The Influence of Victorian Literature and The Elements of Popular Fiction in Fahimeh Rahimi's The Window

There are many attitudes towards popular culture. One movement, led by Mathew Arnold, rejects popular culture because it is the culture of working class and will lead to chaos if it is not controlled by the elite. Frankfurt School thinkers also reject popular culture because it is produced by culture industry and imposed on the working class by the capitalist system. The other approach which is based on consensus is inspired by Antonio Gramsci: people are not only made by culture hut also make culture. Postmodernism is another attitude which embraces popular culture. Postmodern thinkers see popular culture as a means of resistance against the status quo. The present study reviews The Window by Fahimeh Rahimi as an example of popular fiction which is deeply influenced by the Victorian literature. Focusing on the dominant sentimentalism of the novel, its stock characters and pretentious language, the dominance of chance in the plot, the unjustified use supernatural elements, repetition and the bourgeois morality of the novel, the study uses the argument of the thinkers of Frankfurt school to show that the novel does not represent a resistance against the ruling system, but invites the reader to accept the status quo by propounding bourgeois morality.