Analysis of Narrative Structure in Bijan Najdi's Stories Based on Poetics of Modernism (with Emphasis on Charles May and Susan Ferguson's Theories)

Abstract

Bijan Najdi is one of the well-known writers of contemporary Persian literature whose short stories have aroused wonder and admiration of general and specific fiction audiences. Innovative applying of such devices as combining features of prose and poetry in the use of language, complicating narrative structure with the application of subjective methods of narration and techniques of breaking narration, tendency to metaphorical pole of language, blending reality and fantasy or objectivity and subjectivity extensively, integration of present and past and many other narrative techniques, not only record his writing style as a unique style with the ability to be followed and continued in the history of Persian fiction, but also create a lot of similarities and correspondences in the technical and narrative structure with what the modernist literary theorists like Charles May and Susan Ferguson have explained in their theories about short story. Accordingly, in this article we want to review his short stories from the perspective of the two well-known critics to identify and evaluate the qualitative and quantitative aspects of these adaptations and also study analytically stylistic innovations Najdi made in this field. some examples of his creativity in this area include: Inventing a new criterion for measuring time in the narrative in order to violate the concept of calendar time and give a personal meaning to it; Summoning the past time in the present in such a way that it becomes hard for the reader to distinguish the two tenses; And avoiding the mechanical application of modern fiction techniques and to use them to expand the semantic and signifying aspects of the narrative.

Keywords

• bijan najdi
• modern short story
• narrative structure
• charles may
• susan ferguson