The Representation of Narratorial Mode of Postmodern Novels According to Simpson's Linguistic-Literary Model: A Case Study of "The Possible Night"

Some linguistic theories claim that they have the capacity of describing and explaining all kinds of narratives, one of which is Simpson's linguistic-literary model. This essay, in a descriptive-analytic method, studies narratorial mode of The Possible Night by Mohammad Hassan Shahsavari according to the model mentioned, in order to show characteristics of the narrative structure of this postmodern novel and also evaluate the efficiency of Simpson's narrative analysis model in studying postmodern novels. Extracting essential textual instruments like languages and intra-lingual variations, different types of process, modes of speech and thought presentation, words signifying modality, analepses, prolepses and intertextual relations and analyzing them, it showed that this novel is analyzable according to five units of Simpson’s model. Languages and idiolects of characters represent their social and cultural levels, material process has been used more than other processes, this story is narrated in the first-person and from the viewpoint of participating character-narrators, free direct thought is found more than other types of speech and thought presentation, dominating modality is negative and this story involves intertextual relations in different fields such as places, characters and literary, artistic and philosophical works. However, textual structure of this novel is not analyzable through Simpson's model.