Analyzing the Implied Reader in Hassanzadeh’s Call Me Ziba and Hasti

Analyzing the Implied Reader in Hassanzadeh’s Call Me Ziba and Hasti
 
Zeinab Sheikh-Hosseini
Assistant professor of Persian Language and Literature, Hazrat Narges Rafsanjan University
 
Arezoo Pooryazdanpanah
Assistant professor of Persian Language and Literature, Yazd University
 
Introduction
Paying attention to the relationship between the work and the readers and their understanding of the material are the two distinguishing characteristics of children’s and adolescents’ literary criticism. Before entering the society, adolescents do not have any understanding of the world around them. Books create a chance for them to gain indirect experience about the world. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the works written for them be responsive to their needs. However, since the writers of children’s and adolescents’ literature and their critics are grown-ups, there is a legitimate challenge that the final text is not actually a text for children and adolescents. Accordingly, researchers such as Zipes believe that children’s text is impossible to be created because of the type of relationship between adults and children or adolescents. He argues that there are always implied readers in the texts; and in children’s literature, these readers are determined by the editor/ mediator/ publisher, and then by the teacher/ librarian/ parents and after all, children of a particular age group (Zipes, 2008: 267).
Chambers puts forward his implied reader theory in children’s and adolescents’ literature, too. according to his theory, the structure of the text is based on the implied reader. The writer cannot write about his/her reader without conscious or unconscious presuppositions and the success of his/her work rests on his/her choice from among these presuppositions (Chambers, 1978: 1).
 
Methodology, Review of Literature and Purpose
A number of researches have been conducted so far in Iran on the implied reader; for example, “Analyzing the Implied Reader in Three Stories of Resistance Literature by Ahmad Akbarpour” by Hesampour & Sadat-Sharifi (2010); “The Implied Reader in Two Children’s Stories by Ahmad Reza Ahmadi” by Hesampour and others; “Finding Implied Reader in Five Selected Adolescent Novels of the Recent Decade” by Bnai-Ashraf (2014); “A Study of the evolution of the Audience in Children’s and Adolescents’ Resistance Literature Based on Chambers’ Implied Reader Theory” by Amiri-Khorasani & Sadrizadeh; and “Implied Reader, a Criterion for Choosing Texts for Rewriting: Studying Implied Reader in Kelileh and Demneh Based on Chambers’ Theory” by Moeini and Hesampour (2019).
However, the studies mentioned above have all been conducted on children’s works; and no study has been conducted on the implied reader in the works of Hassanzadeh. In this study, we intend to analyze the presence of implied reader in two of his novels, Hasti and Call Me Ziba, using the descriptive-analytical method.
 
Discussion
Chambers proposes a useful tool for adult critics to reveal the author’s view toward his/her audience and assess his/her success in relating to the intended reader. For identifying and understanding the implied reader of the text, Chambers suggests analyzing four elements of style, point of view, partiality and expressive gaps in the work.
Style is the method by which the author adjusts the words. In Call Me Ziba, Hassanzadeh uses simple and understandable words which show his attempt in bringing closer the language of the novel with that of today’s adolescents. Sentences in the text are usually compound sentences, but they are understandable for adolescents due to their mental growth. The metaphors and images are also simple and understandable and the plot has a coherent structure.
In Hasti, too, the author has tried to reach a fluent and articulate expression by the use of simple and short sentences. Hassanzadeh makes use of popular expressions, slangs and proverbs in order to attract adolescent audience. In Hasti, the plot of the story has provided a coherent structure to the novl, which, along with its suspense, drags the audience into the text.
Point of view refers to a perspective from which the author shows his/her fictional world to his/her reader. By getting closer to Ziba’s point of view, the author manages to express some of the concerns of an adolescent girl. In Hasti, too, the narrator is an adolescent girl with the same name as the title.
Partiality is another element which is highlighted by Chambers for studying implied reader. In Call Me Ziba, when the character engages in mischief and teenage fun, the adolescent reader accompanies her because he/she finds her as his/her type. The dominant atmosphere of Hasti, too, opens up this adolescent mischief for the audience.
Expressive gaps are the last element in Chamber’s model. Formal gaps are references to social customs, including ambiguity in the appearance or in the name of the characters, specific mythical or literary expressions or anything related to the implied reader that reveal the author’s assumptions about the implied reader of the text. In Call Me Ziba, formal gaps become evident by the use artistic expressions. By creating gaps in the style of the text, the author invites the reader to come out of his/her passive mode. In Hasti, the author covers most of the formal gaps. The only apparent gap in this novel is related to the social norm of girls’ limitation for playing football.
 
Conclusion
Studying the two novels Call Me Ziba and Hasti revealed that the implied reader in Hassanzadeh’s novels is an adolescent, and that the author has been successful in inviting the audience into the text by making the characteristics of the implied reader compatible with the real audience. Hassanzadeh has used all the four elements for creating his implied reader.
Using simple and fluent language, understandable images, proverbs with a humorous tone and coherent plots has resulted in a simple style which is compatible with the audience’s age group. Generally, one can assume that the styles of the two novels reveal the author’s reliance on the mental capacity of the adolescents and the expansion of their vocabulary. The point of view in both novels is first person which shows that the author has attempted to make the adolescent point of view dominant in the whole story. The author knows his audience well in both novels. His partiality results in his sympathy with the characters and invites the reader to get involved in the text emotionally and socially. The most significant difference between the two novels is in the expressive gaps in their texts. Hassanzadeh has covered most of the gaps in Hasti while leaving more gaps in Call Me Ziba. By creating these gaps in the novel, he has deemed his reader as an active reader whose understanding is more complicated than a child.
 
Keywords: Chambers, implied reader, Call Me Ziba, Hasti
 
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