The Function of Myth in the Postcolonial Discourse of Persian Novels (Analyzing Savushun, Secrets of My Native Land, The Drowned)

A number of contemporary Iranian writers in the pre and post Islamic Revolution period focused on explaining the western colonialism and the resistance to it as the theme in their novels. These writers tried to react to the political and cultural influences of the Western colonialism and imperialism through the effective use of myths in post colonial discourse. Simin Daneshvar, Jalal Ale Ahmad, Reza Barahani, Shahrnush Parsipur, Moniru Ravanipur, and Ghulam Hussein Saʽedi are among the post colonial writers. In this inquiry, the use of myth will be analyzed in three novels, namely, Savushun (Daneshvar,1970) Secrets of My Native Land (Reza Barahani,1982) and The Drowned (Ravanipur, 1990). The results of this study show that the use of political and cultural myths created by novelists based on Iranian ancient myths has an essential role in the formation of the postcolonial discourse and representation of colonial period in Iran’s history. The writers of these three novels succeeded in depicting their abhorrence of Iran’s occupation by western colonizers, and they could well show the invaders’ face and the Iranians’ resistance.