Hayden White

The present research seeks to investigate Shahram Rahimian’s Dr. Noon Loves His Wife More Than Mussadiq [1] based on the literary historiographical theory of Hayden White. The central argument of this analysis is to demonstrate how Rahimian represents the history of Iran’s 1953 coup in his novel through mentioning an Iranian historical figure, Dr. Mussadiq, and his relationship with other members of the political party. The history of Iran’s coup and especially that of Dr. Mussadiq have been an interesting subject for most of the historians and writers. Rahimian in his novel impressively addresses the historical facts of the period and endeavors to focus on the realities and at the same time to create a new version of the events by fictionalizing the way he presents his characters. He attempts to convey to the readers that it is possible to have different versions of the apparent historical facts. This novel provides corresponding peculiarities with the postmodern approach of historiography that is presented by Hayden White particularly in his remarkable work, Metahistory (1973). White contends that there could be different versions of historical facts and it is the task of the historian and the writer of historical fiction to interpret the realities and to make his/her own version of the past. Employing White’s significant concept of emplotment, the study explores the way Rahimian depicts the Iranian socio-political and cultural scene of the early 1950s in his novel from a historical perspective. <br clear="all" /> [1]     All translations from Persian to English have been made by the present author.

Enthusiasm in the field of comparative studies, concentrating on similarities, variations and influences enhanced in the early decades of the nineteenth century with the rise of Occidental interest in Oriental advancements. About a century later, Michael Foucault introduced his cutting-edge theory, in which he illustrated how the various discursive institutions in a society are related to the circulation of power/knowledge. Hayden White revolutionized the historical outlook towards narrating events by emphasizing on the relationship between the supremacy and the oppressed, while insisting on the disclosure of cause-effect relationships in historiographical analysis. It is the objective of this study to investigate and trace the key notion of “influence” as proposed by the French School of Comparative Literature in the selected pieces, “When in Rome” by Mari Evans and “The Teacher and the Student” by Simin Behbahani in order to reveal how the texts, under the influence of hyper-contextual links of causality which are present in socio-cultural discourses, lead and contribute to the circulation of power and knowledge. Findings will indicate how the comparison of distinct artistic works demonstrates similitude in the expression of views and intentions while relying on factors which are extrinsically appended to them.