Psychoanalytic Criticism of the Character “Rahim” in the Novel Shab-e Sarab (The Night of Mirage) Based on Jeffrey Young’s Schema Therapy Approach

Taheri, Fatemeh Sadat; Jazayeri, Seyedeh Maryam; Khansari, Zohreh

doi:10.30465/lir.2025.51411.1998

Psychoanalytic Criticism of the Character “Rahim” in the Novel Shab-e Sarab (The Night of Mirage) Based on Jeffrey Young’s Schema Therapy Approach

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Fatemeh Sadat Taheri ¹

Seyedeh Maryam Jazayeri ²

Zohreh Khansari ³

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Kashan . Kashan Iran.

² PhD student, Department of Persian Language and Literature, University of Kashan. Kashan. Iran.

³ MSc in Sustainability Literature from the Faculty of Literature and Humanities at Shahrekord University. Shahrekord. Iran.

10.30465/lir.2025.51411.1998

Abstract

Among the various strategies for criticizing and examining literary works that have emerged since the twentieth century, psychoanalytic criticism and analysis of literary texts from a psychological perspective have special and distinctive features. This study studies the character “Rahim”, the main character and narrator of the novel Shab-e Sarab (The Night of Mirage) written by Nahid A. Pajhwok (d. 1319 AH) based on Jeffrey Young’s theory (1950 AD). The storyline of Shab-e Sarab is taken from novel Bamdad-e Khomar (The Morning of the Drunkenness) by Fataneh Hajj Seyyed Javadi, which is narrated from the male character of the story, and the author has tried to express Rahim’s hidden thoughts in Bamdad-e Khmar (The Morning of the Drunkenness) by creating this work. The authors, in a descriptive-analytical manner based on the text of the novel, answer the following questions: Which schemas are present in Rahim's personality, and what are the causes of the emergence of these schemas in his personality? They identify Rahim's personality schemas and examine the reasons for forming these patterns to determine which are most prominent in Rahim's personality. Based on the studies conducted, it can be concluded that the schemas of abandonment, distrust, emotional deprivation, dependence, social isolation, and imperfection and shame are found in Rahim's personality, of which the abandonment schema is the most prominent. The absence of a father and strong dependence on his mother can be considered among the factors that have intensified Rahim's personality schemas and created the traps of his life.

Keywords

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Schema Therapy

Abandonment

Shab-e Sarab (The Night of Mirage)

Rahim

Subjects