As a contemporary fiction writer, Bizhan Najdi is less appreciated despite the fact that his short stories are of significant depth and deserve close examination. Through the poetic language, “A Plant in Quarantine” creates a situation which provides a fertile ground to inspect the relation between past and present. A deep analysis of this relationship is the main focus of this paper. In this study, using the theories of Hegel, Foucault, and Hutcheon concerning Historical approach, and provided with the literary practice of Greenblatt and Montrose, the incidents and characters of the story are put into the intricate socio-historical context in which the writer lived, and then the active role of history is analyzed. The findings of the paper show that the unpleasant presence of the main character’s ancestral past is the cause of his predicaments. Such a reading of the story introduces history as an active agent of the present.
Mehrvand, A., & Pourhasan, A. (2013). “The Presence of the Past” in “A Plant in Quarantine”. Research in Contemporary World Literature, 18(1), 149-166. doi: 10.22059/jor.2013.50913
MLA
Ahad Mehrvand; Amin Pourhasan. "“The Presence of the Past” in “A Plant in Quarantine”", Research in Contemporary World Literature, 18, 1, 2013, 149-166. doi: 10.22059/jor.2013.50913
HARVARD
Mehrvand, A., Pourhasan, A. (2013). '“The Presence of the Past” in “A Plant in Quarantine”', Research in Contemporary World Literature, 18(1), pp. 149-166. doi: 10.22059/jor.2013.50913
VANCOUVER
Mehrvand, A., Pourhasan, A. “The Presence of the Past” in “A Plant in Quarantine”. Research in Contemporary World Literature, 2013; 18(1): 149-166. doi: 10.22059/jor.2013.50913
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