The Representation of “Infertility Pain” in a Collection of Short Stories, Be Ki Salaam Konam?

One of the most important aspects of analyzing literary texts is the consideration of the reflection of the author's thoughts, wishes, griefs and regrets as defense mechanisms. In reviewing the reflection of an author's unconscious in his or her work, psychoanalytic or psychological criticism is often used, in which the critic tries to reveal the influence of the author's mental constraints on hidden layers of the work or to open textual ambiguities using psychoanalytical or psychological principles. The authors of this article have tried to investigate in a short story collection, Be Ki Salaam Konam?, one of Simin Daneshvar’s most important psychological anxieties, that is, "infertility pain"; a pain which though is not traced in Jalal al-Ahmad's independent works, it is present in Daneshvar's stories and appears in different ways. Be Ki Salaam Konam? has become a feminine narrative of Jalal’s Sangi Bar Goori. The subject of most of the stories of the former is "infertility", which is presented using child, adopted child, and grandson in the form of free or affiliated motifs. Daneshvar uses unconscious symbols such as the old women to suggest infertility. The reactions of characters in the stories to infertility can be described through defense mechanisms such as displacement, sublimation and projection. Nonetheless, throughout the discussion, when necessary, the paper will benefit from approaches such as archetypal criticism as well.