Examining the Elements of Bakhtin's Carnivalism in “Two kings” from the Stories of Shamloo and Shojaei

Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), one of the philosophers and theorists of Russian literature of the 20th century, proposed his theory of carnivalism, inspired by carnival celebrations. In these celebrations, people break the chains of fear, away from the domineering space of dos and don'ts, and behind a critical laugh, they show the issues that have been silenced by the dominating voice of the society. In his theory of Carnivalism, Bakhtin examines the actions of the carnival by using the principles of satire, which is based on dialogue genres and is one of the most important tools for understanding the world of the carnival, in order to examine the works of humor and presents elements such as conversationalism in the space of chronotope (time-space), architectonics (organization of relations between subjects) and heteroglassia (meaning in the situation) to criticize satirical works. In this article, by examining two hypothetical kings, namely Demoghorazeh from the book of Democracy or Demoghorazeh by Seyyed Mehdi Shojaei and the Qajar King by Ahmed Shamloo in the book of “the travel diary” of Meymant, the series of carnivals and actions such as coronation and de-coronation. Laughter and the logic of conversationalism of carnival have been investigated to show the intermingling of contradictions of human life in the grotesque of power and in the political-social atmosphere in these two works. Carnival standards are expressed in this work inductively and with a critical approach.