Critical Language and Literary studies

Chaos and Butterfly Effect in Game of Thrones by George Raymond Richard Martin

Atieh Momenzadeh; Bahman Zarrinjooee

Volume 19, Issue 29 , March 2023, , Pages 45-65

https://doi.org/10.52547/clls.19.29.45

Abstract

Game of Thrones is the first book of Song of Ice and Fire series by American author George Raymond Richard Martin; a fictional-epic story set in the realm of Westeros. The main line of story is the struggle and war to reach the Iron Throne, during which several other stories are born. What distinguishes ... Read More Game of Thrones is the first book of Song of Ice and Fire series by American author George Raymond Richard Martin; a fictional-epic story set in the realm of Westeros. The main line of story is the struggle and war to reach the Iron Throne, during which several other stories are born. What distinguishes its plot is the existence of chaos in the system of government that seeks a unified leadership over this chaotic world. This research traces Nancy Katherine Hayles and Edward Lorenz’s chaos theories in the novel–as a complex and chaotic system—, shows various forces that dominate time, place, and characters who make the end of the story unpredictable. It shows the "Butterfly Effect" in the story, and since events in the history of this complex system are repeated, the role of “Fractals” is identified. The researchers show the structure of this novel is full of chaos and disorder and the author tries to create order from these irregularities.Background of the Study: A collection of analytical readings edited by James Lowder on Song of Ice and Fire entitled Beyond the Wall (2012) examines Martin’s fantasy collection. This anthology provides a way to explore Martin’s multifaceted world. Moreover, different works have been conducted on the series from romanticism to psychological reading. However, there is not a single work from chaos perspectives. Therefore, the present research can fill the existing gap in these fields.Methodology: This research reads Martin’s Game of Thrones through an interdisciplinary method based on Catherine Hayles and Edvard Lorenz’s theories of chaos. Martin’s works are implicitly chaotic in nature; the narrative forms problematize the linear structure and coherence presenting multiplicities of point of views that serve to augment individual insights, a carefully crafted and cohesive drama about the prevalence of disorder in life. The other major concepts of chaos like “Butterfly Effect” and “Fractals” which are overarching patterns, probable and possibly deterministic but not predictable, lied underneath the texts. The researchers aim to apply the principles of the chaos theory to the novel and explore the changing nature of this system in which truth, precision, and predictability cannot be obtained.Conclusion: Reading Game of Thrones—having a non-linear history, full of complexity, entanglement of stories and variety of characters—based on chaos theory facilitates a more complex understanding of the oeuvre. Westeros’ chaotic world with its protective Wall functions as a closed system. However, chaos is an inevitable phenomenon that takes place due to reliance on the initial condition. Based on the “Butterfly Effect”, the smallest change in the system can cause the greatest events. Westeros is full of unpredictabilities in which consequences surprise the characters and the existence of “Fractal” adds to the complexity of chaos. History repeats itself with the same pattern for the characters; they are living in a deterministic system in which their destinies have already been decided through complex relationship.

Narrative- Photographic Emplotment of Native American Collective Memories and History in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storytelling

Leila Babaeinia; بهمن زرینجویی

Volume 17, Issue 25 , January 2021, , Pages 140-163

https://doi.org/10.52547/clls.17.25.140

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the multiple structure of storytelling in Storyteller (1981) by Leslie Marmon Silko (1946- ), an Indian American author using the ideas of Hayden White, Susan Sontag, and Roland Barthes, and to provide a histor- ical-artistic reading concerning the role of images ... Read More

The Discourse of Othering Nature: Ecocritical Reading of Wild Rare Animals in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Bahman Zarrinjooee

Volume 14, Issue 18 , June 2018, , Pages 103-132

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays the discussions about nature and environments are significant particularly in humanities. The place of intersection between humanities and experimental sciences comes from the relationship between man and nature, and the fact that how these two issues are related and interacted. This ... Read More Abstract Nowadays the discussions about nature and environments are significant particularly in humanities. The place of intersection between humanities and experimental sciences comes from the relationship between man and nature, and the fact that how these two issues are related and interacted. This critical approach plays a pretty important role in modern literature so that it can investigate the various dimensions of nature as the setting of literary works. In this regard, this paper, focusing on The Hungry Tide (2004) by Amitav Ghosh (1956- ) as an Indian Bengali writer, analyzes it based on ecocritical approach. Ecocriticism is an approach which relates humanities, experimental and environmental sciences to each other. Therefore, the writers, particularly the novelists, are concerned with nature, from forests to seas, and from domestic to wild animals. The Hungry Tide, as far as the title suggests, very significantly represents the sea, and the role of the waves as well as the marine animals. Besides the sea, the surrounding Islands are wonderful spaces, portrayed by Ghosh, which create a proper place for wild animals, particularly Bengali Tigers. The main character of the novel, Piya, is a young female cetologist, who studies a very rare kind of fish, with the help of a native fisherman, Fokir, who is innately an ecologist. While studying and following Dolphins, Piya is confronted with wild tigers. The nature-centred adventures of the novel are arranged based on what happens to the major characters. Besides portraying the natural events and accidents, The Hungry Tide surveys the history of creation of species of some plants and animals in a real or imaginary region and indicates the impact of man on environment and vice versa. In this paper, the ecocritical theories of Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (1996) are used for analytical discussion of the novel; moreover, in conclusion the postcolonial ecocriticism of Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin (2010) are used to lead the discussion to a new discourse of othering nature. Eventually, the paper comes to this conclusion that when one ring or member of ecosystem is omitted or destroyed, the whole system will be influenced and all the natural phenomena will experience critical changes or transformations.

Psycho-geographical Discourse in James Joyce’s Ulysses: Psycho-verbal Architecture of Dublin

Bahman Zarrinjooee

Volume 13, Issue 17 , October 2017, , Pages 147-173

Abstract

City, as an active and dynamic organism, a literary mapping of a metropolitan consciousness and a site of culture, is an emblematic space that transforms man’s daily life. Nowadays, cities are not merely more than known geographical borders but they are psycho-verbally mapped. Focusing on James Joyce’s ... Read More City, as an active and dynamic organism, a literary mapping of a metropolitan consciousness and a site of culture, is an emblematic space that transforms man’s daily life. Nowadays, cities are not merely more than known geographical borders but they are psycho-verbally mapped. Focusing on James Joyce’s (1882-1941) Dublin, as the manifestation of mental, architectural materials in language in Ulysses (1922), and on Martello Tower, as a historical symbol, this paper determines how Joyce proposes an artistic and aesthetic picture of the city, its official and private places, streets, restaurants, coffeehouses, hospitals, and generally its dwellers’ customs and thoughts. In this sense, by applying Merlin Coverley’s theories, psychogeography and mapping metropolitan geography, the verbal and literary map of Dublin is analysed. Furthermore, the paper indicates how Joyce merges images of individuals, citizens, society and their urban life into psycho-images, and architectural symbols, especially the real architecture of the city based on the experiences of the characters such as Leopold Bloom, Stephen Daedalus, and Molly Bloom. On the one hand, the determinate geography of social classes in Dublin shapes and is shaped by the distribution of housing types and tenures; hence, the architecture of houses, streets, and the psycho-verbal map of those settling in these houses are engaged in a reciprocal and inseparable interaction. On the other hand, the psychogeography of characters, as intellectual and insightful walkers, is investigated while walking or strolling in various streets of Dublin. What Joyce suggests in Ulysses is to reread the exterior, architectural layers of places, particularly Martello Tower, as well as their internal layers including cultural, artistic, and socio-political and mental characteristics of characters through psycho-geographical discourse. This knowledge is resulted from the characters’ walking and waking in Dublin streets. Place, de facto, gives every reader an opportunity to understand not only the history of the city and its culture, but the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, the ways of life and the identity of its inhabitants.

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Author = Bahman Zarrinjooee

Chaos and Butterfly Effect in Game of Thrones by George Raymond Richard Martin

Abstract

Narrative- Photographic Emplotment of Native American Collective Memories and History in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storytelling

Abstract

The Discourse of Othering Nature: Ecocritical Reading of Wild Rare Animals in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Abstract

Psycho-geographical Discourse in James Joyce’s Ulysses: Psycho-verbal Architecture of Dublin

Abstract