Cultural Semiotics in Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl: A Lotmanian Approach

Informed by Juri Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow School, cultural semiotics attempts to define culture from a semiotic perspective. Throughout their research, Lotman and his colleagues coined various terms which played a crucial role in redefining culture. Among these terms are “mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion,” “cultural translation,” “the opposition between self and the other,” “a focus on the concept of memory,” “semiosphere,” and “cultural explosion.” By employing these mechanisms, Lotman transforms culture into a subject of study. As one of the canonical novels in Persian literature, Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl (Boof-e Koor) is a multidimensional work which reflects elements of psychology, history, and Hedayat’s worldview toward society. Echoing Lotman’s cultural theories, the present study aims to explore The Blind Owl. This study concludes that The Blind Owl is not merely a psychological or social text, but rather a semiotic structure in which a semantic explosion occurs. This explosion leads Hedayat to redefine the discourse between the self and the other. By delineating his own semiosphere and establishing cultural boundaries, Hedayat explores how non-cultural elements enter the text, and ultimately subjugate themselves under the dominance of the self.
 
Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Cultural semiotics, as a branch of semiotic studies, examines semantic structures and signification processes in cultures. Informed by Juri Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow School, cultural semiotics views culture not as a static set of signs, but as a dynamic and changing system in which the interaction between self and the other, cultural inclusion and exclusion, and the process of semantic translation play a fundamental role. In this framework, culture is a symbolic structure that, rather than focusing on the culture itself, focuses on the perception of members of society of their own culture, on the conflicts and relationships between cultures, subcultures, and other cultural elements.
Literary fiction, as a medium for representing culture, has always been the focality of humanities studies. As one of the canonical novels in Persian literature, Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl (Boof-e Koor) is a multidimensional work which paves the way for diverse literary studies. As an alternative reading, cultural semiotics, as an interdisciplinary approach, can reveal new layers of its semantic system. The main question of this study is how cultural semiotics presents an alternative reading of The Blind Owl, and how semiotic mechanisms lead to the reproduction of cultural meanings in the novel.
2. Methodology
Informed by Juri Lotman’s theories on culture, this descriptive-analytical study explores Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl.
3. Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework of this study is in accordance with Lotman’s theories. The keywords of this framework are as follows:
Semiosphere: The semiosphere is the semiotic space necessary for the existence and functioning of languages, a space which has prior existence and is in constant interaction with languages.
Center and Periphery: The center is a stable semantic space, whereas the periphery is a source of innovation and change. The border of this space, like the body’s immune system, attracts beneficial elements and rejects incompatible ones.
Cultural Translation: The process of transmitting and interpreting signs between cultures, which is always accompanied by asymmetry and structural differences.
Collective memory: A dynamic system that links and correlates the past to the present.
4. Discussion and Analysis
Drawing upon Lotman’s cultural theories, the present study explores The Blind Owl. This study argues that the sign systems go beyond individual and subjective meanings; they are embedded in a network of cultural connotations and are linked to socio-historical structures. This section explores the following notions:
Semiosphere in The Blind Owl: Explains the bipolar space formed between cultural and non-cultural elements.
Centre and peripheral in the narrative: Identifies the central and peripheral situations and elements, and analyses the relationships between them.
Borders and their threshold: Examining how characters or symbols cross cultural and social boundaries.
Cultural translation: Analyses the process of translation and reinterpretation of signs and their impact on the meaning production.
The role of memory: Investigates the impact of individual and collective memory on the narrative and meaning of the work.
Cultural explosion: It is a place of confrontation, and a time when unexpected events create the conditions for a cultural explosion.
5. Conclusion
This study concludes that The Blind Owl is not only a literary work, but also a cultural and semiotic text that represents complex mechanisms of interaction between culture and non-culture, self and other, and memory and oblivion. A cultural semiotic analysis of the work opens a new window to understand the relationship between literature and semantic cultural systems. It also shows that by utilizing concepts such as border, translation, and cultural explosion, Hedayat creates a multi-layered symbolic world. In addition, The Blind Owl is not merely a psychological or social text, but rather a semiotic structure in which a semantic explosion occurs. This explosion leads Hedayat to redefine the discourse between the self and the other. By delineating his own semiosphere and establishing cultural boundaries, Hedayat explores how non-cultural elements enter the text, and ultimately subjugate themselves under the dominance of the self.
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