Narrative Creativity in Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl and M
Sadeq Hedayat's The Blind Owl is one of the most important literary works in Persian language. The central theme of the story is an attempt toward the resolution of the writer/narrator's dualistic experiences of the real versus unreal, the sensual against the spiritual and death as opposed to life. Underlying his problems are sexual fear, association of women with death (a common theme in literature) and disgust affiliated with death/women. Machado de Assis' Philosopher or Dog? presents an interesting but intriguing main character. Quincas Borba, who denotes not only the eponymous (possibly mad) philosopher whose credo of ``Humanism'' disastrously misleads his disciple Rubio, but also Borbas's dog (and namesake) in which form Rubio believes his mentor's soul is reincarnated. An unreliable narrator presents many complications with the reading. The narrators of The Blind Owl and Philosopher or Dog? are both concerned with relatioships, women, and power.In The Blind Owl it is important to understand the narrator's symbolism of his perception of the female characters. An in depth study of such symbolism reveals that the narrator is unconsciously treating the women of his creation as blank screens onto which he is casting various
The first frayed strand in his textual web appears when the character who gives his name and, arguably, life to the novel, slips into madness and dies. The possibility of uniting man and his proverbially faithful dog only flowers in the last sad pages where Rubião returns from Rio, defeated by the very dreams that drew him there. aspects of his personality that he can not consciously acknowledge. In order to penetrate to the heart of the narrator's problems of identity and being, one might also relate the experience of mothering and of women to problems of dependence and ego weakness. The disruptive as well as transformative effects of accelerated economic and social change are modern themes that are given a precise national form in this fictional recreation of Brazil in the 1870's. This being one of the themes Machado bases his work on. The book has quirky narrative digressions and asides that keep the novel on its fated crooked path. Like the comically woeful Tristram Shandy, the narrator calls attention to the mishaps that plague or impede his storytelling. Much of this discursive crookedness derives not from the arbitrariness of his characters' lot, but from the whimsical courses of the human mind. Philosopher or Dog? The novel contains many ironic comments on the craft of writing itself, and examines the political, sexual, and economic complexities of Rubiao's world. The author's writing is peppered with intriguing cultural allusions: Poe, Shakespeare's "Othello," Homer, Mozart, Kant, Dante's "Inferno," and more.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Blind Owl, Quincas Borba, Dante's Inferno, Philosopher Dog, Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote, Rubio Borbas's, blind owl, philosopher dog, female element, writes straight crooked, god writes straight, sexual contact, straight crooked, writes straight, god writes, quincas borba,
Approximate Word count = 1331
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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