aA Study of the History-fabrication in Nader Ebrahimi’s Smokeless Fire Based on Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Model

In the present study, attempts have been made to decode Nader Ebrahimi's ideological and political stance on contemporary political history In Smokeless Fire based on the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis. Nader Ebrahimi, as a result of historical developments between the publication of the first three volumes (1980) and the other four volumes (1992) of his work, i.e. the arrest and eradication of opposition groups in Iran and the attenuation of communist slogans worldwide, embarks on fabricating history in the last four volumes of the novel Smokeless Fire, and by creating a new discourse in the story, he seeks to direct and control harmonized ideologies and beliefs among the people. He demonstrates contemporary left-wing guerrillas and communists as protagonists and heroes in the story, while portraying all the political movements and partisan wars of the 60s and 70s with emphasis on the role of these groups. To justify and inculcate this bias, he resorts to the generation of semantic contradictions and deliberate eradication of actions undertaken by opposition groups. He also underscores his advocacy for political groups by making the Islamist and nationalist political groups, “the others”. Theoretical Framework and Review of Literature In this paper, the text of The Smokeless Fire novel was analyzed based on three levels of critical discourse analysis theory of Fairclough. At the first level (description), we examined the vocabulary level, the grammatical level (syntactic structure) and finally the textual structure level. At the next level (interpretation level), we examined the contextual context, the contextual and historical context, the assumptions and the types of discourses involved. At the last level (the level of explanation), we answered questions about the social factors and social power relations in which the author lives and the novel is formed. We also examined the ideologies, types of struggles, the impact of author and his impressionability. Articles that have examined contemporary Persian fictional literature according to the theory of critical discourse of Fairclough – except this novel- are very poor in the commentary and explanation levels as: Ghobadi & others (2009), Ghasemzadeh & Gorji (2011); Ghobadi & Aghagolzadeh (2011); Haddadi & others (2012); Gorji (2012); Behbahani & others. (2013); Javadi Yeganeh & Sohofi (2013); Ahmadi & others (2014); Ghorbani (2015). The researches about this novel hitherto have not directly used the model and theory of critical discourse analysis of Fairclough. These articles focus more on the first three volumes of the novel and have not paid attention to the politics and historicalization of the next four volumes. These researches are: Rezvanian & Nouri (2009); Alavi Moghadam & pourshahram (2011).

The method of this research is descriptive and analytical and we categorized the data gathered from the text reading of the novel, along with the historical information of the 1350s and 60s, according to the three-level model of Fairclough and linguistic cues in the action and speech of the novel's characters, to interpret and explain the kind of ideology behind the layers of text. The present study seeks to demonstrate by using critical discourse analysis that Ebrahimi has made history in this novel to justify his ideological outlook. The main purpose of this historicization was primarily to influence the thoughts and beliefs of the next generation, to acknowledge the central role of leftist guerrilla discourse in public awareness and to guide them in confronting Pahlavi's Westward government.

In this paper, the text of The Smokeless Fire novel was analyzed based on the three levels of critical discourse analysis theory to examine the way in which the author has been making history. In the description section, it may be said that the author, with his political affiliations and partisan beliefs, chooses the names, attributes, and alignment to induce his political thinking and character. Also, by attribution of anti-human and immoral acts to the opposing discourse – which is religious or have religious names and titles - highlights the anti-religious characters of the story. In the novel all acts of this non-religious group are meant to soothe and promote the lower social classes and women. Confrontation of names, attributes, and actions of characters in the first three volumes Leads to the confrontation of three political groups in contemporary Iranian history in the next four volumes. In these four volumes, the left guerrilla movements are at the forefront of all political currents of this period and all fictional actions are dedicated to these groups. At the level of interpretation, it can be concluded that Ebrahimi attributes all the forest uprisings in the decade thirties and fifties to the main character of his story, who is an anti-religious and a trained guerrilla in the partisan Latin America wars, with the aim of popularizing the guerrilla group of the story. By introducing famous uprisings and bringing historical names alongside fictional characters, Ebrahimi divides these uprisings into religious and leftist groups. Islamist characters operate subtly in the story, with the support of leftist groups. Alain's career as a vanguard of leftist groups is near to historical figures of leftism such as Golsorkhi, Jazani, Ahmadzadeh and Ashraf. The type of author's relationship with the state and the preservation of personal beliefs and the type of transmission in the story are the main issues at the level of explanation. The events of the story are tied to the author's mental beliefs. In the first three volumes, all the events are in favor of hard-line communist and party slogans, and from the fourth volume, the author seeks to prove the left's prominent role in bringing society and popular opinion closer to the great popular movement of fifty-seven. Writing the last four volumes, he wants to have a portion of contemporary Iranian history. Ebrahimi-supported discourse is not just the struggling Tudeh Party and leftists of the twenties and fifties, but an influential revolutionary anti-Western and anti-religious belief which is more manifested in the ideals of the Fadaiyan-e khalq. Aleni is not a fictional character; he is a popular force and power that, at the author's request, in the last four volumes is a symbol of “The process of the warfare of leftist groups" who guides all the political and social events near the revolution.

The analysis of Nader Ebrahimi’s novel, Smokeless Fire, according to Fairclough’s model shows that Nader Ebrahimi is making history in his work. In the description level, it may be said that the author, with his political affiliations and partisan beliefs, chooses the names, attributes, etc. to induce his political thinking and character. At the level of interpretation, it can be concluded that Ebrahimi attributes all the forest uprisings in the decade thirties and fifties to the main character of his story with the aim of popularizing the guerrilla group of the story. The type of author's relationship with the state and the preservation of personal beliefs and the type of transmission in the story are the main issues at the level of explanation. In the first three volumes, all the events are in favor of hard-line communist and party slogans, and from the fourth volume, the author seeks to prove the left's prominent role in bringing society and popular opinion closer to the great popular movement of fifty-seven.