Phenomenology of Place and Imagination in the Prison Stories of Reza Baraheni Based on Schultz and Bachelard Approaches

place as a phenomenon. In phenomenology, places do have personalities and spirits depicting themselves to human beings through architectural elements and those objects being located at certain locations. Recognizing personality and Genius Loci brings about a sense of place. Sense of place differs from one person to another according to certain individual characteristics. The phenomenology of imagination regards places in the connection they have with imagination. Analyzing phenomenology of place and imagination in prison stories focuses on the location of a prison in order to identify the way a character interacts with the prison in regard to the sense of place. We’ve been trying in this study to deal with prison as a location in the fictional works of Reza Baraheni. In the stories such as Avaz_e koshtegan, Razha-ye Sarzamin_e Man, Ba’d az Arusi Che Gozasht? , and Chah be Chah Well to, Reza Baraheni deals with the location of prisons. The location of the prison is solitary confinement in those stories. Elements such as blindfolds and voices have a conspicuous presence in the above-mentioned stories. Prison, in Baraheni’s stories, helps to bring about identity formation and otherization. In order to escape the pain they feel at the torture chambers, Baraheni’s characters call on imagination with the help of literature and occasionally by means of memories, making agonizing moments of torture somehow bearable.