A Study of the Factors Affecting on Narrative Tempo in Shāzde Ehtejāb

To measure the narrative tempo, Gerard Genette, the outstanding theoretician who focused on the role of Time in narratives, divided the number of the pages in a novel by the chronological time represented in the text. In Shāzde Ehtejāb of Hooshang Golshiri, movement of time is very slow chronologically but so fast in the minds of the characters. In the outer levels, where the chronological time is more at work, the movement slows down which is in accord with Genette’s suggested patterns. Whether we take the whole life, or just the last night of prince’s living as the narrative focal point, there will be no change in the existence of the factors that accelerate or decelerate time, but the narrative tempo will change, and in fact it will increase in the former and decrease in the latter.