Narrative structure of fantasy in La Venus d Ille of Merimée and The ‎First innocent of‎ Golshiri

What distinguishes fantasy from other genres is ambiguity in and dualism between natural and supernatural causalities in a story، which creates confusion and hesitation in the mind of the reader. In a fantastic story، conveying the effect of fantasy depends more on the narrative mode than on theme. For this reason، the structure of the story، the narrative mode، the narrative point of view and the author’s style play a major role in how the element of fantasy is conveyed. Of course، theme plays an important role as well. In this comparative study، we have tried to examine the similarities between the two short stories La Venus d''Ille and The First innocent in terms of structure، style and theme. The former was written by Mérimée، who was a French short story writer in the 19th century، and the latter by Golshiri، an Iranian writer in the 20th century. This study gives us the opportunity to study the interdependencies – in terms of narrative structure- which have connected these two stories from two different ages and two different literary forms، classifying them in the same literary genre.