Journal of Philosophical Investigations (Sep 2018)
Nihilistic inspiration in The Blind Owl of Sadegh Hedayat Marzieh Balighi
Abstract
The Blind Owl of Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian author, which belongs to the dark literature category, is based on a nihilistic inspiration. In spite of the undeniable influence of nihilism in the creation of this complicated work, there is no coherent study to treat this subject from different points of view. The certain thing is that Hedayat was a careful reader of nihilistic works and the literary works which were inspired by nihilism. It seems that for a long time he was meditating on related ideas and the disappointed and nihilistic conceptions of some authors such as Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. The absurd character of The Blind Owl proves this nihilistic inspiration. In the creation of this work, Hedayat uses the main elements of this philosophy and develops them in his own way. Therefore he writes an oneiric story which evokes the existence of affliction from different perspectives. In this research, we are going to deepen the nihilistic aspect of The Blind Owl verifying all of the elements that are the witnesses of the omnipresence of inexistence in whole story. In this perspective, we will study first existence of affliction which is demonstrated by four factors: the physical pain, the moral disease, the progressive poisoning and the maleficent power. Then we will analyze the role of the notion of inexistence in the progression of the story which is incarnated by the fascination of the oblivion, the haunting of the death and the temptation of suicide. This reasoning will indicate the undeniable function of the nihilistic philosophy in the creation of The Blind Owl.
