Morphology of Khâjou Kermâni's Flower and Norouz Based on Vladimir Prop's Methodology

Morphology is a key issue in structuralist criticism which has had wide applications to narratives. In performing morphological analysis, the critic considers the internal structure of the narrative to discover its actions and functions. Morphology was first introduced by Vladimir Prop into the study of narrative literature. Basing his work on the actions of the characters in fairy tales, he concluded that all the tales are governed by the same rules and structure which can be demonstrated to be governing the tales of all peoples.
The present paper deals with the structural analysis of Khâjou Kermâni’s Flower and Norouz (Gol va Norouz), one of the most successful lyric narratives of Persian literature. The conclusion drawn indicates that, although some of the functions are not consistent with Prop’s proposed sequence of functions, his proposed functions can be applied to this tale to a great extent.