“the presence of the past” in “a plant in quarantine”

as a contemporary fiction writer, bizhan najdi is lessappreciated despite the fact that his short stories are of significant depthand deserve close examination. through the poetic language, “a plant inquarantine” creates a situation which provides a fertile ground to inspect therelation between past and present. a deep analysis of this relationship is themain focus of this paper. in this study, using the theories of hegel, foucault,and hutcheon concerning historical approach, and provided with the literarypractice of greenblatt and montrose, the incidents and characters of the storyare put into the intricate socio-historical context in which the writer lived,and then the active role of history is analyzed. the findings of the paper showthat the unpleasant presence of the main character’s ancestral past is thecause of his predicaments. such a reading of the story introduces history as anactive agent of the present.