Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Prof. of Persian Language & Literature, University of Guilan Rasht, Iran
Abstract
The process of meaning-making and reading in YA literature is of particular importance. The study aims to examine the interwoven network of textual symbols and signs in Dark Sisters novel by Mehdi Rajabi, based on Umberto Eco's "open text" and "model reader." The research method is qualitative content analysis with descriptive-interpretive approach. An open text allows the reader to read and interpret in different ways, but a closed text leads to one correct and valid interpretation. As results show, Dark Sisters is approximating to "open text" and its "model reader" is defined as a critical reader, sensitive to words, signs, symbols, and intratextual connections. Dark Sisters allows the reader to read more actively. Ambiguities interwoven signs keep meaning-making process open and prevent focusing on a single, straightforward meaning. The process of discovering and constructing the meaning is complex and intricate, and the novel, by utilizing the techniques such as time stops, the shadow cast on the main character’s mind and perception because of mental illness, signifiers with multiple signifieds, and recurring universal and personal symbols in the structure and the content (including talisman, snail, well, fog, forest), guides the reader to read actively and construct various meanings and interpretations. But in the ending, the author fails to make a coherent network of symbols, the disturbing ambiguities damage the plot and in the surface of narrative, many questions remain unanswered. Such texts are rare in Iranian YA literature, and regarding the polyphonic, curious, and critical nature of adolescence, they define a new category of adolescent model audience compared to their similar texts. The current generation of adolescents, at least serious readers of YA literature, are more eager to open texts, in which they are not just narrative objects, but rather part of its construction, immersing happily in its playful structural ambiguity.
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