The Veiled Violence in “The Dog’s Eye”

The Veiled Violence in The Dog’s Eye

This paper seeks to investigate the concept of violence within the area of Diaspora in the collection of short stories “The Dog’s Eye”. Written by a contemporary short story writer, Alieh Ataei, the seven stories of the collection picture the characters who are originally from Afghanistan, go through the agony and anxieties of instability of living in Afghanistan and have migrated or been traveling to Iran. The characters are meticulously and scrupulously characterized whose realities of diasporic lives portray a sense of invisible violence. Violence within the studies of diaspora, although a cliché, is one of the prevalent concepts which is implicitly or explicitly presented in the work of literature in association with the social, historical and psychological and political contexts. Migration and displacement, naturally, incorporate various levels of violence leading to suffering, abuse, anxiety and trauma. The present research explores the perpetrated violence in the life of characters who, ironically despite having the sense of satisfaction, suffer, encounter and are consumed by the plight of displacement and the institutionalized terror and fright of the exile. Such emotions which are the legacy of war and conflicts will lead to a life of trauma which breaks down the individuality of the human being making him/her a shadow.