The Coexistence and Contradiction between Certainty and Uncertainty in Shahriar Mandanipour’s Fiction

As the literary indication of hot social and political debates such as the relationship between intellectuals and society, patriarchy, censorship, and political repression, the question of the coexistence and contradiction of certainty/uncertainty in Persian fiction has been located in the center of the matter of interaction between the author, the narrator, and the reader for the last century. By coexistence and contradiction, I mean a conflict and unity between certainty and uncertainty, so they attract and repulse each other at the same time. From a non-literary perspective, certainty is shown in direct demonstration of socio-historical context, mere reflection of real characters’ relationships, cultural traditions, and religious and political principles assigned by the government. From a literary viewpoint, certainty is recounted by an omniscient or semi-omniscient narrator in a predetermined situation. Alternatively, some Iranian authors define uncertainty as a desire to individualize the external reality by internal devices of fiction. They use parallel points of view, multiple themes, and invisible-limited narrators in order to illustrate individuals and communities’ chaotic situations. In this paper, I will investigate the role of the coexistence and contradiction of certainty/uncertainty in Shahriar Mandnaipour’s literary works as his conscious effort to portray the complexity of Iranian intellectuals’ post-revolutionary experiences. I argue that he has experimented in putting a number of mythical, cultural, political, and social independent/fixed variables into an interaction with fictional dependent variables in order to create uncertainties opposed to dominant certainties in Iranian society. I use the terms of “dependent” and “independent” in their experimental meanings. Independent variables are out of the author’s control, while the author can determine and regulate dependent variables. The myth of Adam’s creation and apocalyptic myths as well as the four basic elements of classical thought: air, earth, water, and fire in Mandanipour’s first novel, The Courage of Love (1998), scapegoating legend in his short story, “Shatter the Stone Tooth” (1996), political idealism in his another short story, “Again Facing the River” (1999), and the government’s censorship in his English novel, Censoring an Iranian Love Story (2009) are the examples of independent and fixed variables in Mandnaipour’s works. Dependent variables of his fictions include some fictional devices like parallel points of view, conflicting characterizations, fluid times and places, and multiple themes. The more dependent variables can act freely, the more his short stories and novels achieve uncertainty.