The Representation of Myths in the Novel Playing Chess with the Resurrection Machine

Playing Chess with the Resurrection Machine is one of the eminent stories on the holy defense (Iran-Iraq war), which carries much structural and conceptual significance. Its literary significance among the novels in line with the discourse of war is due to its artistic use of myths to increase the interpretability and layers of meaning in the novel. In this novel, some of the constant issues of human beings such as good and bad, human suffering, and the control of destiny have been represented through recreating the myth of the fall of man, Jesus's death, and the fight between the hero and the dragon. It seems that some of the mythological symbols are embedded consciously and purposefully, while some others are involved subconsciously in the narrative. What brings all of the symbolic myths together is the human's fight against bad as opposed to being passive in the theme of the story. Moreover, the use of symbolic myths has increased the novel's interpretability. The interpretation of the characters regarding some of the symbolic myths has brought about a contrapuntal feature to the novel and has made a change in comparison with the previous routine war novels. The study borrows the method of critical mythology from Jung and Eliade in order to analyze and interpret characters, narratives, and other components of the myths represented in the novel, so that its explanatory and contrapuntal powers increase.