The study of Gotic-literary contents within two novels: "Sane-al-Zalam" and "Negahban

 

Introduction

The genre of horror stories under the title of Gothic fiction, by combining scary themes and images, creates a style of story whose basic features are horror and fear. The content of this story style is made up of many scary themes that have their roots in the Middle Ages, the setting of the Gothic novel is often the half-dark castles and palaces of the Middle Ages. Most of the sources in the field of analysis and the study of the meanings and concepts of the words, in explaining the meaning of the word Gothic, mention it as an attribute attributed to the peoples from Northern Europe (Germanic peoples) known as Goths, their prominent feature that is mentioned in most of these sources. It is the attribute of being wild and uncivilized. Gothic is actually an artistic and literary style with unique that includes concepts such as fear, anxiety, darkness, pain and suffering, appeared in the centuries before the formation of classical and features romantic art and literature, and some even with titles such as Romanticism has mentioned it. Gothic style, after the Middle Ages and Renaissance, still has its followers in the modern era and has found a colorful emergence in other fields of modern art such as film, cinema, photography and fiction.
In the modern era, the main characteristic of Gothic style is horror, darkness and anxiety. Dark colors, scary and mysterious scenes and images, all of which somehow try to show the ugly aspects of life, are prominent features of the Gothic style in these works (especially in literature).
Since literature and literary works are always a suitable tool for expressing the opinions and views of writers, therefore, the use of the Gothic literary genre can, in addition to creating scary, attractive and modern adventures, tell the psychological and inner state of human beings and the facts behind the scenes. Many of the cries of human societies. In 1764, the first Gothic novel named "The Castle of Otranto" was written by the English writer Horace Walpole, and literary critics have considered this novel to be the first Gothic work in literature.
 
2- Discussion
In contemporary Arabic and Persian literature, "Tamer Ebrahim" and "Peiman Ismaili", two young contemporary Egyptian and Iranian novelists, authored two novels, "Sanee Al-zalam" (The Maker of Darkness) and "Negahban" (The watchman) with the aim of creating modern works in the field of Gothic fiction. They have created characters and adventures that despite their fiction and unreality, express the real facts and adventures in the mind, soul, psyche and history of human societies.
"Saane Al-Zalam" is the storyteller of the dark life and sheer bad luck of an Egyptian journalist; A story full of mystery and fear. This story deals with some historical tragedies and heinous murders and crimes, while the main cause of these tragedies is an evil and vile creature called "Al-Shi'". Youssef Khalil, the hero of the novel "Sanee Al-Zalam", is a young journalist with unpleasant physical and mental characteristics who lost his parents in his childhood and his temperamental characteristics made him neither a friend nor a lover. After preparing a report on the murder of a ten-year-old boy by his godfathers, this character gets involved with very horrible and unusual events. During this novel, two real historical tragedies in the 15th and 16th centuries in Hungary have been processed and horrifying images of these facts have been presented. Therefore, "Sanee al-Zalam" means "creator of darkness", a title that refers to the perpetrators of the dark periods of history and human tragedy. Of course, behind the mask of these people, there is a demonic force called "Al-Shi" that appears in new faces in every era and time and covers up evil actions.
"Peyman Esmaili", in the novel "Negahban", by creating a gothic atmosphere, tells an interesting story of a young engineer (Siamak) who, like "Youssef Khalil", lost his parents in his childhood and is a lonely person. And this loneliness becomes his constant friend, because the accident has taken away from him, apart from his parents, the desire to have a child (as a result of the accident, his offspring has been cut off). This novel takes place in frightening atmospheres and the audience is always faced with violent nature and scary atmospheres. At the beginning of the novel, "Siamak" sees the face of the truck driver who collided with the arrow of "Kyumarth" in the form of an animal like a wolf. In fact, the wolf in this story plays an important role in connecting the story with scary themes. At the end of Siamak's life, this animal is released in the cold mountain, which is basically the Gothic hell of the story.
 
3- Methodology
The present research, relying on the descriptive-analytical research method and based on the American school of comparative literature, to find out the hidden layers of the text and the comparative analysis of the literary Gothic components in the two novels "Saane Al-Zalam" and "Negahban", to investigate the elements of character, place and time is discussed in the two mentioned novels. The importance of the present research is in the comparative investigation of Gothic themes in these two novels and it can lead to the explanation and evaluation of the common effects of Gothic literature in two contemporary Persian and Arabic works, which is of considerable importance.
 
4- Conclusion
The results of the research indicate that the characters who have a main role and an effective presence in the two gothic novels "Sanee Al-Zalam" and "Negahban", like other gothic stories, are characters with unusual and negative characteristics. These characters have negative and sometimes conflicting psychological and physical characteristics that have formed the leaven of their horror and Gothicism. The character of "Idris" in the novel "Negahban" and the character of "Al-Shi" in "Sanee Al-Zalam" are the most gothic characters in these two novels. In the two novels "Sanee Al-Zalam" and "Negahban" there is an overlap between fictional literature and realism; because when we see the murders carried out by these people, we are observing the facts, and when we look at the nature of "Al-Shi" and "Idris" as two demonic beings in the novels, we are facing imaginary and fantasy creatures.
The use of symbolic tools to express the events in the story "Sanee Al-Zalam" is a way to express the facts through symbolism. but the story of the guard expresses the desired goals and objectives with a realistic and simple point of view. Themes such as the consequences of the war, the unemployment of the border dwellers in the west of the country and their turning to smuggling, and the human fall and poverty of the people of southern cape are presented in this work in a realistic manner.
In the story "Sanee Al-Zalam" we witness the staging of the story in frightening and terrifying places and spaces in the palaces of the kings. By writing a story based on European Gothic works, the author of this work seeks to express the truths of the terrifying history of human societies, which she has achieved by re-reading historical events in places such as the palace of European rulers. And "Elizabeth Bathory" happened in their palaces, they are a symbol of other terrible tragedies that happened throughout history.
In the story "Negahban" as well as other authors of literary works, "Peiman Esmaili" seeks to express his mental origins and express his subconscious mind. The places that are the scene of the story of "Negahban" are the cold and snowy mountain, the strange and scary stone house in the middle of the mountain and the shanty that is the residence of "Siamak" in the scorching heat of the south. All these places somehow express the author's feeling of fear and loneliness, a feeling that he felt with all his heart during the imposed war in his childhood.
The element of time is the third component examined in this research; in "Sanee Al-Zalam" and "Negahban" the fluid flow of time and the dynamics of this flow are considered important elements of creating stress and fear in the audience. In both stories, most of the scary events happen at night. because among the times of the day and night, the night has the greatest potential to create fear and anxiety, and showing the adventures and the presence of evil at this time has more attraction and traction to increase the fear in the story.