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Volume 2 Issue 8 |
January 2016 |
| A Postmodernist Comparative Study: Haruki Murakami and Bijan Najdi | |
| Ms. Zahra Khozaei Ravari, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, , Mr. Ehsan Bahadori, Graduated Student, Department of Foreign Languages, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, , |
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| Abstract | |
| This present comparative study is devoted to the various concepts and themes of postmodernism in Haruki Murakami from Japan and Bijan Najdi from Iran. Although Murakami's novels and Najdi’s short stories have been vastly studied from numerous perspectives, there have been only a few concerted attempts to investigate the postmodern concepts and themes that are present in their short stories. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate traces of postmodernism in the following short stories of Murakami: “The Elephant Vanishes” taken from The Elephant Vanishes (1993); “Landscape with Flatiron” and “Super Frog Saved Tokyo” taken from After the Quake (2002); and “The Birthday Girl” and “Blind Willow Sleeping Woman” taken from Blind Willow Sleeping Woman (2006) and in the following short stories of Najdi: “Entrusted to the Earth”, “Darkness in a Boot” and “A Pool Full of Nightmare” taken from The Leopards Who Have Run with Me (1994). This study is aimed at unearthing postmodernist concepts such as minimalism, magic realism, focalization, fragmentation, a lack of grand narrative and postmodern themes such as isolation, a lack of communication, mystry and absurdity. In doing so, this study hopes to showcase Murakami and Najdi as literary postmodernist celebrities. The study via a close reading of the selected texts of these two writers is set to provide a greater understanding of Murakami’s and Najdi’s short stories and to establish that they are also pioneers in postmodernist writings in their own countries. | |
| Keywords | |
| Minimalism; Magic Realism; Fragmentation; Focalization; Isolation; Mystery; Absurdity. | |
| Article | |
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