Binary Structures in Dowlatabadi’s Writings: From Contrastive Mentality to Analytic Thought
Subject Areas : Research in Iranian classical literatureKeywords: imagination system, diurnal (imagination regime dialectical (challenges) dialectic mentality analytical analytical-interrogative discourse,
Abstract :
Although the critical structure of Mahmud Dowlatabadi’s narratives makes the characters appear flexible and sometimes rough, with semiotic narrative structures leading them to direct confrontation with the elements disturbing the initial order and serenity, we believe that the character’s conflict with themselves and others mostly results from the contrastive mentality and the binary thought that the author’s imagination system projects against outward world of turbulence and anxiety, rather than the necessity for keeping balance between the nature and manner of the characters. Though, initially, the author’s philosophical approach to the world and the way in which his imagination system responds to it motivates him to create his fictional characters having internal and external conflicts, gradually, his mentality uses duality as a kind of dialectic experience and a place for his subjective challenges to express themselves through the story’s usual flow, in the form of an analytical-interrogative discourse, and to reveal the author’s attitude towards himself and the others, in addition to polarizing the fictional world into the fictional narration and theoretical-analytical writing.