The Application of Gerard Genett's Narrative Time Theory in the Novel "The Way to Becoming Besmel

Narratology examines the structure of the narrative with a specific approach. Gérard Genette, the French structuralist critic, in his theory of time in narrative, has examined the different types of time from the three aspects of order, continuity and frequency. The order is the order of narration and the continuity of the duration of the narration, and the frequency refers to the repeated narration of events. In this research, an attempt is made to first explain Genette's theory with the analytical-descriptive method, and then apply this theory to the novel "The Way of Becoming Besmel" by Mahmoud Dovlatabadi. Dovlatabadi, a famous Persian storyteller, has presented a picture of the Iran-Iraq war in this novel. The time used in this work is in the form of a labyrinth and twists and turns, in such a way that this way of narrating time has caused the reader to often get confused and disturbed in understanding the time of various events in the story. In fact, in this novel, one can observe the performance of time theory techniques such as frequency and continuity with many repetitions. The type of narration of time in the novel turns the reader into an active element in the story. The results of the research show that techniques such as internal monologue and hindsight are more effective than other narrative techniques in this work. The factor that caused the expansion of time and delay in the narrative in this novel is the continuous internal conversations of the main character of the story, and detailed descriptions, and dealing with matters that are not strictly related to the main events of the story. The frequency in this novel has caused time to slow down.