Examining the Element of Movement in Sheikh Bahaei’s Cat and Mouse (Based on Propp’s Morphology)

The morphology of Russian structuralist theorist, Vladimir Propp, has for decades been a template for structural and morphological analyses. Propp’s model breaks down the structure of folktales into thirty-one functions and seven ‘spheres of action’. Each tale’s components are devised in accordance with each character’s function and their sphere of action. The present article investigates the element of movement in Sheikh Bahai’s frame narrative Cat and Mouse. Based on library research, this study adopts a descriptive hermeneutic data analysis approach. After scrutinizing a selection of Cat and Mouse stories and the structural data and diagrams on the element of movement in the tales, the findings demonstrate that these tales have one to seven movements and their frequencies are roughly fifty, with two-movement and one-movement tales having the highest frequencies respectively; the reason for this is that these tales are frame narratives and this fact leads to the formation of a multiplicity and diversity of movements.