A Comparative Study of the Novel the Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan and Once Upon a Time Based on Edward Saeids

The present article is a comparative study of the Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan and Once Upon a Time Based on Edward Saeid’s views, which consist of center-oriented discourses of orientalism and its metaphoric contrasts. The novel the Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan and the short story collection Once upon a time following the unidirectional and center-oriented discourses of orientalism present an apparently realistic description of social, political, and cultural phenomena and by ignoring the positive aspects of Iranians’ life and disregarding the dignity and the ancient civilization of Iranians, present believable images of the ethics of people in Iran and the East, in their pessimistic descriptions of Iranian characters . In fact, these two works show special views of reality in terms of narrative techniques, which have strong tendency towards the negative and holistic discourses of orientalism in terms of content, thought, and context. . The main themes of these works include the critique of politics, culture, society and in particular the Iranian ethics. Also, both works share the same style and main thought, and the methods and symbols which have been used to marginalize the eastern people in general and the Iranians in particular have been provided in a special system influenced by the orientalist narratives.