فصلنامه نقد ادبی
پیاپی 64 (زمستان 1402)

What is the relationship between democracy and literary theories? Some individuals have considered this relationship as cause and effect, they have said that the relationship between the two is direct; Cause and effect in the sense that one (democracy) is the cause of another (criticism/literary theory) and direct as there is no intermediary/variable between them. But it seems that the relationship between these two is more complicated than it appears primarily, because not only the relationship between literary theory and democracy is complex and multifaceted, but mediators such as minorities also play a role in it. Democracy as a political system has a long history. Despite this fact and its continuous evolution throughout history, many of its issues still remain unsolved and no definitive solution has been found. One of these issues is "minorities". The ideal of democracy is the management of society by all people, but the existence of minorities - who usually do not participate in society due to oppression - has made the realization of this ideal far from reach and difficult. Solving this difficult issue has been the concern of many theorists, especially democracy theorists. Establishing laws to protect minorities and so on has been one of these solutions. Literary theories are also one of these solutions to solve the problem of minorities. Literary theories - each of which deals with one or more groups of minorities such as women, immigrants, natives, etc. - attempt to free the minorities from the subjugation of others and provide the basis for their participation in the society. In this way, democracy will be exalted.

Literary works, particularly novels, serve as a form of psychotherapy, with psychologists often analyzing characters and their experiences within these works. Trauma, stemming from various psychological disturbances such as accidents, manifests as mental distress, stress, and a sense of insecurity. Judith Herman's narrative therapy theory suggests that trauma can lead to a dissociation from reality, causing individuals to forget or suppress memories. Recovery, according to Herman, involves narrating the trauma, accepting it, and reintegrating into normal life. This paper explores Isabel Allende's novel The House of the Spirits, which allegorically reflects a nation's turmoil through a family's history, through the lens of trauma and narrative therapy. It seeks to identify the traumas faced by the characters and their coping mechanisms. The novel demonstrates how storytelling and confronting trauma facilitate healing, portraying characters' journeys from anguish to liberation. The narrative depicts three stages of treatment—safety, remembrance, and mourning—culminating in the characters' return to normalcy.

Passing from classical structuralist narrative semiology with a text-centered view and deterministic meanings towards semiotics is a transition from action and programming towards interaction. In classical semiology, the current of meaning is exclusively shaped through action and predetermined program and toward gaining the value object. But in semiotics, meaning is formed by creating a sensory-perceptual relationship with the phenomena, and is perceived through interaction with another person or co-subject. Such a meaning cannot be investigated only with semantic regimes of classical semiology, i.e. action and manipulation. Therefore, Landowsky proposed two complementary regimes, i.e. adjustment and accident. The present research probes to find what actions by the characters in Zal-and-Rodabe show the adherence of actors to Landowsky's regimes of interaction. It was found that when faced with challenges, some characters first follow a specific regime of interaction, but later, become inclined to other regimes. Others continue to adhere to a single regime. Examining the interactions shows the transition from the classical narrative regime based on action and program to the modern narrative based on interaction, which ultimately results in the unification of the characters towards the realization of a forbidden love.

In recent decades, due to the crises created in nature by humans, the review of the relationship between humans and nature has gained special importance. The existing gap between environmental damage and its reverberations has resulted in people’s lack of attention to the consequences of environmental destruction. By applying ecocriticism and relying on concepts such as anthropocentrism, biocentrism, deep ecology and shallow ecology, the present study, for the first time, compares the two novels, Ahle Ghargh (1989), by Moniro Ravanipour and Animal Dreaams (1990) by Barbara Kingsolver. While introducing deep ecology as postmodern environmental ethics, the research completely rejects the domination of anthropocentric ideology and considers self- realization and identification with nature to be the only way out of environmental crises. Ravanipour and Kingsolver suffer from eco-trauma caused by environmental destruction and they try to take an effective step in improving deficiencies in nature. Eco-trauma inspires both novelists to deal with the damage that humans, knowingly or unknowingly, cause to nature. The study aims to demonstrate the dominance of anthropocentric ideology, which brings a self-seeking and self-interested attitude, strongly causing the destruction of nature. By relying on biocentrism, deep ecology has no concern other than preserving the environment and its resources while it avoids damage to the environment with the aim of gaining profit.

Criticism of methodology and analysis of literary works is one of the important topics in the field of scientific and research works, which can shed light on the intertextual influence of literary texts, especially in fiction. In the present study, the authors, using the method of content analysis and comparative comparison, found one of the ways of espionage in the war in seven famous literary and historical stories "King of Jahud and Nasranian" in Masnavi and Hayat Al-Hayvan Demiari, "Boom and Ghorab" in Kelileh. and Demeneh, "Firouzshah and Hitalian" in Tabari's history, "Shaghad and Rostam" in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, "Zaba and Qasir Ebn-e Saad" in Balami's history, "Bibi Seti and Abu Muslim" in Abu Muslimnameh. The results showed that the method of espionage in the story of King of Jahud and the Christians in Masnavi and Hayat al-Haiwan is stronger than other stories in terms of structure and content. The method of penetrating is based on a kind of cognitive warfare, which without any military conflict, and only with mastering the power of knowledge and identifying the religious beliefs of the enemy, created differences among the fearful and destroyed them. This principle has not been observed in other stories.