A Comparative Analysis of the Memoirs of "I Am Alive" and "From Eighteen Months and Seven Days" Based on the School of Realism

Realism is one of the schools of the nineteenth century that changed the foundations of fiction by changing the principles of story writing. Unlike the Classical and Romantic schools, Realism considers man as a social being and examines the relationship between man and society. The realist writer narrates the lives of typical characters and the effects of human-environment interactions in simple language. Influenced by this school, Iranian writers also portrayed social issues in their works. Revolution and the 8-year war are of the most important socio-political issues in Iran, which influenced Iranian prose literature. Using library resources, this research analyzes the realistic components of the two memoirs "I Am Alive" and "From Eighteen Months and Seven Days". Findings suggest that language in both narratives is simple and close to slang. The difference is that the element of language and dialect, which is part of the culture of a region, is more visible in "From Eighteen Months and Seven Days". Abad mixes simple and metaphorical language. Her metaphorical language does not undermine the basis of the realist language in the narrative. Both Abad and Abnous portray the social issues people struggled with during the war as well as their different reactions to war. Examining components such as characterization, language, and staging in "I am alive" and "From Eighteen Months and Seven Days" reveals that both works belong to the school of Realism.