A Structural Analysis of the Dimensions and Implications of Alienation in the Novel "Autumn is the Last Season of the Year"

Abstract

This study is structured to methodically investigate the dimensions and implications of alienation in contemporary Iranian fiction. In this regard, the present paper provides a fundamental and structural analysis of the novel "Autumn Is the Last Season of the Year" by Nasim Marashi. The necessity of this study lies in tracing the structural transformations and identity crises faced by the young middle class, particularly women, at the intersection of spatial anxiety and the traumatic discourse of migration within the text. The innovation of this research manifests in its departure from one-dimensional thematic approaches. Utilizing a combined analytical model and a descriptive-analytical method rooted in structural analysis, this study dissects the manifestations of this existential detachment.

The research findings at the level of textual analysis and narrative consciousness layers demonstrate that alienation within the novel operates on a multidimensional and intersectional plane. This concept appears in the character of Leila as a crisis of ontological security and an absence of meaning. Meanwhile, the character of Shabaneh is represented through imposed subjugation and role confusion. However, the situation differs in the case of Roja, where the aforementioned concept is refashioned as "positive alienation." This is an estrangement in which spatial alienation does not lead to passivity but functions as a catalyst for intellectual transcendence, breaching spatial boundaries, and reclaiming narrative agency. Simultaneously, at the macro-structural level, the findings prove that the text reproduces urban impasse through overarching discursive, temporal, economic, sensory, and structural implications. By depicting a culture of waiting, material determinism, a bureaucratic patriarchal system, and bodily reification, Marashi's work freezes human relations and transforms space into a detention center for the subjects' will. Ultimately, this cohesive formulation converts Marashi's work into a dynamic structural whole reflecting generational fractures.