A Morphological Study of the Story of Zahak Based on Vladimir Propp’s Theory

The componential analysis of a story is one of the most modern approaches to literary studies which have drawn the attention of many literary scholars. The emergence of formalistic approach to literary criticism that resulted in the introduction of structuralism influenced the studies of literary researchers. Structuralists believe that each story could be broken down into its narrative structures. The most important researcher of formalism was Vladimir Propp. Propp analyzed one hundred fairy tales and divided each fairy tale into its smallest structural units and then tried to relate them to the whole story. Given the fact that has fairy tales are of a narrative and folklore nature, Propp could discern a final narrative structure for them. One of the best approaches to the analysis of the stories of Shahnameh is morphological approach. This study attempts to show the relationship between structuralism, narratology and morphology and then embark on the morphological analysis of the story of Zahak in Shahnameh according to Propp’s theory. The analysis of the story of Zahak which is a single story resulted in the identification of thirty one primary and secondary structural units which are of conflict-victory diagrammatic type. The four moves derived from these diagrammatic types conform to the first and second moves in Propp’s theory which shows the conformity of this story to Propp’s theory.