A Comparative Study of the Story of Shahr al-‘Asal (The Honeymoon) by Naguib Mahfouz and the story of Hozour (The Presence) by Abu Turab Khosravi

Abstract

Naguib Mahfouz in Shahr al-‘Asal and Abu Turab Khosravi in Hozour describe the situation of a couple who after moving to their new house, notice that their residence has been occupied by some strangers. The goal of this paper is to offer a description and a comparative study of these two works based on the American school of comparative literature. The results of the study suggest that the two authors have adopted an identical approach in the prelude of the story. Also, both of these Arabic and Persian stories are composed of three main characters, namely a young couple and a stranger usurping their house. "House" in both stories plays a key role, which has been questioned by the connotative meaning of home as a shelter or safe place for man. Also, both works are corresponding in terms of using the Anachronism technique, i.e., in addition to the flash back technique, the technique of mingling past and present times has been adopted in both works. Moreover, the analysis of both stories in terms of similarity of functions revealed that out of thirty-one functions of Propp, there are eleven overlapping functions in both stories in a similar sequence. The sequence of plot functions of both works is indicative of a consistent internal pattern, which can be illustrated through the relevant codes of each function as such: (B, H, C, A, δ, γ, λ, φ, ε, β, α )