A study of nostalgiacaused by exile in Ahmad Mahmoud’s ‘the story of a City’.
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Article Type:
Research/Original Article (دارای رتبه معتبر)
Abstract:

The suffering and distress caused by the separation from the homeland have appeared in the form of protest in Persian literature. In the form of return to the sweet memories of the past, nostalgia has a striking color in the poetry and story of the prison and the exile era of Persian poets and writers. Particularly, the contemporary realist novel contains many memories of exiled writers that are tied to historical, political, and social conditions. Mahmoud is a social–critic realist author, whose novels narrate his life and of the people around him. He was banished to ‘Bandar Lengeh’ after the August 28 coup. The novel of the ‘story of a city’ is the result of this period of his life. This study seeks to answer the question of how the elements and functions of nostalgia resulting from the exile were reflected in this novel? Finally, with helping the descriptive-analytical approach the results were harvested: this novel maintains the nostalgia of exile with all its ancient and modern elements and the basis of the novel is nostalgia. In this work, the individual and social dimensions of nostalgia are intertwined, and the author demonstrates how idealism in a despotic state leads to discouragement.

Introduction

Suffering and longing, away from one’s own home country in the form of nostalgia to return to the past, has appeared in various forms in Persian literature. In contemporary literary works with a lot of perceptions, we find aesthetic feelings and literary arrays associated with the nostalgia of poets and writers. Hence nostalgia in contemporary narrative literature also has a special place and emerges more precisely in realist novels. Imprisonment and exile are the factors that make this emotional sense in the unconsciousness of the poet and writer, which is manifested in literary works. Ahmed Mahmoud is one of the southern realist novelists whose novels narrate the society and politics, and an important part of his fictional fantasies tied up with historical facts. His novel ‘the story of a city’, narrating the prison and exile of Khalid who is the narrator of the story, was a story that Mahmoud himself experienced in Bander Lengeh as an exiled man in the 1330s (H) and wrote in the late 1350s (H) many years after the expiration of that exile. Accordingly, the novel may return to these memoirs and nostalgic reviews of a historical period, and Mahmoud, in this way, seeks to draw and depict the era of the exile and narrate the consequences of the events of social and political disillusionment after the August 28 coup 1332 (H). From this perspective and given the political and social psychological dimensions in this realist novel, which is a realistic narrative of the period of exile's nostalgia, in this article, we seek to find answers to these questions. 1. Which elements does Mahmoud's nostalgia include in ‘the story of a city’? 2. In this novel, isthe individual more intense than the nostalgia, or its collective dimension? 3. Given the prominence of socialist realism, how can one analyze idealism in this novel? According to Mahmoud's social and historical realism in his works, this articleaims to find his feelings on distance and imprisonment, and the individual and collective reflections associated with political decisions and events assess the history.

Research Methodology

This research has been done through descriptive-analytical and content analysis. The theory of research is based on the definitions of the functions and existing divisions of the types of nostalgic tendencies adapted to the text of thenovel of ‘the story of a city’, and through more detailed acquisitions and analysis of space, definitions and effects psychology, the issue of exile has come to various divisions and analyzes.

Discussion

‘The story of a city’is the continuation of the novel of ‘the neighbors’ and the second novel of Ahmad Mahmoud's trilogy. In this novel, Khalid is a political activist who is punished and expelled to a point far away andnot for securing the city but rather for the security of the Pahlavi regime, leading to the creation of a climate of intimidation for the other protesters and dissidents. The prominent element of the novel, which contributes to the advancement of the design and the unification of the cause of the departure of the main character of the novel and other narratives surrounding the story, is the emergence of memories and events based on nostalgia. Each natural phenomena of the character of the instrument of the internal sense of loneliness and dialogue make Khalid remember the party's activities in the garrison's jail or arrest in the 92nd Armored Division and addresses the details of the adventures that led to the exile. Nostalgia in the exile of the writer is depicted deeper when the main character of the novel remembers hishometown (home country). Remembrance of friends, remembering the first and second executed group of solitary confinement at the place where he was arrested, and even Dr. Mossadeq and Dr. Fatemi, who spent the days of trial, were not beyond the nostalgia of remembering the days of hope and failure of the people involved in those events. In exile, Khalid believes everything that he oncebelieved to save people is useless. Ideals that politically suppressed, brought his friends to jail and exile and ultimately death, the humanist thoughts that lead to prison and torture, Mutations and beliefs that are now in doubt, those only leave nostalgia. This nostalgia does not leave Khalid in the days of sorrow. In this novel, sometimespresents itself as defensive thoughts and suggests a closed space of a period of the life of a nation that has been despotized and colonized and exploited. Another issue that cannot be ignored in ‘the story of a city’, is that not only Khalid but also other characters of the novel are somehow enduring exile. Sometimes this exile has been demanded and sometimes the external conditions of society or the internal pressures of individuals with present themselves in the form of remoteness and exile. Those who have witnessed the past of Bandar Lengeh consider the retreat in Langroud to be due to the migration and the self-exile of its inhabitants. 

Results

The occurrence of events, remembrance of the homeland and of old friends, lost ideals, nostalgia as defensive thought and pro exile stance in the characters of a city, are the most important elements of nostalgia in the: the story of a city. Thus, the novel's foundation is to return to the nostalgic memories and background of a historical period. ‘The story of a city’ contains a lot of elements that weencounter in the ancient Persian poetry about imprisonment and exile, and some other forms of lyricism and in addition, it includes events of thought and a modern look on human beliefs and human concerns today. Although the nostalgic approach to the novel narrative and elements in the story relies more on social and political backgrounds, it should not be ignored that in the end, this individual is the author's mental structure and his way of life, which makes the social and political composition of the novel. Accordingly, at the end of this research, we would prefer not to separate the two elements completely and to emphasize the interdisciplinary of these two personal and social dimensions of nostalgia in this novel. In this work, the narrator appears with a realist look as a critic with a bitter taste of the failure of the ideals of fighters and social activists with a narrative of the killing and the exile of the idealists, distrust, government repression and depictions of in-party betrayals. Parallel to that, it narrates of the people who, having lost all their initial ideals due to the laws of government weaknesses and the pressure of socio-political, cultural, and religious domination of society, have self-exiled themselves. Thus, although the element of idealism is one of the prominent elements of this novel, the idealists of Mahmud's realism novel, in their quest for silence, have died in prison or exile. 

Language:
Persian
Published:
Journal of Lyrical Literature Researches, Volume:18 Issue: 34, 2020
Pages:
87 to 102
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