Journal of the stylistic of Persian poem and prose
volume Number 19، number In Volume 9، December 2026 ، issue Number 127

Representation of Tradition and Modernity in the Short Stories of Sadegh Hedayat, Goli Tarqi, and Moniro Ravanipour A Comparative Analysis Based on Narrative Structure, Power Mechanisms, and Gendered Subjectivity

Leila Faraji , Bahram Parvin (Author in Charge)

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Tradition and modernity are enduring concerns in modern Persian fiction. Their relationship, however, cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between the old and the new, because narrative time, the distribution of power, and the formation of individual subjectivity also shape its literary representation. This study aims to explain how this relationship is represented in selected short stories by Sadegh Hedayat, Goli Taraghi, and Moniro Ravanipour and to compare their narrative and discursive patterns.

METHODOLOGY: This qualitative, descriptive-analytical, and comparative study uses purposive selection and close reading. The corpus comprises nine stories: Hedayat"s “Buried Alive,” “Three Drops of Blood,” and “Dash Akol”; Taraghi"s “The Pear Tree,” “The Shemiran Bus,” and “The Great Lady of My Soul”; and Ravanipour"s “Kanizu,” “The Devil"s Stones,” and “Nazli.” Textual evidence was analyzed through three related axes: narrative structure—temporal order, duration, focalization, and voice—mechanisms of institutional and communal power, and gendered subjectivity and agency. Patterns were then compared within and across the three authors" works.

FINDINGS: In Hedayat"s selected stories, tradition appears mainly through codes of honor, communal judgment, and internalized restraint, while modern institutions may reproduce discipline and alienation. In Taraghi"s stories, retrospection and association reconstruct the past from the standpoint of the present, making tradition both a source of identity and an object of criticism. Ravanipour"s stories place gendered domination, local beliefs, and political and social pressures alongside the resistant capacities of vernacular language, collective memory, nature, and women"s care work

CONCLUSION: The comparison does not support a linear evolutionary movement from tradition to modernity. The main distinction lies in the function of narrative: Hedayat exposes the crisis of the subject and failed communication; Taraghi critically reconstructs the past; and Ravanipour renders marginalized experience and women"s constrained agency visible. Narrative is therefore not merely a reflection of social transformation but an active mediator in producing the meanings of tradition, modernity, and subjectivity.

Keyword
Tradition , Modernity , Persian Short Story , Sadegh Hedayat , Goli Taraghi , Moniro Ravanipour , Narratology , Subjectivity.