Analysis of Situational Humor in the Darvishian’s Short Story Collection, Abshouran

Situational humor is created by overturning situations and juxtaposing contradictory situations, producing a scene that is funny to imagine. Among contemporary novelists, Ali Ashraf Darvishian uses humorous situations in his works to express social, cultural and economic problems. Therefore in the present study we attempt to investigate the types of situational humors in one of Darwishian’s collections of short stories, entitled “Abshouran”, which includes eleven short stories. In the present paper, by using descriptive-analytical methods, we seek to answer three questions: first, according to the theory of situational humor, by what means does Darvishian create humorous situations in his short stories? Second, which component of situational humor can be considered as an indicator of Darvishian’s style in this short story series? Third, what goals did the author pursue by using humorous situations? The results of this research indicate that with the help of four tricks, "characterization, plot, behavior, scene" and a few subtricks, Darvishian creates situational humor in his stories and in creating such humor he means to express the social, cultural and economic problems of Abshouran village people in particular and the people of Iran in general. Also, the main factor in creating situational humor is the component of "behavior", especially in the use of microtechniques such as "repetition of an action, surprise, incompatibility of behavior with the situation and ridiculous movements." Therefore, it can be considered as the main indicator of Darvishian’s writing style.