war literature

This study, is a semantic attempt to find out if there is a significant difference in the linguistic representation of Iranian and British war literature in the Iran-Iraq war (known as The Imposed War (of Iraq against Iran)) and World War II. Authors chose these two wars for two reasons: 1. In both cases, the war was defensive for both countries, and 2. both wars lasted for almost the same period: The Imposed War lasted for 8 years, and World War II lasted for 6 years. Given the aforementioned similarities, we seek to compare the linguistic representation of ideologies that had governed in Iranian and English societies (i.e. Islamic ideology vs. liberal democracy and the monarchy). In this study, we ask if there is a significant difference in the linguistic representation of these two wars. We seek to 1. Describe the linguistic iconization of war based on the source domains of metaphors, and 2. Describe the ideological similarities and differences of war using linguistic representations. The views of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Gustav Jung have been used in the psychoanalytic analysis of these novels.

Translating humorous expressions in novels, especially those containing culture-bound concepts, has always caused insurmountable hurdles for translators in delineating SL characters in TL contexts. In recognition of this, the current research aimed to first study the constraints of translating humor in Iran‘s War Literature, as a representative of highly-culture bound texts, and second to examine the extent that the strategies used by the translator in translating humors affected character delineation in their English translations. To this end, the humorous expressions in four novels on Iran‘s War Literature were identified and their constraints of their translations were categorized on the basis of Attardo‘s (2002) adaption of the General Theory of Verbal Humor for translation. As for the first research question, the findings indicated that Script Opposition can be the most problematic factor in translating humor. As for the second research question, it was revealed that the translator translated 91.17% of the humorous expressions literally, which can cause the characters sound strange and bizarre in the target language translations. It is argued that literalist translation can be used as a means of gathering information about the would-be colonized since it provides colonizers with accurate and reliable information, free from distorting names or any other cultural attributes.

The Corpse Washer (2013) by Sinan Antoon explores the intersections of resistance, memory, and mortality in post-invasion Iraq from the perspective of Jawad, an artist who has become a corpse washer. In contrast to prior research that has examined the novel through trauma theory, existentialism, and postcolonial critique, this paper introduces necropoetics, a theoretical framework that connects Achille Mbembe's necropolitics (the power to orchestrate death) with literary aesthetics, to investigate how Antoon stylizes death as both a political act and a narrative story. The novel transforms Jawad’s grim vocation into a site of artistic defiance against the erasure of Iraqi lives by emphasizing the ritualized labor of washing corpses. This study contends that necropoetics, as a lens, demonstrates how Antoon’s prose resists the commodification of war trauma, instead portraying death as a subversive, intimate practice that challenges state-sanctioned violence and historical amnesia. The Corpse Washer is not merely a chronicle of loss; it is also a literary act of preservation and dissent, as a result of this approach.

Trauma studies mainly focus on the psychological mechanisms of trauma and the various ways witnesses and victims represent it. But recent approaches in the field emphasize that despite doubts about the accuracy of traumatic memories, trauma narratives could point to the socio-political issues involved because they reflect the dominant societal discourses, and connect the text to history and ideology. As such, literary narratives can potentially depict traumatic events as non-political experiences, obscure their connections to power dynamics, and “depoliticize” these events. As a result, power structures are validated, and challenges to the root causes and consequences of trauma are prevented. To identify the patterns and possibilities of depoliticization in war narratives, this article examines four nationally acclaimed literary works about the Korean and Vietnam wars, written by American veterans. Employing a combination of theoretical frameworks from trauma studies alongside Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak’s models in critical discourse analysis, the research identified and categorized instances of depoliticization to show how they reflect or conceal broader historical and sociopolitical contexts. The results reveal that although these narratives appear to be anti-war, they conform to the dominant discourses of their time by downplaying, manipulating, or omitting political references—i.e., through depoliticization of the narrative. Given that depoliticized trauma narratives can diminish or obscure political responsibility, this study opens up extensive prospects for deeper examination of the relationship between the representation of trauma and political power. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the importance of a critical approach to analyzing trauma narratives and war literature.