Document Type : research article
Authors
1 Ilam University
2 Lorestan University
Abstract
Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Story-telling (narration) is regarded as one of the major literary tools by the divine religions, especially Islam to the extent that one of the most important Quranic literature features is its narrative structure. The most elaborate story of the Quran, which is presented in an artistic style along with a unique structure, is the story of Prophet Abraham. One of the most prominent features of Prophet Abraham story is its coherent plot and elements’ strong linkage together. Therefore, in the present study, based on the Larry Wise plot pattern and descriptive-analytical method, we have studied the story of Prophet Abraham in the Holy Quran in order to illustrate some artistic aspects of the story.
2. Theoretical framework
To form a narrative, a number of elements are required as its constituent components so that these elements blend together to form the narrative structure. The elements include characters, point of view (POV), setting, theme, dialogue, narrative mode, tone, atmosphere, etc. it should be mentioned that any changes in the elements would lead in changes in the overall narrative structure. Therefore, each and every narrative is necessarily composed of interconnected elements and rules (Mirsadeghi, 2001: 76).
What determines the relations (causal relations) among the elements of a narrative is called theme. Theme is one of the most significant elements of narration and an important criteria for evaluating a narrative work aesthetically.
The celestial book of Muslims, Quran has its own narrative style and its stories due to their high literary-narrative capacity have a good foundation for being compared against the criteria of themeology. But so far they have not been considered seriously in terms of themeology. Therefore, in this essay, we have studied and analyzed the story of Prophet Abraham based on the theory of Larry Wise in terms of themeology.
Therefore, at first the scholars briefly introduced the story, plot, plot theories and general introduction of the story of Prophet Abraham in the Holy Quran; then, based on the plot theory of Larry Wise, the theme and framework of this story was analyzed and the following questions were answered:
1. How have the features of the plot and theme in the story of Prophet Abraham in the Holy Quran emerged?
2. How is the plot and theme of the story of Prophet Abraham in the Holy Quran compatible with Larry Wise theory?
3. Methodology
The method of this research is descriptive-analytic and based on structuralism approach. The results of this analysis are based on Larry Wise's theory of structuralism; its criteria and elements are the structure of narrative and elemental analysis.
4. Conclusion
The story of Prophet Abraham is one of the long stories of the Holy Quran, which is mentioned in 25 surahs. This story has a simple plot and simple events happen in the story as well. In this essay, the theme of the narrative has been studied from five aspects of the activities related to Abraham, Hajar, Ismail, and the others. Based on what we mentioned before, this narrative has five major and two minor themes. By studying the main actions of the themes of each narrative and the role and position of each action in the general theme (super-structure), we found that the story has a natural and appropriate theme in which each partial theme is a logical consequence of the previous one and an appropriate introduction to the next one. Another point that should be mentioned about the narrative's theme and its actions is proper selection of the most important events and the avoidance of being long-winded. Sometimes a very complicated situation is expressed in shortest possible sentences. The plot of the narrative follows causal rules. The events of this story happen one after the other and come to a definitive ending. This story is composed of sequences linked together and thus the actions and reactions of the characters sequentially continue. In summary, the specific features of the theme in the story of Prophet Abraham include the followings: accurate management and proper selection of information, the creation of dilemma and the subsequent suspension in the least amount of text and action, the alignment of actions and the unity of events and the congruence of narrative in the whole The story.
Keywords
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