Analysis of Sadegh Choobak's The Puppet Show

Introduction

Without a doubt, the position of best-known Iranian writer of the twentieth century belongs to Sadeq Hedayat. His unchallenged right to this rank is attested by a number of critics. Hedayat's mature literary production began in the early 1930s and spanned the two succeeding decades until his suicide in Paris at forty-eight. Following the lead of his slightly older contemporary Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, who is considered the father of the short story in modern Persian literature, Hedayat developed the medium of the short story into a truly viable and enduring form. (Elwell, 250-51) His most famous work is his novel The Blind Owl, which has excited a whole range of impassioned criticism since its publication in 1937.

The Works

Sadeq Chubak was born in 1916 in Bushehr, a port city on the Persian Gulf which provides the locale for a number of Chubak's stories. He attended elementary school in Shiraz and the American College in Tehran, and then began working for the National Iranian Oil Company. He published his first work, a volume of short stories called "Puppet Show" (Kheimey shab bazi), in 1945 at the age of twenty-nine. This was followed by three more collections of short stories, "The Monkey Whose Master Had Died" (Antari \e lutiash morde bud, 1949), "The Last Alms" (Cheraghe a\har, 1965) and "The First Day in the Grave" (Ruze avvale ghabr, 1965), and by the two novels Tangsir (1963) and "The Patient Rock"(Elwell, 250-51). Chubak has traveled in England, the USSR and the United States and has translated into Persian works of Edgar Allan Poe as well as stories such as Pinocchio. Except for a rare interview, he keeps out of the limelight.

The analysis

Chubak is a naturalist; he presents characters caught in the struggle for existence. He starts the camera rolling, focuses on one particular incident of that struggle and stops the camera when the incident is finished. Background details are kept to a minimum, and except for a few lapses, there is no moralizing voice to interpret what we see. (Hassan, 177-81) We are simply presented the incident in an economical, crisp prose. (Elwell, 250-51)

The psychology of characters

At the same time Chubak's characters are delineated with such understanding and sympathy that kindred emotions are aroused in the reader.8 "Kerosene Man" (from "Puppet Show") opens with Ozra, an unmarried girl, praying for a husband at the grave of a saint. Written entirely from the girl's point of view, the story makes vividly clear her frustrated sexual desires and her longing to be married. She is so desperate that she approaches the ugly kerosene seller on his rounds to see if he is interested in a fourth wife. "No color's darker than black. We'll see what happens. Maybe he wants a wife. I'm not doing anything wrong. Maybe he's looking for somebody too." After swallowing her pride and forcing herself to an unaccustomed boldness, she offers herself to the kerosene man, only to be rejected. The shock of ...