A Survey on Ideological views of a Novelist: Naturalistic Analysis of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s Stories

Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Naturalism is the outgrowth of literary realism, a prominent literary movement in mid-19th-century France and elsewhere. Naturalistic writers were influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, philosophical-literal ideas of Taine and experiments of a physiologist named Claude Bernard. Also, philosophical opinions of Kant and Taine which were based on interpretations of social life and relationships influenced the principles of naturalism importantly. Thus, Naturalists believe that people’s behavior has the tendency to be objectified and treated like a machine and it would be impossible to judge it morally because of heredity, environment and moment is inevitable. Hence, we can have knowledge of the mechanisms of natural phenomena in man to define rational and emotional parts of his being which are under the influence of heredity, environment, and the moment. This paper aimed at identifying and describing the naturalistic aspects of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi stories. Naturalistic analysis of his stories can help us to have better in depth insight of his ideology.