"The Causes of Changing the Names of the Characters in the Tales of Mathnawi

The Nocturnal Harmony of the Wood Orchestra” by Reza Ghasemi is one of the most significant postmodern stories in Persian literature. It tells the life of a group of Iranian immigrants and exiles living in France who are still struggling with their original culture and beliefs. Chaos theory, which is one of the well-known and widely used theories in physics and meteorology, is reflected in this story. Since this story is a piece of metafiction, the author/narrator consciously refers to the chaos theory and in particular to the butterfly effect. This study, after introducing the most characteristic features of chaos theory, reads “The Nocturnal Harmony of Wood Orchestra” in light of this theory. It uses a descriptive-analytical method to investigate the effect of chaos theory on the postmodern aspects of this fiction and on the lives and destinies of the characters. We seek to show how the manifestation of a scientific theory in the story reinforces its postmodern aspects. Chaos theory is used in various sciences. It talks about nonlinear events and processes based on uncertainty. The manifestation of chaos theory in this story distinguishes it from others. According to this theory, complex and turbulent phenomena and events are the result of multiple causes and constantly affect each other. These kinds of phenomena are sensitive to their initial conditions and their various components, based on the butterfly effect, self-similarity, dynamic adaptation, and strange attractors, show a kind of order in disorder or a quasi-chaotic situation. The results of this study show that the chaos theory, through disturbing and unfamiliar propositions, highlights the postmodern aspects of the story and at the same time justifies the confusion of the characters while coordinating the form and content. This theory describes the intertwined and complex lives and fates of the characters in a postmodern way and shows the effects of small variables on large events and the fates of the characters.