A Sociological Approach to Bahram Beyzaee's The Four Boxes

With its socio-political themes, Bahram Beizaee’s play The Four Boxes, written in the 1940s, is highly amenable to the sociological approach in literary studies. Connecting society and the literary work, this approach has established itself as one of the most significant among critical approaches, and is now being employed as a useful and practical method in the analysis of artistic works. The method used in this article is Lucien Goldmann’s genetic structuralism which contains elements and principles that can be connected and generalized. Drawing on this method, we analyze the play based on its characters, each of whom represents a certain social layer. Finally, the article shows how through a committed and engaging artistic work, Beyzaee presents his deep understanding of the political and social events happening in contemporary history and, thus, expands public awareness as a social critic.