Representation of the Relationship between Evil and Human in Supernatural Television Series: Narrative Analysis of the Eghma (Coma) Series

The eightieth decade hosted a novel trend in Iranian television; that of the emergence of supernatural genre. The genre, however, did not reach its culmination and withered away soon. One of the challenges in front of the productions in this genre is maintaining an acceptable conformity with Islamic doctrines. Accordingly, the present article studies the representation of the relation between human and evil as one of the main sub-themes within the broader them of the relation of human beings with the supernatural, focusing on the case of “Eghma” (Coma) TV series. The aim of the article is to answer the question “to what extend does the narrative logic of the series conform with the Islamic account of the relationship?”.
This is a descriptive-analytical case study that relies on documentary method and narrative analysis on the Propp, Greimas and Larivaille models. It first deals with the theoretic principles of the relation of human with evil by the documentary study of the Islamic sources. It then goes to the narrative analysis in order to analyze the plot of the relation in the bigger storyline. At the end, it takes the findings of the two previous descriptive-analytical procedures for the comparative-critical analyzing of them according to the Islamic accounts. The study presents a universal pattern for the elements and the narrative logic of representing the relation of human and evil.