Papers by Zakarya Bezdoode
Anafora
The present paper seeks to explore the significance of eating in the process of identity formatio... more The present paper seeks to explore the significance of eating in the process of identity formation in Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle and its effects upon Joan, the female protagonist of the novel. Based on the findings of Susie Orbach (1946), Joan appears to have developed an ambivalent relationship with food from a very early age. Once she decides to lose weight and turn into what the society has always demanded her to look like, she develops an identity crisis which is reflected in her literary production. There are several barriers in the process of Joan’s identity formation that reveal themselves later in her narratives as an author. The focus of this study is to shed light on this problematic process of being a female author coping with nutritional insecurities.
Critical Literary Studies, Mar 1, 2022
The present study attempts to demonstrate how different texts with various author attitudes depic... more The present study attempts to demonstrate how different texts with various author attitudes depict the oppressed subjects of Stalin’s time. For this purpose, Roland Barthes’ notion of ‘Modes of Writing’ and Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘author’ are employed in reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963) and Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time (2016). The two novels mainly address the politically subjected characters in the Stalinist regime with different standpoints of author figure. Originating the authors’ modes of writing in the mentioned texts, on one hand, and the analysis of author-function, on the other, shall satisfy the comparative tendencies in this research and show how these theoretical frameworks can help a critical understanding of the texts. The subjects described in these novels, although similar in their situations and characteristics and subjected to the same institution of power, are narrated from different author roles and provide...
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2020
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2016
The present paper seeks to examine the way Gabriel García Márquez negotiates "Dominant, Residual ... more The present paper seeks to examine the way Gabriel García Márquez negotiates "Dominant, Residual and Emergent" perspectives in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Our main concern is to demonstrate to what extent the individuals' agency could be effective in regard to the formation of the dominant ideology which shares a lion part of the culture. Furthermore, the way concepts like culture, ideology, transformation, colors, books, music, and borders play role in cultural materialism will be thoroughly explored in this paper. The paper concludes that individuals are the most influential rule-definers. As an illustration, the individuals themselves help the transition from polygamy to monogamy in the family structures. In addition, the very fact that most of the emergent perspectives were at some times dominant and have been covered in cobweb-like layers and are now recalled in the form of novel things is manifested.
In this article we analyze how Shahraam Rahimian rewrites the history of Iran's 1953 coup in ... more In this article we analyze how Shahraam Rahimian rewrites the history of Iran's 1953 coup in his novel, Dr. Noon Loves His Wife More than Mussadiq, as a distressing and dreadful historical event for the intellectuals of the country. Basing the argument on Katouzian's theory of history in Iran and using Lacan's theory of individuation, we want to read the novel as an attempt to introduce Iran during the 1960s coup as an individual who experiences the bitter and cruel growth from the imaginary to the symbolic. There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know. Harry Truman Iranian history before the 1953 coup is characterized by frequent cases of patricide, filicide, fratricide and regicide. A number of historians and theorists have explained this fact in different and at times contradictory ways. Concentrating on the 1953 coup and the downfall of Mussadiq, scholars such as Mark
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2020
This paper analyzes John Updike’s short story “A & P” in the light of Max Weber’s notion of moral... more This paper analyzes John Updike’s short story “A & P” in the light of Max Weber’s notion of moral decision-making. A prominent contemporary American story-writer and literary critic, Updike has devoted his fiction to subjects' rational and moral problems in the contemporary consumerist society. Updike’s lifelong probing into the middle classes' lives is a body of fiction that raises questions about determinism, moral decision, and social responsibility, among others. “A & P” is a revealing example of such fiction and one among Updike’s most frequently anthologized short stories. The story, titled after a nationwide American shopping mall in the early twentieth century, investigates the possibility of decision-making within consumerist society. This paper demonstrates how Updike’s portrayal of his characters' everyday lives reveals the predicament of intellectual thinking and moral decision-making in a consumerist society and warns against the loss of individual will
In this article we analyze how Shahraam Rahimian rewrites the history of Iran’s 1953 coup in his ... more In this article we analyze how Shahraam Rahimian rewrites the history of Iran’s 1953 coup in his novel, Dr. Noon Loves His Wife More than Mussadiq , as a distressing and dreadful historical event for the intellectuals of the country. Basing the argument on Katouzian’s theory of history in Iran and using Lacan’s theory of individuation, we want to read the novel as an attempt to introduce Iran during the 1960s coup as an individual who experiences the bitter and cruel growth from the imaginary to the symbolic.
University of Kurdistan, 2019
The present study attempts to demonstrate how different texts with various author attitudes depic... more The present study attempts to demonstrate how different texts with various author attitudes depict the oppressed subjects of Stalin's time. For this purpose, Roland Barthes' notion of 'Modes of Writing' and Michel Foucault's concept of 'author' are employed in reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1963) and Julian Barnes' The Noise of Time (2016). The two novels mainly address the politically subjected characters in the Stalinist regime with different standpoints of author figure. Originating the authors' modes of writing in the mentioned texts, on one hand, and the analysis of author-function, on the other, shall satisfy the comparative tendencies in this research and show how these theoretical frameworks can help a critical understanding of the texts. The subjects described in these novels, although similar in their situations and characteristics and subjected to the same institution of power, are narrated ...
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2020
Investigating the way Sherzad Hassan represents the liminal status of the leading characters in h... more Investigating the way Sherzad Hassan represents the liminal status of the leading characters in his short fiction, this paper attempts to probe into the question of Kurdish subjectivity and Identity by discussing the liminal position of Kurds in Iraq in decades that culminated in their Anfal by Saddam Hussein. Victor Turner’s concept of liminality forms the theoretical background of the analysis. ‘Lausanne’, ‘Marlin’, ‘The Game of Changing Beds’, ‘The Sad Song of Being a Stranger’, ‘Secret’, ‘Smoke’, ‘The Alley of the Scarecrows’, and ‘Azrael’ among others are the selected short stories in which liminality has been scrutinized. Sherzad Hassan has employed music, incoherence, heteronomy, anonymity, verisimilitude, nakedness, limbo, tomb, womb, indeterminacy, hospital, patients, paralysis, gate, curtain, widowhood, smoke, scarecrows, portmanteau, and angels as the conventions of representing liminality. Given these facts, the paper comes up with the conclusion that the characters’ aspirations for development in their circumstances are mouldered. Tranquillity, cohesion and reintegration into the Kurdish society seem to be a mere mirage for the individuals.
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Papers by Zakarya Bezdoode