks. In the novel Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo demonstrates Eric Packer, the protagonist, a billionaire asset manager who travels across New York City in his limousine to get a haircut. During his trip to the city, he analyzes the unstable economic situation, watches the news and videos of the death of his friends through the screens and monitors of his expensive car. Another novel, which depicts the devaluation of the artworks in modern times, is Falling Man. In this novel, DeLillo depicts the horrible situation of the character Keith Neudecker, as the protagonist, where he manages to escape from the 9/11 attacks. Keith listens to recorded songs, which have been reproduced in unlimited numbers. In the novel, Martin is an art dealer, and his fiancée, Nina, is a collector. Nina has various paintings on her wall that she has bought them from different people or art exhibitions. By focusing on the characters of the two novels, it can be recognized that DeLillo depicts the withering of aura due to the replication of works of art through the characters Keith Neudecker and Erick Packer. Also, he demonstrates the significance of storytelling by providing a rather detailed analysis of the significant character, Benno Levin and Florence Givens. Moreover, DeLillo illustrates the concept of reproducibility mainly through the reproductions of Erick Packer and Carol Shoup which has led to the devaluation of those artworks.

The current thesis attempts to present a comparative reading of Saul Bellow’s Herzog and Reza Ghasemi’s The Nocturnal Symphony of Lumbers’ Orchestra. The fundamental aim of this thesis is to trace Žižekian concepts of the parallax, the tickling object, and the ticklish subject in these two novels. Herzog, one of Bellow’s awarded novels, contains a host of unsent letters providing illustration of Moses Herzog’s psychological status. Congruently in The Nocturnal Symphony of Lumbers’ Orchestra, Reza Ghasemi investigates the protagonist’s psychological status, Yadollah. Žižekian theory of the subject provides proper theoretical framework in reading these American and Persian novels. The works of Slavoj Žižek conducted disputatious re-articulation of Subject/Object, the Displacement of an Objet Petit a (Object of Desire) with Object-Cause of Desire, and Parallax. Žižek re-articulated Lacanian concepts, but, like Hegel, he places emphasis on one-to-one relation between subject and object. This thesis sheds light upon the psychological status of Moses and Yadollah; a comparative study of protagonists’ subjectivity in both novels. Herzog’s most significant actions take place in the mind of the subject. Moses’ second wife, Madeleine, is often described as the source of Moses’ interior struggle as she abandons Moses to be lover of Valentine Gersbach, Moses’ best friend. In Reza Ghasemi’s novel, actions are narrated through Yadollah’s mind. Yadollah is left behind by his lover, Raana on one hand, and on the other hand, the fact that Yadollah has immigrated delineates his inner subjectivity. Moses’ and Yadollah’s interior struggle to find truth appears to delineate the real essence of the subjects.

The current research seeks to critically investigate Toni Morrison’s selected novels, with reference to Laclau and Mouffe’s discursive-analytical theory. More specifically, the present study aims at exploring the way black subjectivity, subject-positions of African Americans, and identity of textual characters are constituted within Morrison’s four novels, i.e. Jazz (1992), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), and Home (2012). With this purpose in the view, the current thesis has opted theoretical framework of Laclau-Mouffe’s discourse analysis in order to apply it to abovementioned texts as sample selection. After analyzing textual data extracts, linguistic and non-linguistic acts through critical tools of Laclau and Mouffe and the novels unveil that there would be multiple discursive domains as the findings of the present research. In particular, identity of the characters-whether black or white could be partially affiliated with discursive domains. On a large scale, Afro American identity can be constructed in contestational contingency with simultaneity of plural and alternative discursive articulations in their political affiliations, effectively leading to the condition of overdetermination. The core possible conclusions drawn from the overdetermined character are as follow: none of discourses are able to claim the dominant or hegemonic position in discursive construction of African-American identity as a whole. Furthermore, the problem of overdetermination posits that hegemonic sides fail to close and suture all black subjects and characters into one discursive chain. Therefore, black identity has a split and unstable character. The overflowing process implemented by surplus of floating signifiers prevents full construction of black identity with a single hegemonic discourse, giving rise to the phases of de-totalization and dis-articulation. However, the impossibility of closure embedded in hegemonic discourses causes the emergence of empty signifiers.

This study aims to scrutinize Marsha Norman’s plays, being Getting Out (1977) and Night, Mother (1982) in terms of Lacanian concepts of Oedipus complex, Foreclosure, Identity, and Name-of-the-Father which serve as a methodology in psychoanalytic criticism. Along with these main concepts, other related ones such as Desire, Lack, Object Petit a, Ego, Ideal Ego and the Big Other are frequently referred. The main objective of the present study is to demonstrate the importance of the role of the father (not necessarily the biological one) and its presence or absence in shaping the subjectivity of the main characters of the two plays. Analyzing the two case studies, in terms of Lacan’s key concepts, revealed that Norman, as a playwright, records her character’s psychoanalytical growth and the troubles they face on the process of reforming their corrupt identity. Night, Mother depicts last night of Jessie Cates life, revealing the conflicts between she and her mother. After experiencing a failed marital life, epileptic Jessie is back home to live with her mother. Norman presents a modern American woman’s mental world of a repressed personality just through the abundant dialogues between Jessie and her mother. Jessie resorts to suicide to claim back her long-lost autonomy. In spite of her, in Getting Out, Arlie fantasizes an alternative self, namely Arlene, and lives “her” out to affirm her new-built identity. In this play, Norman portrays one day of Arlene Holsclaw’s life – a newly released prisoner- along with the synchronic act of her younger counterpart –Arlie- that plays in role of her past life, and illustrates the resultant conflicts of this young woman. Based on Lacan, it is by the intervention of the father that the child traverses from the whole-childish Imaginary Order to the lack-loaded Symbolic one, and any defeat in facing the role of the father may result in psychoanalytical disorders. Through an unsuccessful transition, both main characters of the previously mentioned plays were undergoing growing unfulfilled desires which mislead them in finding their true identity out. Analyzing the process in which the two main characters pass through to rebuild their fragmented identity was the main concern of studying the selected plays of Norman based on psychoanalytical theories.

The present study aims to vividly explore John Dos Passos’ trilogy U.S.A. concerning the deconstructionism concepts of différance and binary opposition. U.S.A. contains three books, The 42ND Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money which later all published in one book. Passos had added a prologue with the title U.S.A. to The Modern Library edition of The 42ND Parallel and started a trilogy beginning with it. Deconstructionism is a theory of literary criticism initiated by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s, which questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth. It asserts that words can only refer to other words attempting to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings. The obvious certainty and absoluteness in Passos’ works thus demanded an approach of deconstruction to be applied to his novels and his trilogy. The novels have four major narrative styles and the attempt to deconstruct such novels with multi narrators should be certainly different for each narrator. When Dos Passos speaks through the perspectives of his characters the task is both to deconstruct the created character and Das Passos himself as the character. The Significance of this trilogy is obvious, especially in the first decades of the twentieth century, as it acts as a representative of the American people who underwent pivotal changes before, during and after the war. The decisiveness of the author for labelling undecidable terms such as n nationality, war, money, and racism and feminism has been overturned and reversed in meaning and value by requesting aid from Derrida’s concepts.

The present research seeks to critically address Lisa Unger’s In the Blood (2014) and Crazy Love You (2015) getting use of Jacques Derrida's deconstructivist concepts of otherness and logocentrism. The two novels by Unger are narrated and constructed on the basis of masculine/feminine binary opposition in order to empower women; however, it is argued that they have not succeeded in doing so. Hence, the two novels can be studied through the lens of Derrida’s concepts. Otherness, one of the key terms of this thesis, highlights the way masculine/feminine binary opposition is constructed in the two novels. The text is deconstructed to argue that neither side of the binarism is prior. Moreover, logocentrism is used to find out whether Dear Diary chapters of In the Blood and Fatboy and Priss chapters in Crazy Love You as written parts added to the course of the story are authentic. Based on logocentrism, speech is prior to writing which means writing is not authentic to take into account. This argument is deconstructed to disapprove the concept of logocentrism.

یکی از شاخه های نقد ادبی قرن حاضر، نقد بوم گرایی است که به بررسی رابطه ادبیات و محیط زیست می پردازد. در نقد بوم گرایی نوع رابطۀ انسان با محیط زیست در آیینه ادبیات مورد واکاوی قرار می گیرد. منتقدان بوم گرا تلاش می-کنند؛ آثاری را نقد نمایند که مسائل محیط زیستی در آنها برجسته شده باشد. برجسته نشان دادن مسائل محیط زیستی در آثار شاعرانی بزرگ که محبوبیت فراوانی دارند؛ علاوه بر التذاذ ادبی، بر نگرش خوانندگان تاثیر عمیقی می-تواند داشته باشد. در این راستا پژوهش حاضر بر آن است با رویکرد بوم گرایانه و با استفاده از تکنیک تحلیل محتوا به بررسی تطبیقی سروده های سهراب سپهری (1307-1359) و شیرکو بی کس (1319-1392) شاعر کرد عراقی، بپردازد و میزان گرایش آنان به طبیعت و تاثیر و تاثرات محیط زیست و عواطف شاعر بر همدیگر را نمایان سازد و وجوه اشتراک و افتراق نگاه دو شاعر به مسائل محیط زیستی را نشان دهد. نتایج نشان می دهد که این دو شاعر با دو طیف فکری متفاوت، نسبت به محیط اطراف خود و طبیعت واکنش هایی متفاوت داشته اند و مسائل محیط زیستی در آثارشان به گونه های مختلف نمود پیداکرده است. سپهری با محو انسان در طبیعت سعی می کند انسان را همسنگ طبیعت نشان دهد؛ اما بی کس با دیدی انسانی به طبیعت نگاه می کندو نه تنها به مسائل محیط زیستی توجه می کند بلکه پیوندی ناگسستنی بین مسائل انسانی و محیط زیستی ایجاد می کند؛ خصوصا مبحث عدالت زیست محیطی و اکوفمنیسم در آثار بیکس به خوبی انعکاس یافته است.

The present study aims to investigate major historiographical negotiations in Pat Barker’s selected novels of Life Class (2007) and Noonday (2015) concerning theoretical premises of ‘history as narrative’ and ‘emplotment’. Life Class, as the first novel from Barker’s trilogy under the same name, takes into account the significant incidences prior to and during the outbreak of the First World War. The subsequent novel, Noonday, as the last novel of the historical trilogy under consideration, includes a detailed description of the closing years of the Second World War. Novelist’s employment of literary and aesthetic techniques, alongside her imagination in mingling the factual and the fictional, play an exceedingly momentous role in the selected works. The principal proposition of postmodern aesthetic historiography is that in textualizing history artistic criteria are principally concerned. Within this procedure, the realities of history are prefigured in the mind of the historian and subsequently institutionalized in a poetic context. Hayden White’s two major premises of history as narrative and historical emplotment primarily function as the essential instruments in the process of encodation of structure and meaning. Ultimately, it is concluded that in the narrative representation of the two World Wars in the context of the novels under investigation, the aesthetic historiographical conventions are employed with a particular emphasis on rhetorical techniques.

This study investigates Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985) and Cosmopolis (2003) in terms of Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualization of production of space. Lefebvre’s complex theory of production of space is offered as a triad of interconnected and necessary elements which includes spatial practices, representations of space, and representational spaces that leads to a true knowledge of space. The main argument of this study is to illustrate space as a fundamental element in the operation and organization of society within historical modes of production and consequently shapes the identity of the characters. Capitalism as a mode of production tends to create social cohesion in a society without lasting traditions by make use of abstract space which is not homogenous itself, thought it contains homogeneity in its aims. The mode of production in both novels is capitalism which tends to homogenize the characters’ identities through abstract space, consumerism, and everyday life. White Noise deals with a capitalist society, the criticism of capitalism, and post-industrial consumption-oriented society as a result of capitalism through the use of distinct spaces and places throughout the novel. Cosmopolis as a postmodern novel investigates the relationship between futurity, technology, and subjective experience in a postmodern society by make use of spaces and places. This study analyzes the production of social space in White Noise and Cosmopolis through the framework of Lefebvre’s theory of production of space and the influence of these social spaces on the identity of characters. The result of these analyses demonstrates that capitalism, as a mode of production, produces social spaces related to consumerism and consequently shapes the characters’ identity as consumerist individuals.

The present research aims at exploring identity construction in two novels by Doris Lessing, a British contemporary novelist, in the light of Lacanian psychoanalysis. With this in mind, the research data concern two novels by Lessing, namely, Fifth Child (1988) and Ben, In the World (2000). Fifth Child narrates the story of Harriet and David and their fifth child, Ben Lovatt, who seems to be unable to adjust himself to the conventions of civil life. The sequel to this novel, Ben, In the World, portrays the rough life of Ben, now an eighteen-year old boy, who is betrayed by almost every one. Due to the events happing to him, he departs to different destinations, the last one being Andes mountains, a place more appropriate to his life. The events of these two novels render Ben, as an apt case to be scrutinized through psychoanalytical theories conceptualized by Jacques Lacan. The research seeks to demonstrate how Ben Lovatt's subjectivity gets fragmented, preventing him from confronting his complexes, problems and obsessions, thus playing a constructive role within the world of the symbolic order.

با ظهور بینامتنیت و مطرح شدن آن توسط ژولیا کریستوا ی فرانسوی ، حوژه ای نوین در زمینه مطالعات ادبی به وجود آمد. این نظریه ثابت می کند که هیچ متنی مستقل نیست و به خودی خود به وجود نیامده است و در طول تاریخ هموراه بین متون ارتباطی برقرار بوده و این ارتباط انکارنشدنی است. این پژوهش با برهگری از نظریات بینامتنیت، به بررسی ساختار روایی، منظومه (خسرو و شیرین) با روایت نظامی، فردوسی، و وحشی بافقی میپردازد. و حاصل این بررسی را در چهار فصل ارائه کرده است. در فصل اول کلیات شامل: مقدمه، بیان مسآله و پیشینه مطرح می شود. فصل دوم به مبانی نظری اختصاص دارد. در مبانی نظری ، تعریف و تاریخچه بینامتنیت از گذشته تا کنون ارائه شده و در این مرور تاریخی، جایگاه، اهمیت و اهداف نظریه پردازان بینامتنیت، نشان داده شده است. و در آخر هم نظریه پردازان نسل اول و دوم با هم مورد مقایسه قرار گرفته ند. فصل سوم فصل تحلیل داده هاست. در این فصل روایت (خسرو و شیرین) از سه شاعر: نظامی، فردوسی، و وحشی بافقی مورد تحلیل و بررسی قرار می گیرد. به این ترتیتب، که ابتدا زندگینامه شاعر به صورت معرفی مختصری از احوالات شاعر و آثار او آورده می شود، سپس در مورد منظومه مورد مطالعه(خسرو و شیرین) بحث می شود. پس از این خلاصه ای از روایت آورده می شود و سپس به بررسی منابع تاریخی پیش از شاعر پرداخته می شود. و بعد برای تجزیه و تحلیل داستان عناصر داستانی شامل شخصیت و کنش، پیرنگ یا طرح، توالی زمانی، توصیف، درون مایه، مکان، زمان، راوی و زاویه دید، صحنه آغاز و صحنه پایان می شود. فصل چهارم نیز فصل مقاسیه و نتیجه گیری است. نتیجه اینست که میان متن نظامی با متون فردوسی و وحشی با تفاوتهای کم و بیش ، رابطه ای بینامتنی برقرار است.

Faced with a number of new political and cultural prospects and unable to relocate to a newly-born Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many Iranians migrated from their homeland and resettled in Western countries, in the hope of reconciling the two distinct cultures with each other, each crying out their merits and demerits loudly to make them a follower of their own. Resulting from this dislocation or relocation, the process of identity recognition entered into the consciousness of Iranian diasporic writers. This thesis selected Yasmin Crowther's Saffron Kitchen (2006) and Tara Bahrampour's To See And See Again (2000) as two particular instances of autobiographies written under the shadow of diasporic lives suffering from the lack of a stable land to root in. In the light of Bhabha's post-colonial and cultural theories expressed in his books Nation and Narration (1990) and The Location of Culture (1994), the present thesis discusses how various concepts such as "liminality", "ambivalence", "hybrid identity" of an Iranian diasporic subject as a metamorphosed one, are constructed in a space that is called "third space of enunciation". To that end, the versatile nature of Iranian identity, the problematization of notions such as "home", "exile", and "belonging", the way the realities of language are incorporated into their self-narratives, and ultimately molding their culture into a new shape, persisting and transforming in diaspora simultaneously are emphasized. In conclusion, it is proposed that identity is not a given reality but rather a product of a lived one and therefore a social construct which is always in process.

The present dissertation attempts to study Virginia Woolf’s To the Light House and Orlando in terms of Judith Butler’s concepts of gender, performativity, and agency. Woolf examines women and their struggles and positions in literary history, and their needs for independence. She is among the founders of Modernist movement which also includes T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pond. Themes in her works consist of gender relations, class hierarchy and the consequences of war. In most of her novels she moves away from the use of plot and character and instead she emphasizes the psychological aspects of her characters. It would thus be of interest to see how the novels and their characters developed Butler’s concepts. Butler is a prominent figure in the field of gender studies and she is under the influence of Derrida and Foucault; therefore, one could call her that she is a post-structuralist. Two of her great works are Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matters, where she demonstrates the gender issues and her other significant concepts such as gender identity, agency, and queer theory. Consequently, there is a confluence between Butler’s critical theory and the development of Woolf’s female characters, and this dissertation seeks to explore that relationship by closely reading Woolf’s novels in terms of her concepts.

This study investigates Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005) in terms of the Lacanian concepts of Subjectivity, Desire and the Symbolic. Along with these main concepts, other related ones such as the big Other, the Name-of-the-Father, object petit a, ideal Ego, ego Ideal, subject of the statement, subject of enunciation, subject of causality, das Ding, tuché and automaton are frequently referred. Lacan is famous for his ideas on the truth of man’s desire and his understanding of himself and of the world around him. According to Lacanian psychoanalysis, there is a significant link between subjectivity, the unconscious and language. The central objective of this research is to demonstrate the affinity between the Symbolic Order, in which the characters are positioned, and their subjectivity. The analysis of the two case studies, in terms of Lacan’s key concepts, showed that McEwan, as a novelist, records his characters’ psychological growth and the troubles they face in their attempt to locate truth. In an attempt to affirm and demonstrate Lacan’s famous statement that “man’s desire is the desire of the Other”, many scenes, events and descriptions from both novels are taken into account and analyzed. In Atonement, Briony moves from one field of desire to another in order to regain her lost object of desire or object petit a. Likewise, in Saturday, Theo and Daisy’s search for das Ding causes their entrapment in the pitfall of Grammaticus’ desire. Furthermore, two facets of Lacan’s traumatic Real, namely, automaton (the network of signifiers) and tuché (encountering with the Real), are demonstrated in relation to Atonement and Saturday respectively. The results of the analyses show that the main characters’ encounter with a traumatic situation is the harbinger of the truth of their lives, the objective knowledge of their position in the world as puppets at the mercy of the big Other.

This dissertation seeks to critically investigate Martin Amis’ Night Train and London Fields in terms of Jacques Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction, supplement, and undecidability. Deconstructing Night Train as a novel which presents two categories of masculine and feminine, the text determines two recognizable sets of identities of which the feminine is marginalized. However, the one-to-one relationship of the marginalizing process demonstrates différance, i. e., the marginalized loses the difference which posits it in the secondary locus of the supplement. As a result of the constantly alternating position of the supplement there emerges the free-play of marginalization in the feminine/masculine binary which is closely in correspondence with the homicide/suicide binary. Considering that the novel explores the feminine suicide and the underlying motives, the text seeks to privilege the nature of a silenced act, the unprivileged feminine suicide. However, the problem of différance and the interchangeable locus of the marginalized result in undecidability and a democratic voice of both feminine and masculine together with homicide and suicide as two equal acts; therefore, the attribution of suicide to women does not p[rove that women are marginal and infirm. Furthermore, the phallogocentrism in question is deconstructible due to the problem of transcendality, différance, the interchangeable locus of the supplement, and undecidability.

هدف پژوهش حاضر یافتن مولفه های رئالیسم اجتماعی در آثار محمد بهمن بیگی است. شناساندن یکی از مفاخر ناشناخته و بزرگ، نشان دادن یکی از پارامتر های اساسی رئالیسم اجتماعی به عنوان عنصر اصلی آثار اوست. بهمن بیگی از نویسندگانی است که با حضور در میان عشایر فارس واقعیت زندگی انان ررا به تصویر کشیده است. روش تحقیق توصیفی است و نتایج با توجه به تحلیل محتوا بررسی شده است.نتایج نشان می دهد بهمن بیگی از مولفه هایی چون مردم گرایی، ارتباط تاریخ و اجتماع، ارزش کار و تولید، تکامل علمو سواد و مسائلی ا این دست است. موفقیت بهمن بیگی در استفاده از شگردهای بیانی و هنر نویسندگی اوست.

نظریّه ی نشانه شناسی شعر مایکل ریفاتر با تکیه بر ساختارگرایی، توانش ادبی خواننده و واکنش او نسبت به متن می کوشد تا شیوه ای نظام مند از خوانش متن ارائه دهد. در این نظریه دو شیوه ی خوانش مطرح است؛ در خوانش اکتشافی نادستورمندی ها، مانع از تناظر میان متن و واقعیّت می شوند و خواننده را به خوانشی دیگر از متن (تاویلی) رهنمون می شوند. در این شیوه ی خوانش، به بررسی ارجاع نشانه ها به درون متن و ایجاد شبکه های به هم پیوسته از نشانه ها توجّه می شود. خواننده با بررسی فرآیندهای انباشت و منظومه های توصیفی به کشف کمینه-نگاشت ها نائل می شود و از طریق کمینه نگاشت ها، خاستگاه متن به دست می آید.در این پژوهش مجموعه ی «آینه ای برای صداها» اثر محمد رضا شفیعی کدکنی بر اساس این نظریه تحلیل شده است تا از طریق آن بتوان به تحلیلی نظام مند از این متن و تبیین نشانه های این مجموعه ی شعری دست یافت. نتیجه نشان می دهد در این مجموعه خاستگاه های متعدّدی چون عشق [وصال، هجران، وصال]، اوضاع بحرانی و نابسامان، یاس، امید به بهبود اوضاع، دگرگونی و بهبود اوضاع وجود دارد.

روایت شناسی شیوه ای کارآمد در تحلیل ادبیات داستانی است .روایت شناسی ساختارگرا، در پی تدوین ساختار روایی منسجم و واحد حوزه های داستانی است. این پژوهش با بهره بردن از رهیافت رولان بارت ، روایت شناس ساختارگرای فرانسوی ، ساختار روایی رمان های خانه ی ادریسی ها از غزاله علیزاده ، و ساربان سرگردان و جزیره ی سرگردانی از سیمین دانشور را بررسی و حاصل بررسی را در چهار فصل ارائه کرده است . در فصل اول تاریخچه، تعریف و واحدهای روایی پایه از زمان ارسطو تا بارت ارائه شده است .در این مرور تاریخی جایگاه ، اهمیت، شیوه واهداف روایت شناسان ساختارگرا به ویژه رولان بارت نشان داده شده است. الهام بخشان بارت در تحلیل ساختاری ، پراب و برمون ، در کنش شخصیت ها گرماس و در سطح روایت تودورف است. او ساختار روایت را در سه سطح توصیفی(کارکردها،کنش وروایت) دسته بندی کرده و کلیت روایت را حاصل پیوند نظام مند این سطوح توصیفی می داند. در فصل دوم اجزاء خرد روایت (انواع کارکردهای اصلی ،واسطه، نمایه های ضمنی ، آگاهاننده) در رمان های مورد مطالعه بررسی شده است .در این فصل نشان داده شده که خانه ی ادریسی ها دارای چهار اپیزود اصلی و رمان های دانشور دارای سه اپیزود اصلی و هر اپیزود خود شامل تعدادی پیرفت است .در فصل سوم یافته های فصل دوم تحلیل شده است .در این تحلیل سطح کارکردها ،ارتباط آن ها با نمایه ها ،رابطه ی دلالتمند ، قراردادی، ارتباط میان پی رفت ها و نقطه ی اتصال میان آن ها و.. .نشان داده شده است . نتیجه آنکه در رمان دانشور و علیزاده میان کارکردها و نمایه ها ، علاوه بر سه نوع رابطه ای که بارت مطرح کرده ، پنج نوع رابطه دیگر نیز تشخیص داده و نحوه ی ترکیب واحدهای متفاوت در طول زنجیره ی روایت تبیین شده است .در این فصل با استخراج عناصر ساختار روایت به بعضی از کاستی های نظریه ی بارت اشاره شده است .در بخش پایانی ، نتیجه گیری ، موارد اشتراک و افتراق این دو رمان براساس رویکرد مورد نظر نشان داده شده است. کلید واژه ها: روایت شناسی ، ساختار روایی، رولان بارت، سیمین دانشور و غزاله علیزاده .

موضوع پژوهش حاضر"بررسی ساختاری روایت های هفت گنبد نظامی براساس نظریه ی"گرماس" (1917-1992م. )"است. بررسی ساختاری این حکایات از طریق تعیین تقابل های دوگانه و پی رفت ها یا زنجیره های اجرایی، میثاقی و انفصالی، شناخت بهتر ساختار حکایت های هفت پیکر و حکایات مشابه از طریق تعمیم نتایج این پژوهش و بررسی قابلیّت انطباق پذیری بر متون روایی منظوم در ادب کلاسیک ایران، از اهداف پژوهش حاضر محسوب می شود. هنر نظامی در آفرینش حکایات و روایی بودن متن هفت پیکر و شهرت حکایات هفت گنبد از دلایل انتخاب این اثر به شمار می رود. روش پژوهش توصیفی- تحلیلی است و نتایج با استفاده از تکنیک تحلیل محتوی و بر اساس الگوی کنشی گرماس تجزیه و تحلیل شده است. نتیجه نشان می دهد قهرمان(فاعل) و هدف(مفعول) به عنوان کنشگران مرکزی این حکایات از اهمیّت بیشتری برخوردارند. همچنین فاعل(قهرمان)، به عنوان قطب پایه، نقشی فعّال در پیرنگ حکایات دارد و در بیشترحکایات هفت گنبد؛ گیرنده (ذی نفع اعظم) هم می باشد. همچنین نتیجه بیانگر مثبت بودن قابلیّت انطباق پذیری نظریه ی کنشی گرماس بر متون روایی منظوم در ادبیات کلاسیک ایران است.