The Comparison of the Story “Good and Evil” in Nezami’s Haft-Peykar with Its Rewriting in Bakhtiari Dialect in Terms of Narrativity

 Ebrahim Zaheri Abdevand
Assistant Professor of Persian language and literature, Shahrekord University
 
 
Introduction
There are different types of rewriting and recreating, one of which is the rewriting and the recreating of the classic Persian texts for children. This can be done in the standard language or in one of the dialects. At any rate, creative writers can use this method to make children familiar with classic Persian works and create a link between the culture of today and of yesterday. This plays an important role in preserving the cultural identity in every society. Rewriting and recreating lead to the reconstruction of the cultural and social past of a nation tailored to the present time; and in this way, the individuals, especially children and adolescents, can get familiar with different components of that culture and society and adopt their identity from that culture. Nizami's works are among the literary works which have received attention from various poets and writers of the past and the present and they have been recreated or rewritten in different ways. The present research aims to compare the "Good and Evil Tale" in Haft Peykar with its rewritten narrative in Bakhtiari dialect based on Nikolajeva's theory with regard to the narrativity of the children's literature. The reason behind choosing Nikolajeva's theory is that she has paid attention to the narrativity in children's literature and proposed the narratology theory for children's literature.
 
Method, Objectives, and Research Background
This study is conducted using a documentary method. There are quite a number of scholarly articles, books and theses on the subject of rewriting and recreating, which have either compared the original text with the rewritten one in terms of the story elements or have explored the characteristics of the rewritten texts. Shaykh dar Bouteh by Jafar Payvar, "Rewriting the narrative poems Panj-Ganj [Five Treasures] in the contemporary literature of Iran" by Khorshid Nourouzi, "The analysis of the approach of Nizami studies in Iranian researchers' books from 1921 to 2005" by Jamshid Nourouzi et al., "Golestan [The Rose Garden] and adolescents:  The investigation and analysis of rewriting  patterns of Golestan stories for adolescents" by Sajjad Najafi et al., "A look at rewriting of Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi for children and adolescents" by Farzaneh Okhovvat, "Character building and characterization in the works adopted from Masnavi-ye-Ma'navi for children and adolescents" by Yousef Nayyeri and Parvin Mortezaei, and "Taking a glance at the story elements in rewriting the sweet tales of Kelileh va Demneh for adolescents" by Jahangir Safari et al., are a handful of examples. However, no study has been undertaken with regard to the objective of this research, i.e., the comparison of the story of “Good and Evil" in Haft Peykar with its rewriting in Bakhtiari dialect based on Nikolajeva's narratology theory.
 
Discussion
In the beginning of the story, the rewriter has tried to add an introduction to the main story, which can help the child understand the story more easily. Considering the conflict and suspense, in the Bakhtiari narrative, the suspense of the character has been omitted and the suspense of the status –whether the characters get out of poverty or not– has been added to the story. Additionally, the suspense of the adventure is modified compared to Nizami's narrative. In terms of the subject of the conflict, the first conflict in Nizami's narrative is the dry and scorching desert, but in the Bakhtiari narrative, it is poverty and deprivation. Adding this kind of conflict to the main story shows that in the rewriter's view, children in Bakhtiari culture must be prepared to deal with life problems from the very beginning of the tale. In the Bakhtiari narrative, the crisis point of the story is more emotional because the family of the good and the family of the evil are both present, and finally the evil becomes ashamed in the presence of the family. It is in fact shown that the result of telling lies is being rejected by the family. In both narratives investigated, the characters are either good or evil given the classic structure of the story; so much so that the name of the two characters indicate this issue: good is the representative of humans with good habits and evil is the manifestation of bad people. Therefore, one can infer that the writers of both narratives have used characters as moral models. The theme of Nizami's narrative is that good people finally achieve happiness, but bad people fall into misery. The Bakhtiari narrative, however, adds the themes of sacrifice, forgiveness, and justice to the text. In terms of timeliness, the two stories are narrated without anachrony. In the Bakhtiari narrative, attempts have been made to change the story place based on the lived experience of the audience. This indicates that in the rewriter's view, the story can be attractive and effective for children when the events reflect their lived experiences. In both narratives investigated, omniscient point of view is employed; however, in the Bakhtiari narrative, the narrator’s presence is felt more in the story because he provides much more information to the audience. In both stories, the focalization is of an external type. In the Bakhtiari narrative, the focalizer narrator who has unlimited knowledge plays a significant role in creating the mindset of the child readers and guides them in a biased way, by supporting and providing positive descriptions of good everywhere and damning the evil at the end of the story.
  
Conclusion
In terms of narrativity, unlike Nizami's narrative, the story of the Bakhtiari narrative begins with an exposition and introduction so that the child can understand the story more easily. Considering character and characterization, the structure of classical stories is dominant in both narratives and the characters are the manifestations of absolute good and evil. The low attention to the character's physical features in Bakhtiari narrative is inconsistent with the characteristics of children's literature in Nikolajeva's view. In terms of timeliness, the two stories are narrated in a linear process without anachrony. The story time investigation in terms of duration and frequency shows that in the Bakhtiari narrative, changes have been made to show the importance of some events. The place of story in the Bakhtiari narrative has also changed to a nomadic environment to reflect the lived experience of the audience. The narrators of both narratives are the external focalizer narrators who, with their unlimited knowledge, exhibit the inside and outside of the characters to the reader. In the Bakhtiari narrative, this focalizer narrator describes the characters more often. In these two narratives, the significant difference exists between the focalized characters. In fact, the rewriter has tried to affect the child reader by highlighting the negative features of the evil character.
 
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