چكيده لاتين :
This research is an attempt to represent the enemy in a woman's self-portrait
memoirs about Iraq’s war against Iran. Years after, those who were involved
in the war have an image of an enemy which is different from the mental and
cultural boundaries of those who didn’t experience war. Besides, the point of
view of a woman gives a different image of the enemy. Therefore, to depict
the representation of this enemy, the book "I Am Alive" by "Masoumeh
Abad" was selected. This book is written directly by the person who was
engaged in war and the text is not influenced by any possible chronologist or
diarist helping writing the text; hence, it is considered a direct and firsthand
text. By applying Lotman’s cultural semiotic theory, Echo’s theory of
inventing enemy and the semiotic square of Greimas the text was analyzed.
Study of the text showed that polarization, delineation and making an
ideological enemy has been used to represent the enemy. The form of the
enemy and the amount of hostility in this text are not fixed. The writer
allocates different degrees of hostility to enemies, and we see a continuum of
enemy. In some cases, as circumstances require, such as the perceived
danger or helplessness, enemy is considered an insider.
1. Introduction
The Iraq-Iran’s war is the longest conventional war of the twentieth
century, beginning with Iraq's invasion of Iran and lasting eight years. In the
Pahlavi era, governments differed greatly over borders and water resources,
and relations were very strained. With the conclusion of the, however, after
the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Saddam Hussein, who was at the head of the ruling Ba'ath party, unilaterally terminated the 1975 Algiers agreement and
launched a large-scale attack against Iran on September 22, 1980. It was a
war between two neighboring countries in which the people of both lands
shared religious affiliations. For this reason, the effects of this war on the
lives of the people were profound and unforgettable, especially ideologically
it was unbelievable for them to deal with an enemy of the same religion was
unbelievable to them.
Decades after the war, those involved in the war still have an image of the
enemy that differs from the mental and cultural boundaries of those who
have not experienced war. On the other hand, the way a woman
conceptualizes the enemy gives a different picture of it. So, we aim to
answer these questions, how enemy is formed from a woman's point of
view? What mechanisms are used to represent the enemy? and does the
enemy have a fixed meaning?
2. Literature Review
War memoir is one of the most common methods of recording events,
both during and after the war. For this reason, many works related to the
Iraq-Iran war have been written in the form of memoirs. In this regard,
Kazemi (2015), Salimi-Nejad (2014), Faizi Sho’ar (2014), Mo’men Abadi
(2014), Gholam Hosseinzadeh (2013), Tadi Bani (2011), Qaisari (2011),
Ilkhan (1388) and Irvani (1386) in their master’s theses have studied some
memories about Iraq-Iran’s war. Sasani (2005, 2008) has also collected and
translated a collection of articles related to war as a socio-cultural
phenomenon from various foreign authors. Numerous studies have been
done in connection with the theory of cultural semiotics, including Lotman
(1990, 1984), Posner (2004), Echo (2012), Sonesson (2000, 2001, 2004) and
Pakatachi (2004). )
3. Methodology
This is a descriptive-analysis case study research. In order to answer the
questions of this research, data were collected from first hand documents
about war. The first hand document is a written piece which is written by the
same person who was involved in the events of the memoirs directly and is
not affected by the thoughts and opinions of those who write else’s memoirs.
Also the gender and locality variables were considered. Therefore the book I
am alive by Masoumeh Abad was selected. The author, Masoumeh Abad, is
Downloaded from a young lady from Abadan and a native of the war zone. She was a captive
for four years in Iraqi camps and has written a book about the memoirs of
her captivity. In this study, Lotman semiosphere model, Eco inventing
enemy theory, and Greimas semiotic-square model have been used to
examine the data.
4. Results
The concept of "other" has always played an fundamental role in one’s
identity recognition. Whether it is a living thing or an object or a natural
force. If someone feels any threat or danger from this "other", immediately
recognizes him as an enemy and attributes the maximum of malice and
hostility to him. In this way, the person gets the maximum distance from the
"other" and is prepared to face the possible danger from the enemy. By
applying semiotic tools and echo theory, we found that the author of book I
am Alive uses polarization and imagery processes to describe the enemy. She
creates an ideological enemy for herself and the audience, which has the
highest level of malice, and by using inter textual references to the events of
the beginning of Islam, especially the Ashura incident, places the enemy in
the lowest possible ideological position. The image of this enemy is
completely black and has a polar nature. On the other hand, we see that the
enemy in this work is not only formulated on the basis of dualism and polar
binaries, but is seen as a continuous conceptual entity. Some characters have
less enmity and hostility than others. . Sometimes the author raises the
farthest enemies to the nearest insiders as needed to avoid potential danger
The feature of continuity in representing enemy was explained via presented
model which was inspired by Greimas semiotic-square As you can see the concept of enemy can glide from the left side of axis
to the right side and get close to the concept of friend. Vice versa a friend
can move to the left, lose its features of being a friend and become an enemy
6. Conclusion
It can be said that the concept of enemy is a floating, unstable and graded
concept. The word enemy is an empty container in which anyone or anything
with different grades can be placed in different situations.
