Review And Analysis Of The Blind Owl By Sadegh Hedayat
"I thought to myself: if it’s true that every person has a star in the sky, mine must be distant, dim, and absurd. Perhaps I never had a star.” ― Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl
Sadeqh Hedayat was one of the greatest Iranian writers during his period. He was born in 1903 in Persia. Hedayat considered one of the first writers who adopted modernist technique in Perion fiction. He committed suicide on 1951in France. One of his most popular and important work is The Blind Owl that was originally written in the Persian language on 1936 in India and it was marked as not for sale in Iran. An assumption was made at that time that Hedayat was feared of all rule of Reza Shah and he also feared specifically that maybe his work will be against the norms of the country. The Blind Owl published 1952 in Perion after he died and translated to France in the same year of publication. The Blind Owl was also translated in many different languages as it has a great audience.
The novel is about how the author sees the world and how much he wants to be isolated. He functions as the system of epistemology but he never progressing and never learning. A feminist critique may stop there. I guess there are many ways to say that how he thinks about the women and to say about the different ways which related to the way he thinks about the truth. The educated people of guys of the time and long in the wake of tolerating the principals of balance and opportunity for both of the male and females in the meantime growing up with the conventional ideas of good, virginal ladies and non-sexual no uncertainty would have any sort of issues adapting to the new picture. In the selected novel, the author put more focus on the importance of the salvation of people and also stresses that all people reform is the prerequisite for the reforms of the whole community. All individuals in beam ought to likewise understand the inherent significance of his one inalienable endowment of opportunity and he ought to likewise battle for unshackle the chains which tie him to the specialist of the prostitute. A man can likewise turn into the loner and achieve the level of false opportunity and he additionally may wage an unending war simply like the creator by edifying his colleagues' occupants. Man is weak as the individual from the universe and he is conceived without his assent and he lives regardless of himself and bites the dust against his desires. That is the reason a severe expert on the general public level can be disabled by not obeying or the renunciation of the man who might be free, one can't leave the universe.
There is a clear message in The Blind Owl that focuses on the people strangulation in Iran under government control. The writer presents a story about the isolation of a man and used strong different symbols allusions, and contemplations to clarify the idea and his feeling, of the conditions of human, literacy and religious texts. All of these things made it a good place for the critical interpretation. His weakness is reflecting off his inability to change to the good of Iran.
Characters who suffer from suicidal temptations/puzzles of humanity/ his self-analysis/dream technique miss with unreality/ simple style it correlated the occasions in the Bardo Thodol with those in the Blind Owl. The Blind Owl is a novel of fiction and the correspondences are very little precise as one might want them to be. While the creator is typically mindful of the subtle elements, he additionally has numerous choices for crushing them and for refereeing them emblematically. The thought is to demonstrate that the creator utilized the idea of freedom from the materials for making the point with respect to the ability of men for liberating himself from the bondage of other humans. He tried to show the Persian civilization and glorious through women symbol.
The pessimism and depression are dominated in the story. I normally roll my eyes on whenever the phrase of Oedipus Complex comes into the interpretation so in this case, I think that this word is exactly what the author was aiming for. In the novel, the one and an only character named was his mother and he has mentioned his dancing of his mother in very sensual detail as he was totally obsessed sexually regarding all maternal figures in his life which has the inclusion of his aunt and his nanny. He married a person whom he really did like as his wife always reminded him of his aunt. The view of the author regarding his mother and nanny was really sexually unattainable but that view was extended to his wife and that’s the reason, the author mentioned that he never slept with his wife which makes his wife totally mad. I have interpreted from these obsessive delusions as not right and I assume that he had coupled with his wife but in his madness repressed all of those memories and made a new delusion memory regarding other men in the society. I am not sure that wife was his aunt child or not or she may also have been the daughter of his nanny but it’s not clear to me. The Oedipus complex extended in the direction of his own feelings of his father and his uncle and also his father in law. He was of the view of having some of the fear and he also loathes the idea of any of these men they had who merged with other in his own mind. I guess they all were merged with his own mind so that he was being afraid and loathed himself may be for his sexual desires for males which were always unsatisfied. Yeah, I don’t think that the novel is entirely about the Oedipus complex which was the main theme which jumped out at me on my perusal but the whole story was about a man who was completely alone from all of the worlds and he was a kind of man who would never belong. He is a kind of man who had no one to unburden himself to as the world which surrounds him has been crumbled into surreal chaos. The whole of the world is crumbling around him was really like how he viewed the socio-economic failure of Iran.
The symbolism of death and women
It can be seen in the novel that the author is mentioning many symbols related to women which are showing many of his own characteristics which cannot be shown otherwise. For penetrating into the heart of the problem of the author, the reader may likewise relate the experience of mothering and of ladies to issues of reliance and sense of self shortcoming. Male and female are two unique parts of a similar identity and peruse may likewise consider them to be identifying with methods of knowing and managing the world. Thinking and well communicating verbally are symbols related to the male while on the other hand, communication by emotions, empathy is related to female. It can be seen from reading the novel that writer is suffering from the split in personality and he is trying to integrate a split off female elements and he is trying for projecting the dread and fear of his own element of the female. In these kinds of problems of women, it is bound up with the attitude of one person and it is mostly the female characteristics which are dissociated in both of the male and female. Iran is a kind of masculine community and there are a great deal of contemporary culture. When there come some insecurities of existence, the dynamics of males is employed as the substitute for female elements of being. In these situations, men normally have issues in accepting the element of the female which is not acceptable in the society. In the novel, the transformation of Iranian women has been mentioned from an old traditional way to modern century women. They also challenged the bi-polar image of women as the virtuous versus the prostitute. The male’s thoughts are growing by accepting the equality but at the same time, they are also growing with the thought of non-sexual virgin women, no doubt they would have had problems coping with the new image. These men would be in need of her existence or impelled for destroying her. It can be observed from the novel, that writer is not able to cope up with the emergence of new modern women. The element of a female in the novel has been mentioned as a dramatization of endophytic situations to be understood as attempts for expressing the attitude of a writer for women. The cultural experiences of the Author and the masculinity of the society in which he lives also has its impact on such dramatization. The symbols the author has used in the novel are very illuminating specifically eyes faces are important because women are mostly connected to the creative reflection. The writer is actually trying for having the confirmation of identity and he is a bit desperate for the eyes and faces which can respond to him for confirmation of his being. When he is not able to find the confirmation, his life is forfeit. Then the issue of women become the issue of existence. A woman can create by reflecting the writer and she can also leave him without the creation of identity. From these problems, a man made an ideal woman who does not have any problems of being mortal or sexual. The ethereal women are a kind of immortal, manic and magical women.
After this, the author has also mentioned that the ethereal women should remain in the world of death and she should not be touched and not be seen by anyone. After some time, the ethereal women and mother become one and it can be noticed that why the creator is so pre-involved with the lady as the principle focal point of the issue of life and demise. Mother is the birth provider and the creator has said that mother pulls back and there is highly require o discover her. The ethereal ladies turn into the mother and how one could bear the sex with her for going into her body. That is the reason all recommendations of adoration closeness with ladies in the sexual sense ought to be maintained a strategic distance from which isn't conceivable as indicated by the creator and in this circumstance, the sexual love turns into the focal point of fall of security and being. His look for having the perfect ladies does not reach end and his significant other additionally turns into the same as the mother and the ethereal ladies. He uses the symbol of the quest for finding the mother in the world of death and for obtaining from her the completion of reflection and that is why restoring the meaning of life. He was left with the meaning of existence after the death of his mother and he needs to have the new sense of time for having the confirmation of identity and reconciliation with his own morality. His relationship with the element of females lies behind the collapse of his relationship with all world and the earth has become an evil thing. The probability of doing the suicide increases when he understands that it is not possible for distinguishing the real from the painted appearances is one which cannot be borne. In the novel, it is also mentioned that the author is in the belief that corruption of relationship by the sexual contact bring nothing which again shows that the presence of schizoid element presents in his mind. These kinds of person need to be isolated and union with the women will not be helpful for him to bring him in the path of separateness. That is the reason that he buries the women. After that he becomes free. He was alone, but he was alive, he put down the inferior half of himself which was making him fearful and was making him diseased.
Conclusion
I am of the view that this kind of book which I read is a bit something new and it can be new for everyone even if one meticulously read it for years. When I finish reading this novel, I feel that everyone in it was the same with respect to the metaphor and all of them were having a wish for killing some other person. All of them could hate others and all of them were suffering from some lie. There were full hypocrisy and treason, and all want for getting rid of it which he calls it life. It is written regarding the sadness and suffering mentioned in the story but making the reader feels what the author feels is not an easy task which has been done successfully by the author. The author is intelligent enough when he writes about his own feelings as he gives much detail about it and in some instances, he also repeats the events for letting reader go deeply in to the novel and as the reader are with them, but I guess he does not succeed when he tried for executing the freedom as human being and faith in existence. I would rather say that his novel was completely impacted by Iran and his trip to India and France and he knew about habitats of Iranian and about their celebrations like Neros. In the end, there is no doubt that this work is the great work as it is very easy to read and understand nowadays as when I read the novel, I feel like I live with them and they haunt me.
