Bakhtinian Reading of Three War Novels: The Scorched Earth, Headless Palms and Prowling the Enemy Soil

Most of the Persian war novels, have been written with ideological approach. Therefore, the present study, with the aim of studying the level to which these novels are subject to Dialogism and comparing literary value and then ideological dimension of them, tries to demonstrate that these works have been able to approach the concept of novel in Bakhtin's perspective or have remained in the realm of Monologism. Although researches have already been done in this area and with regard to the importance of this issue, considering other war novels there is a need to fulfill it. Hence, the present study concerns a Bakhtinian reading of three war novels and the study of components such as Chronotope, Dialogism, and Carnivalesque in these works utilizing a descriptive-analytical method. The results of this study reveals that among the novels which have been studied, Ahmad Mahmoud, who has a different view from the dominant discourse has narrated the war with a critical view by choosing characters from different walks of life in The Scorched Earth and Polyphony plays a more prominent role in this work; but in the novel Headless Palms, Monology has a more dominant effect over the text due to the predominance of ideological approach. Straying from the atmosphere of war, Ahmad Dehqan, despite believing in the values of Holy Defense, tries to narrate the war with a comprehensive viewpoint and also reflect the opposing voices; but in the end, due to the authoritarianism of the narrator, polyphony is not established in his novel. It can be claimed that the story tellers of war could not fully accomplish this historical event from an ideological perspective and at last focus on depicting the tragic dimension of war that intensifies the emotional aspect of such works.