The Quality of Being Valuable and the Effects of Memory Writing of the Holy Defense War on the Process of Play Writing

Believing that literature is divided into two factions of imaginative and non – imaginative or documentary, memory writing is to be categorized in the second part of this division. Based on value it is in equal value with the written or published documents of a historical period. Therefore memory writing such as historiography biography writing as well as . . . . . . . . is a special kind of writing in which the author tries to reflect the realities or the events that he himself has seen them or heard them with his ears or he is well aware of them in a way that when a reader reads or hears it he / she is able to explain and describe the events. For this reason he has to be aware of the styles of writing very well. This is why in memory writing as in biography writing is there two general styles of writing; the writer himself writes his memories or a writer writes and organizes the memories of another person. . . . . . .

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جمعه - ۱۲ اسفند ۲۰۱۰ / 2010 12 December

A. Memory Writing: Recording the Events around Us

Believing that literature is divided into two factions of imaginative and non – imaginative or documentary, memory writing is to be categorized in the second part of this division. Based on value it is in equal value with the written or published documents of a historical period. Therefore memory writing such as historiography biography writing as well as . . . . . . . . is a special kind of writing in which the author tries to reflect the realities or the events that he himself has seen them or heard them with his ears or he is well aware of them in a way that when a reader reads or hears it he / she is able to explain and describe the events. For this reason he has to be aware of the styles of writing very well.
This is why in memory writing as in biography writing is there two general styles of writing; the writer himself writes his memories or a writer writes and organizes the memories of another person. . . . . . .
B. Holy defense War: A Special Event with Special Importance

Now we are considering a situation in which a person or persons have taken part in a happening and they are inclined to inform the others about it to those people who themselves were not present there.
Separate from personal or private stimulus and motivations that cause an event, due to explanation or description of a memory, be recorded or registered and is finally kept for ever. Some times from a historical point of view and from a sociological point of view an event becomes so much important that it involves a lot of people as well. In fact some events are so extensive that they influence different personal and social aspects of a person’s life in a society to the extent of a country. . . . . . .
Two of such events that belong historically to the contemporary era are the victory of the Islamic Revolution and then the happening of the imposed war which is called holy defense war, both of these events have been very influential in the history of the political and social changes of the world and they have left tracts and traces that can be seen after them in all aspect of the human lives.
In this situation, literature and culture as well as art have been affected by these events and artists and writers both during the years of the victory of the Islamic Revolution and after the eight years of the imposed war, have created literary works that can be categorized both in imaginative and non – imaginative divisions and the majority of them are written works that have been presented in the forms of memories.
The important point is that a great bulk of these glorious literary works has been written in the forms of novel and story as well as plays and . . . . . . . and on the basis of the readable and hearable memories of those who were involved in the events such as the Islamic Revolution and the defense war. This means that the writer was not himself present in the scenes and he does not remember the details of that event or even there happened that there was nothing important for him to make it the central part of his story so as it might lead to the creation of a literary work. Therefore he has searched the memories of the others and through observation and research as well as their deepening he created such works. . . . . . .
The main point of the discussion here is that some of the events are so qualified that they can be adapted and used by different artists and different points of view as well as different tastes as fruitful sources of literary creations. Here, of course we mean the imposed war and the holy defense war. . . . . . .

C. Play Writing; a different creation

Although play writing is categorized as a sub – genre of imaginative literature and in fact it is one of the literary genres but it will become complete in performance and with regard to the points of view and interpretation of the director and the executors. Therefore the playwright, in his creation of his literary work on any subject, needs a style of characterization that has basic differences from other literary genres such as novel and short story and undoubtedly it is more difficult. . . . . . .
Because the characters in the plays are not described in the plays with the same great patience and mellifluousness as well as the special facilities that the writers of literary genres have at their disposal to describe theirs; rather it is their speech and actions that form their character. Even in speech the description of a character in his own words (except in exceptional cases) is structural and shows lack of ability on the part of the writer. . . . . .
In this way it is necessary that the writer has to know the characters that he wants or thinks they are necessary to bring in to the world of his work; he has to have a clear and detailed picture of them and this understanding is not created unless they are seen in the real world from close quarters so as he is able to make his characters sensible and understandable on the basis of the reality; or he has to read, hear and see about them.
Except for the cognition of the characters, being aware of the intended event and analyzing as well as interpretation of the details for the playwright become vitally important. . . . .
D. Asking an Important Question:

Now it is time to ask an important question; what conditions does a playwright need if he intends to write a play about the holy defense war?
This supposed writer, based on what has so far been said, needs to understand the event, the characters and the choice of the theatrical language for writing the dialogue. Therefore he has to suppose himself in the ambience of the events of the holy defense war so as he is able to change his intended event in to dramatic action and reaction and in this way reach his goals and intention.
With regard to the possibility of the presence of the author in the holy defense war period, one of the hypotheses is that he has the opportunity being present in this holy domain and by returning to his memories recreates the environments of those times in his minds once more and reminds himself of the main and subsidiary events; thereby he reviews the interviews of the fighters in his minds; then he takes his pen and creates his work. . . . . . .
The other theory is that the playwright has not the opportunity to take part in the holy defense war himself and it has passed a lot since the happening of this event and therefore such a possibility would be negated; in this case the playwright needs to understand and know the events, people as well as other necessary reason for writing a work which can be an effective reflection of the great event of the defense war. Here it is necessary to write something about the method of creating an artistic work.
The artists in any area of the creation of the artistic works take their materials for writing their works from their surrounding; it is what both those who believe in the recreation of nature and the human beings as they are living in the world (realists and naturalists) and those who set the materials just for the creation works (un – realists schools such as symbolism and . . . . . . . ) they believe in.
In these above two cases the origins of the art creation is the observation of the artists of his surrounding areas and according to the ideas of the writer of this article the valuable and important artistic works are the results of the direct look of the art or his direct understanding of his surrounding areas and if the surrounding areas have historical events or if they belong to a special time in near or far past the artists has to collect the required materials from memories of the reliable people otherwise the works that are created from the experience of the other creators are called second – handed works or they are called cliché works.
With regard to this subject, in all areas generally and in the domain of drama in particular, the artist or the writer has to work correctly in the stages of observation and where there is no possibility of observing the events in practice referring to the memories of the people who have felt these events themselves is the best and sometimes the only possible way.

E. Measurements and Guidelines

In order to be benefited by the memories of the survivors f the holy defense war, the first step for the playwright, is the complete entrance to the domain of the memories of the fighters including the invaluable martyrs, those who were freed from bondage as well as the handicapped and people who were present in this event and then tried, with different motivations, to register them.
Fortunately there are a lot of centers and organizations that have recorded and registered as well as prepared a lot of works on the holy defense war; it is not difficult to have access to them; it is rather easy to find them. Therefore if a writer is inclined to write a work on the theater of the holy defense war he is able to overwhelm himself in huge amounts of memories that have left from that glorious and sublime period; he is able to be benefited from this extensively. Of course sometimes it is possible to hear the memories of the holy defense war from the participants of the war as well.
In writing the work and on the basis and principle of adoption there are a lot of methods to make use of the memories. Sometimes, the memories are such interesting and endowed with climaxes and denouements that through some sight changes it is possible to create very nice plans for writing plays. And sometimes it is possible to create a symbol from the heart of a memory that in the first look it seems not to have any common characteristics with memory but it was able to lead the writer to have a different and new understanding.
In this part, through some examples of the published memories on the holy defense war we will deal with three main components of play writing: plot and characterization as well as writing dialogues. This will be done in order to draw the attention of those who are interested in writing plays to the first handed materials that are ever written on the holy defense war.

1. Plot:
One of the most important parts of the play is the plot which determines the basic outlines of the play as well as its cause and effect relationship. In case plot is endowed with enough strength and has in its heart suspension and climax as well as an appropriate beginning and end , it is possible to hope to create a work with nice structure. The memories have the potential to be appropriate for such plots; now look at the following examples and pay attention to them.
They put us in a room in which there was no window; there was only a vent on the iron – door. They have come a few times until morning and paid us a visit and then they went. They might have been afraid that we would pierce the walls and escape through.
The weather was cold in the room. We (Salahi, one of the captives, and I) pulled the blanket of Iraqi over ourselves. I slept for an hour and I dreamt. I saw it was a very big place. I put my head on my knees and I was crying loudly. It was at that time that someone came and put his hand on my head and said: “Why are you crying?”? without raising my head I felt someone standing besides me and I saw him he had very bright face. I said: “Don’t you see we are in the hands of the foreigners?”? I show him the browsed signs of the hand clasps and I said: “They torture us a lot”?.
He said with the claming voice: “wipe out your tears. Do not cry. . . . . Don’t be afraid. They can not do anything. You’d go to Iran again.”?.
In this case except for the paths of the events that form the plot, the ambience also come to the fore and to the help of the imagination and creates different symbols and cases for the writing of the play in the minds of the writer.
Please not another case that is related to the beginning days of the war and the occupation of Khorramshahr:
“The customs was also very strange for itself. The packages of goods were dangers; when you went there you’d see that the behind the boxes were series of people. It was very dangerous to recognize them because there was the possibility that they were Iraqis or Iranians as well. The boxes of goods were also good because they were blocking the Iraqis. They were not able to come afore without pre – caution. It was at the same time bad as well because it was possible that the Iraqis are hidden behind them. . . . . . . The Iraqis did every thing in three days to take customs but they could not.
They were coming ahead from every side. But the soldiers used to go sideways and went behind the Iraqis and they were evacuating the customs again out of fear. Maybe the customs was once more taken over by the other group. The city was almost destroyed. Jannat Abad was under the bombardment of the cannon balls and mortar therefore the martyrs were taken to Abadan. The hospital was completely out of work. There was no flow of water and electricity. If there was a person named Behnam Mohammadi who used to bring water for the boys otherwise there not water to drink.
In this case there was some good stories to create nice work out of them and the people who are named can also be good characters which are called in the world of theater the character based plays.
Mostly the narrators of the memories are themselves present in the streams of the events and they are themselves the narrators and the story tellers or the writers of the memories; therefore their speech and actions lead the reader to different layers and deep layers of their characters and in fact the inner world and outer world of their characters for the reader. On the other hand those who are described by the narrator are his friends and colleagues as well as comrades whose different aspect of characters, during the process of retelling the memory, are described; if there is a writer who wants to write a play just on the basis of these people it is possible to set different parts beside each other and finally draw a very clear picture of a character.

Pay attention to the Following Example:
“Saied Ali – Akbar was born in Qom but they have taken his ID card from Taleghan; he studied in Qom until fifth grade in primary school and got his six grade in primary school in Qazvin.
After the second coming to Qom he studied Mathmatics in Din and Danesh and Hakim Nezami High Schools and got his diploma. His great intelligence made his uncle Hojat Al _ Islam Saied Ali Gharavi to propose him to go to Germany at his expense and continue his studies. But Abar Torabi wanted to enter the Scientific Center for Religious Studies. In order to get away from the insistences of his uncle and he went to Mashhad under the aegis of his father and then started to study the religious sciences.
The years of his studies in Mashhad was in Navvab school was very difficult. In order to pay for the small tuition fee that he had for his schooling he had to buy bread and dry it and eat it. His food was these pieces of bread for a long time. He used to take part in the debates center with eagerness and enthusiasm; he was one of the most intelligent and famous students of the Navvab School. The night that he was going to become a clergy and wear the clergy clothes he was in doubt and he wondered whether he is worth wearing this cloth or not. It was at the same night that he saw a dream.
He saw in the world of dreams that he was standing over the tomb of his grandfather Ayat Allah Saied Mohammad Bagher Olo Ghazvini and suddenly his tomb opened and a stream of water flew while there was beautiful red fish in it. The body of grandfather came over to the surface with it. The body was floating on the water and the beautiful fish was swimming around the body.
2 . Characterization:

One of the other factors in the creation of plays is characterization. The playwright has to know the visible and the invisible dimensions of the people who are going to enter the world of the play. He has to make use of the parts that are necessary; he has to mingle them as well as their behaviors into speech and actions of the characters and make use of them with regard to the overall plan of the plot.
Of the difficulties of the work of the playwright is that he has a narrower domain that that of the world of the novels and even the short story; he can not introduce the characters from his own language or from the language of the others. Rather he is in need of the capabilities of the dialogue writing to which in the other parts we will refer.
But when the memories of the people present in the events is studied and reviewed from the point of view of the playwright he has the possibility of understanding the characteristics of the characters, though he was not himself present in the scenes, through the narrations of the other who were there in the event. Look at the following example:
“In fact, Amir Khajeh Afzali was also in this battalion. I found him in his floor. He was collecting his things, while he was having his relief pack on his shoulders; he was looking for one of his boots. He took out a lot of papers and letters from his pack and said these are the letters that they have sent to me and now they have arrived all at once. Amir is an amiable and lovely boy. He is not left behind and he is not a disappointed man. This is the cause for happiness. He was very interested to come to Malik battalion. We heard happy news about him; this is why his father and his mother came to see him. Thar comrade who has seen the scene said that Amir’s parents wanted to go to Yazd.
I was thinking about going to Andimeshk; in order to see Amir. God has given patience to this child and to his family. On the other hand Amir with all his spiritual problems as well as his weak body as well as all those difficulties that he was seeing in Hamzeh Battalion, he was still resisting. For example this battalion is going to move; it is while a few days ago he was a member of the defense in Mehran.
In the example that you have already read an important part of Amir Khajeh Afzali’s character is explained and described that can be very important for the playwright. Certainly when the playwright is intended to create a drama on the basis of such character or to conduct a research and complete his personal information about him or people like him.
Look at another example that is about the Iranian Women Prisoners:
“Sedighe Faiazi was a nursery student and she was working in the surgery room; she helped me a lot and she taught me the name of the devices and the methods of working with them in the surgery room. When the operation was starting Sedighe Faizai was working at a very high speed and sometimes she was becoming very angry as well. If she ever saw any weakness or lassitude she was admonishing with a loud voice. She used to take the work seriously and she did not loose any chance . . . . . . .”?.
It is very clear that that the information presented about the people in the memories is very valuable because it is the outcome and the result of the direct observation and devoid of any imagination and it is exactly for this reason that it is very important for the playwrights.

3 . Dialogue Writing

The result of the efforts of the playwright after drafting the plot and the understanding and cognition of the characters is seen in the form of the dialogue. It is necessary to emphasize that the dialogue is not just the daily dialogue. Rather it needs a capable pencil to turn the usual dialogues to the dialogues. For example a good dialogue has some characteristics. For example it progresses the event, introduces the characters and it creates the inward and outward challenges and . . . . . . . . .
But the first condition for the understanding and cognition of the dialogue is to hear the daily dialogue and to record and register them in the minds. In this way the playwright, has very precise and hearable ears among the people and the events beside him and even some writers have very small notebooks in which they take notes of the special dialogues about the holy defense war; some of the memory writers have quoted some events and they have answered a great part of the requirements of the playwright. Look at this example:
Behrooz and the lieutenants went their ways toward the colonel; colonel was lying in the entrenchment; it was in the garden beside the bridge.
- Colonel, there is nobody in the city. There are only a few children in the city; the Iraqis have come to the Shohada square. Please think about a solution.
- What should we do? There are 600 people who have come behind the bridge. There is no way.
- Colonel. We have to stand against them tonight as well. . . . . So at least tell the comrades not to leave the bridge. Tell them not to leave us.
- No, sure. If there was anything I will tell you.
- Behrooz and the lieutenant came back to the soldiers. The lieutenant divided the soldiers. From the Darvaze square to the bridge he put a soldier at the beginning of any alley. Behrooz became very relaxed. It was possible to rest a bit. They were terribly tired; they went to the commandoes stead near the main mosque. It did not pass about two hours that the lieutenant came.
- Mr. Moradi! Mr. Moradi! It is an hour that we are looking for. You do not know what has happened.
- No what has happened?
- Colonel has said to withdraw.
- Now it is late. We have to inform anybody who is in the town. We have to leave the city before the dusk.
- Why do we have to leave the city? There are 40 soldiers. Do you know what 40 people are there?
- Well, it is an order. What should I do, you say?
- What is the order? What order? The order to withdraw has to be issued at time. At the moment we have the control of more than half of the city. Where should we go? Go and tell colonel to send forces.
- I said. No forces come. He says if the bridge is seen by the Iraqi forces and about to be shot by the Iraqis. The commandoes want to go to the other side of the water. .
- It is again to be emphasized that the stated expressions are the real dialogues that has happened in the middle of the events but with some amelioration on the part of the narrator. It has this important characteristic that nature can not reflect the nature as it is in reality. In fact in the creation of the plays, the writer takes special measures so as to change these statements to dialogues.
Conclusion :
The most important goal of this article is to emphasize and to remember the values and the effects of memory writing on the events of the holy defense war on the process of the play writing. Because although the memories of the fighters during the last years have been published the young playwrights and even the experienced ones are worried about finding subjects and issues for the creation of works are really effective. Generally they are unaware of the fist handed sources or they have not understood its value and importance. Therefore the writer of this article emphasizes that the techniques and technical considerations of changing the memories and events in to literary works and into especially plays needs a chance and in fact this is not the goal of this article. . . . . .
The author suggests that the concerned organizations and unions call some of the experienced playwrights to create theatrical works and after the production of the works resulted from these works it is their duty to encourage and support comparatively the memories and the literary works that have been produced out of these memories.
1. Fiction
2. Non Fiction
3. Germanial Idea
4. Material
5. Sarbazan Chakmeh Poush, The memories of the Freed Slave Soldier, Bahman No Zohoor and Sasan Nategh . Soreh Mehr Pub . Co . , 1385 . P 63 .
6. Eshghal , Tasvire Sizdahom, The narration of forty five days of resistance in Khorram Shahr, Mohammad Reza Abu Al Hassani, Revaiat Fath Pub . Co . , 1382 . P . P . 70 – 85 .
7. The Chief of the Freed. The Fictional Biography of the Freed Slave Saied Ali Akbar Abu Torabi , D . Amirian .
8. Southern War Front. The Notes of Martyr Habib Ghani Poor . Sore Mohr Pub . Co . , Tehran Second Ed. 1386 . P . P . 227 – 228 .
9. The Last Sunday . The Memories of Masoumeh Ramhormozi . Sore Mehr Pub . Co . ,Third Edition , Tehran : 1386 . P . P . 129 – 130 .
10. Eshghal , Tasvire Sizdahom, The narration of forty five days of resistance in Khorram Shahr, Mohammad Reza Abu Al Hassani, Revaiat Fath Pub . Co . , 1382 . P . P . 99 – 100 .
11.