The Image of the Main Character in the Short Stories of Houshang Golshiri after the Islamic Revolution

Based on the theory of reflection in the sociology of art, literature in its broadest sense is a mirror of society that reflects the orientations, tastes and social currents and helps to dissect the society better than science and technology. In particular, among literary works, short stories and novels are more dependent on social life than other types of literature, and while being affected by changes in society, they themselves are the source of change and show the changes in societies. In this way, by recognizing the fluctuations and changes of the world inside the main characters of the stories, a path can be found to know the transformations and changes in the world outside them. The purpose of this study is to examine the image of the main character in Houshang Golshiri’s short stories. In this regard, an attempt was made to conduct a comparative content analysis of the works using the descriptive-analytical method and by extracting the characteristics of the main characters of Golshiri’s short stories in the 60s and 70s (Persian Calendar) and by identifying the main socio-political events and currents of the years following the victory of the Islamic Revolution. The results show that in his collection of stories Golshiri directly and indirectly presented a part of the mentalities and thoughts of intellectuals, artists and the middle class of his time and there is a close relationship between the spiritual, political, social and cultural characteristics of the main characters of each collection of stories with the prevailing socio-political situation of that period. This corresponds to the author’s political and social perception of the developments of the period because when the status of society changes, some of these characteristics also change.