Focalization and Its Artistic Dimensions in the Short Stories of Houshang Golshiri with Emphasis on Gérard Genette’s Theory

Abstract

Focalization, as one of the fundamental concepts of narratology, plays a decisive role in the transmission of meaning, the formation of point of view, and the organization of consciousness within the narrative text. Despite the significance of this concept in modern narrative theories, its systematic and coherent examination in contemporary Persian fiction—particularly in the works of Houshang Golshiri—has received comparatively limited scholarly attention. The central problem of the present study is to determine how focalization in Golshiri’s short stories contributes to the creation of the artistic dimensions of narrative, including ambiguity, suspense, polyphony, and the reader’s active participation, and to explore the relationship between different types of focalization and the semantic and ideological layers of these stories. This research has been conducted through a descriptive–analytical method based on library studies. The short stories “Chenar,” “Malakh,” “Dahliz,” and “Shak Shab Ast” have been analyzed in accordance with Gérard Genette’s theory of focalization. The findings indicate that Golshiri, through the conscious employment of external, internal, and variable focalization and through deliberate shifts among them, constructs narratives that evade semantic certainty and transform truth into a fluid and multifaceted phenomenon. In these stories, focalization functions not only as a structural device but also as a framework for social and ideological critique, for foregrounding lived individual and collective experience, and for reinforcing the active role of the reader in the process of meaning production. These findings demonstrate that focalization constitutes one of the most significant aesthetic components of narrative in the short stories of Houshang Golshiri.