Analysis of the Components and Concepts of Bakhtin's Carnival in the Image of Dajjal of Tahmasbi Falnama

Bakhtin believes that human life in the middle centuries were in two ways; one was a completely formal life under a hierarchical system and combined with fear, dogmatism and submission formed in piety, and the other was life in a carnival and social atmosphere. He deals with the carnival as an independent event and expands it in the field of art and literature. Bakhtin's carnival theory provides a new way to investigate and research the dimensions of popular celebrations. To understand the carnival, Bakhtin mentioned the ideas and themes leading to the formation of the carnival structure. Some of the numerous features that he listed for the carnival are its components and some others are hidden in the topic and theme of the carnival. In the carnival, people join the crowd by putting masks on their faces. In fact, the person who wears a mask has put aside the individuality that distinguishes him from the crowd in order to experience his physical and material uniqueness and unity with the crowd. The theme of game also plays an important role in conceptualizing the carnival. The game is one of the side activities of the carnival; there is no hierarchy in popular games. The other point is that in the carnival the lower classes have the opportunity to somehow stand in front of the tough and official culture of the rulers of the church and make fun of it. Another theme that exists in the carnival is the theme of madness. Madness makes a person look at the world through a different perspective, a perspective not limited to solid frameworks of common and conventional ideals and judgments. Similar to the theme of madness, the images of the vagrant idiot and clown help create a carnival atmosphere due to their opposition to conventional social, political, religious and cultural norms. Bakhtin clearly declared that it is impossible to hope that carnival would change the world, but it is possible to change the inner relationship of man with the world.
Iranian painting with various subjects and themes is a suitable platform for analyzing Eastern and Western theories. In the meantime, the illustrated horoscopes that were written to determine the fortunes and misfortunes of affairs provide a visual collection of religious subjects and folk traditions, which sometimes have no written roots; One of these folk narratives in Tahmasbi's Falnama is a picture of the people’s celebration and joy at the time of Dajjal’s arrival. Dajjal is a person or a creature who is the enemy of Imam Mahdi (AS). He, who is also known as the Antichrist, is an evil character who, according to Muslims, will pretend to be the Jesus at some point in the future before the Day of Judgment, and people will be deceived and join him. To state the problem, the image of the arrival of Dajjal contains themes and images that can be compared and analyzed with the features of Bakhtin's carnival in many ways.
 The purpose of this research, which is descriptive-analytical and carried out in a qualitative and theory-based way, is to "study the components and themes of Bakhtin's carnival in the image of Dajjal in Ṭahmāsbi's dispersed Falnama". Answering these questions seems necessary in order to achieve this purpose:

What are the components and themes of Bakhtin's carnival in the image of Dajjal, in separate?
How can the image of the Dajjal's arrival be analyzed based on Bakhtin's carnival theory?

The method of this research is analytical descriptive with a qualitative approach. In order to answer the questions raised, first of all, the recognition and understanding of the carnival and Bakhtin's theory in this case were done through library sources, and the components and themes of Bakhtin's carnival were identified separately. Then, the characteristics of the carnival in the image of Dajjal’s arrival were explained, and finally, the components of Bakhtin's carnival, which are presented as visual elements in the image, and the themes of Bakhtin's carnival, which are hidden in the content of the work, were analyzed.
The findings show that in Bakhtin's point of view, carnivals were popular and mostly non-religious festivals or street plays in which the culture of the ordinary people was represented; An insolent and blatantly, free and unrestrained culture that used to joke, play and go crazy in contradiction to the holy rules. The image of Dajjal can be analyzed by inspection of the visual elements according to the carnival components and the content of the themes used in it. The main components of carnival, laughter, games, masks, inversions and grotesque in Bakhtin’s point of view match the elements used in the image of Dajjal. In the image of the Antichrist's arrival, an anti-religious celebration with no presence of religious figures and against the existing laws induces a double atmosphere game in which a kind of madness is perceived.