A socio-literary criticism of Jalal Al-e Ahmad's Sin Story

Abstract In this article, the story of Sin, by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, is analytically criticized in a two-sided comprehensive view. Literature is a link between art and thought, and an important part of the ideas visualized in literary texts are social. The story, and especially the short story, is an appropriate genre for expressing the writers' thoughts and thus it is a distinguished context for sociological-literary interdisciplinary research. Generally, the criticism of these works is one-dimensional and one-sided, and usually either literary is examined regardless of the social context, or the former is overlooked at the cost of the latter. Jalal Al-e Ahmad on the one hand, due to his excellent writing and literary skills, and on the other hand, because of the precision, sensitivity, and specificity to social issues, has a special place among the short story writers. In the Sin story of the Se Tar collection, describing the narrator-hero inner characteristics, he has depicted the social conflict and, consequently, the anti-normalization. Gender discrimination, misbeliefs, ignorance of the truth of religion, and, as a result, hypocrisy, and weakness of religiousness, routine life, and stagnation of society are other features depicted in this story.