Comparison and Analysis of the Narrative Structure of Sacred Defense Stories Based on Gérard Genette’s Theory: With Emphasis on Asir-e Zaman and Dashtban

Abstract

Committed literature, like a mirror, reflects the interaction and reciprocal influence between literature and society. Just as the Islamic Revolution gave rise to the literature of the Islamic Revolution, the eight years of resistance by the Iranian people also shaped and articulated Sacred Defense literature during the years of war. Accordingly, with the outbreak of the war, war fiction emerged as a distinct literary form. Therefore, the aim of this literary study is to compare, analyze, and examine the perspectives of the two authors under investigation on the basis of the structuralist components of Gérard Genette’s narrative theory in the stories Asir-e Zaman and Dashtban. The study was conducted through documentary and library research using a descriptive-analytical method. The findings indicate that although the two novels were written in different spatial and geographical settings, both employ a realist mode of writing and are structured according to Gérard Genette’s principal components of narrative structure, including order, duration, mood, and voice. Although differences can be observed in the two authors’ perspectives and points of view, both ultimately adopt structural patterns centered on the concepts of war and Sacred Defense and focus on three major narrative-structural components: the prelude to war, the body or course of the war, and the consequences of war.