A Short Story by Hooshang Golshiri: A Narratological Perspective Based on Genette's Theory

One of the basic features of contemporary modern stories is the use of numerous narrative devices. In order to present their novice ontology, contemporary modern writers have always used complex narrative techniques and avoided classic and linear narrations popular in previous centuries. Hoosang Golshiri is a contemporary writer who created complex, multi-layered and difficult works by using countless narrative devices. The complex narration in stories by Golshiri is one of the most important features of his writing style. This research analyzes the narration of the short story called Ma’soum-e Dovvom (“The Second Innocent One”) based on the theory of Genette who’s a theorist of structuralist narratology. After explaining Genette’s theory, three narrative levels of the story, the narrative text and narration of this short story along with the components linking these levels, namely “tense: order, duration, frequency”; “mood: distance and focalization” and “voice or tone” are analyzed and discussed. Therefore, the techniques and devices used by Hooshang Golshiri in these works are shown, and it is revealed that he used these narrative components in a modern way. This paper aims at showing that an investigation into the narrative structure of Golshiri’s works helps one to understand their complexities and know more about their semantic aspects.