The Passion of Play and Subversion: An Overview of Parodic Interactions between Pictures and Words in " I Am The Hungry Mouse/ And Will Swallow You Up"

The purpose of this article is to revise the concept and application of ‘parody’ in picture books. Relying on this revisionary perspective and drawing upon the classical concept of parody as defined by Bakhtin، the researcher examines the possibility of parodying verbal texts by visual texts and vice versa. Also the role of parody in changing inherent power structure in children’s literature is explained. At first، by applying the deductive qualitative content analysis and by using the same features in cinema، as proposed by Dan Harries، the researcher has analysed the parodic features in Khosronejad’s I Am The Hungry Mouse/ And Will Swallow You UP. Then by considering Nodelman and Kooistra’s attitudes towards ironic and parodic interactions of pictures and words in picture books and through inductive qualitative content analysis، the researcher has actually proposed a new reading for the picture book. In this study، parody has been addressed in 5 modes: 1. Parodic relationship of subverted verbal text and the original one; 2. Parodic relationship of subverted visual text and the original one; 3. Parodic interaction between verbal and visual narration in subverted text; 4. Parodic relationship of the verbal text of the picture book and the other stories in the collection: Story، Play، and Fun; 5. Parodic relationship of the visual text of the picture book and the illustrator’s other work in that collection. However، the researcher has focused on analytical rereading of the parodic interactions in a single story –without considering the intertextual dialogues of that particular story with hypertexts or other stories in Story، Play and Fun. This study has proposed the possibility of analysing parody in picture books by borrowing from the cinematic technique of parody. This way، Harries’s techniques have both been confirmed and criticised. The parodic interactions in this picture book has been categorised in 3 modes، each of which has its own features: 1. Parodic interaction between pictures and words; 2. Parodic interaction among pictures; 3. Parodic interaction among words. As a conclusion to this mixed revision، the researcher believes that the context of children’s literature in the subversive play of mysterious synergy of pictures and words in picture books is parodic and is found in the process of creating and the reading of the book. Such subversive play is not only recognizable for children but also pleasurable; and it is necessary for the transmission of inevitable power relations in this genre.