The Comparative Use of Narrative Time in the Discourse Layer in Two Narrative Works “Pelleas and Melisande” and “Zal and Rudabe” Based on Gerard Genette’s Theory

Understanding the events and content of each story is closely related to the time of its narration. Genette, as the most influential theorist regarding text time in narratological criticism, facilitates the discovery of the details of narrative time. The purpose of this essay is to compare narrative time with an emphasis on Genette's comprehensive theory and his structuring mechanisms in the two narratives of Peléas and Mélisande and Zal and Rudabe from three perspectives: temporal order, delay and frequency, in order to analyze the general rules of narrative time and its regularities. This research, with a descriptive-analytical approach based on library studies and with an emphasis on the commonalities and differences of the application of the narrative technique of the time of narration, deals with the comparative analysis of two stories. The narrative structure of these two works, from Genette's point of view, have a different chronological order. The narrative work of Peles and Melisande has a regular linear temporality that gives strength to the dramatic aspect of the work, but in Zal and Rodabe we see the disruption of the chronological sequence of events and numerous past and future predictions. Therefore, Pelleas and Melisande, unlike Zal and Rudabe, does not have a time lapse, and its delay in the narration time in the two stories is based on staging, and the dramatic form has turned these two works into dialogue-filled texts. In addition, the frequency of single quotation in two narrations is the dominant aspect.