Analysis of Social Trust in "Jāy-e Khāli-ye Salouch"

A reciprocal and ongoing interaction holds between literature and society. Some literary creations, particularly novels, represent and reflect societal concerns more than others. Drawing on Anthony Giddens’s theoretical framework, this descriptive-analytical study has been aimed to delve into a social issue in Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s"Jāy-e Khāli-ye Salouch".Trust is a crucial component in every society and an indicator of social capital, for which sociologists have proposed multiple definitions and types. Indeed, distrust remains a shaky pillar of social harm.This analysis explores the roots of the widespread distrust that Dowlatabadi narrates in "Jāy-e Khāli-ye Salouch". The results indicated that the novel spotlights how the White Revolution in Iran, with land reform as its principal policy, and its consequent troubles for Iranian villagers impacted the amplification of distrust among the misery-ridden villagers. It pinpoints that the failure of Shah’s economic policies pertaining to the White Revolution and the incapability of the social system to address public participation were among the factors that diminished social trust. Unemployment, poverty, and migration from villages were some of the main outcomes of this project. Another contributor to distrust is injustice. The transformation of the underlying pillars of economic life, the state’s poor performance, and the consequent dire economic status of villagers were the major causes of distrust represented in "Jāy-e Khāli-ye Salouch". The novel’s weightiest types of distrust were institutional and interpersonal, highlighting the villagers’ lack of trust in the government and signifying that the policies of the second Pahlavi regime were not directed toward developing different types of trust.