پایان بی‌پایان: بازخوانی وقت تقصیر از محمدرضا کاتب براساس نظریۀ داستان فرانک کرمود

This article investigates MohammadReza Kateb’s Vaqt-e Taqsir through Frank Kermode’s theory of fiction, focusing on his differentiation between Chronos—linear, meaningless, repetitive time—and Kairos—moments of crisis and significance. Kermode argues that humans create coherent narratives to impose order on temporal chaos, granting life structure, meaning, and identity. In the contemporary world, particularly under conditions of perpetual violence and structural crisis, this meaning-making is severely undermined. Vaqt-e Taqsir exemplifies such a world, in which characters and narratives remain suspended in fragmented states without clear beginnings or endings. Torture and suffering, stripped of transformative potential, become part of an endless, meaningless cycle. The government enforces a paradigm of permanent crisis, systematically erasing kairotic moments and trapping characters in interminable Chronos. This analysis reveals how the collapse of narrative and identity shapes both the novel’s structure and the existential reality of its characters. In this world, they fail to craft meaningful self-narratives, remaining imprisoned within cycles of suffering and futility. The depiction of Nasnas—hybrid, half-human figures—and identities in constant flux embodies an apocalyptic and postmodern paradigm with no hope for renewal or conclusion. Ultimately, Vaqt-e Taqsir uses its dismantling of narrative and perpetual suspension of meaning to stage a radical critique of the contemporary human condition. By portraying a society in which meaning-making is impossible and crisis is normalized, Kateb’s novel transforms literature into a lens for examining and challenging the instability, fragmentation, and chronic crises of our age.
 
Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Frank Kermode's seminal work, titled The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (1967), holds a unique place in contemporary literary criticism. It offers a profound reflection on the connection between narrative form and the human experience of temporality. Informed by philosophical, theological, psychological, and historical insights, Kermode argues that humans require imaginary correlations between beginnings and endings to give meaning to life, which is always “in the middle.” By distinguishing between the two fundamental aspects of time, namely, Chronos—linear, meaningless, repetitive time—and Kairos—moments of crisis and significance, he introduces the narrative process as a meaning-making process, which transforms a sequence of aimless events into a purposeful pattern. However, in the contemporary world, where crisis, instability, and endless repetition have become mundane experiences, the ability to create narratives faces serious challenges. With its dystopian setting and characters caught in a cycle of torture, crisis, and lack of coherent narrative, Mohammadreza Kateb’s Vaqt-e Taqsir is a prime example of such a situation. It critiques the possibility of giving meaning to human experiences in a situation where the government, through imposing structural violence and permanent crisis, not only deprives the subject of the possibility of resistance and change, but also of the ability to create Kairos.
2. Methodology
The present study adopts a qualitative approach and a critical content analysis method. It explains the important notions of Kermode’s narrative theory, including the chronos/kairos distinction, the “tick-tock” paradigm, the apocalyptic structure, and the necessity of narrative transformation. Then, it investigates Vaqt-e Taqsir, focusing on temporal, structural, and identity elements, to reveal its points of agreement or conflict with Kermode’s narrative framework. Lastly, it conducts a comparative analysis on five main axes, in accordance with the correlation between theoretical concepts and fictional counterparts.
3. Theoretical Framework
This analysis is organised around the distinction between Chronos and Kairos. Kermode redefines the Greek concepts of Chronos and Kairos as two types of time experiences in a narrative. Kermode argues that humans require imaginary correlations between beginnings and endings to give meaning to life, which is always “in the middle.” By distinguishing between the two fundamental aspects of time, namely Chronos—linear, meaningless, repetitive time—and Kairos—moments of crisis and significance, he introduces the narrative process as a meaning-making process, which transforms a sequence of aimless events into a purposeful pattern. In Kermode’s theory, the “tick-tock” paradigm is a simple but powerful symbol of human mental activity in constructing a story. Although a clock beats the same, we hear a “tick” and a “tock,” thus creating a beginning and an end to time. In literature, this transformation of monotonous beats into a meaningful pattern is the narrative process. Kermode also highlights the presence of the “apocalyptic pattern” in Western literature, a pattern that depicts history with a bright beginning, a tense middle, and a redemptive end. Even in secular narratives, this structure remains symbolic. However, in modernity, many writers disrupt the pattern and turn the crisis into a permanent situation. These concepts, when combined with postmodern theories of disbelief in metanarratives (Lyotard), narrative fragmentation, and the instability of identity, provide a propitious platform for analyzing texts like Vaqt-e Taqsir – texts that not only disrupt the classical structure of narrative but also forbid the creation of kairos from the outset.
4. Discussion and Analysis
Vaqt-e Taqsir is a prime example of the gap between Chronos and Kairos in the postmodern world. In the novel, the characters live in a constant state of “in-between”; neither an initial narrative dominates their existence, nor is a liberating end visible on the horizon. The novel’s form also mirrors this situation: the narratives are scattered, incomplete, and inconsistent, and no single timeline connects all the events. “Hayat” constantly creates contradictory narratives about himself: one day, he calls himself the embodiment of opium; the next day, a soulless corpse; one day, a Nasnas; and the next day, the embodiment of destiny. Each time, a beginning and an end are imagined in the narrative, but these endings are not real moments of crisis, and their instability prevents Kairos from overcoming Chronos. The state, by designing a “paradigm of permanent crisis,” virtually destroys all possibilities for creating Kairos. Violence is not a means of creating resistance, but a mechanism for the continuation of authority, or a tool that strengthens Chronos and suffocates Kairos. The opponents’ bodies become commodities for trade, and the spectacle of torture becomes public entertainment. This conscious design keeps the characters in an endless cycle of imposed reality. The concept of “Nasnas” symbolises the collapse of the narrative. Nasnases are patched-up beings with no past, whose speech, like their lives, has no beginning or end. From Kermode’s perspective, this lack of beginning means that the end becomes impossible, and the world becomes a perpetual purgatory. From a postmodernist worldview, Vaqt-e Taqsir embodies a radical distrust of grand narratives. As Lyotard argues, metanarratives have been delegitimized. The novel also shows that any attempt to revive mythic patterns is in vain. Even the classic pattern of “the tyrannical rule – the resistance – the final victory” doesn’t work here. The novel is a transition of transitions; moments wait for change, but they never do.
5. Conclusion
Informed by postmodernist narrative strategies and dystopian space, the present study shows that Vaqt-e Taqsir creates a world and characters who live in a state of suspense and instability. Kermode’s theoretical framework, especially the concepts of Chronos, Kairos, and apocalypse, provides a propitious platform for understanding this narrative structure. In this work, time has become a perpetual cycle of crisis, torture, and the collapse of identity, and any possibility of a meaningful Kairos moment has disappeared. By imposing a permanent crisis, the state reduces identity to a precarious and rootless state, actively removing the end and the beginning from the cycle of life. This situation represents one of the most fundamental crises of the contemporary world: the loss of the ability to narrate as a means of meaning-making.
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