Narrative Inquiry of Furniture in the House-Museum of Simin and Jalal

Problem Statement: This essay is about the furniture of the Simin and Jalal’s house-museum. We know that the new lifestyle has been spread through buying new the products during 1960’s and 1970’s Ad. . In this essay we have observed how Simin Daneshvar and Jalal Al-ahmad have faced with the spreading of new lifestyle in ads. First, we have gathered the data of this assay through visiting this house-museum, then by reading Simin and Jalal’s writings and letters we found their idea about the furniture, and finally, we asked from the archive of Tehran Beautification Organization for more data.
Research Objectives: Finding the impact of the ads on the Simin and Jalal’s lifestyle is the main idea of this assay and observing the Simin add Jalal’s manners for dealing with the new life style is another aim of this essay. We want to know whether they had been buying new products for their house or not and how they had faced with modernity as an intellectual couple.
Research Method: We have used the theories of Baudrillard and Harre about objects as our theoretical structure. Then, we have used the narrative inquiry method from Webster and Mertova for analyzing details. So, we have gathered the ads of furniture and products from 60’s to 70’s, the letters of Simin and Jalal, and some photo from the archive of Tehran Beautification Organization. We found out some furniture had been mentioned in Simin or Jalal’s letters. By following the narration of each pieces of furniture we could observe the role of new furniture in their lives.
Results: We have found out that we can divide the furniture and objects of this house-museum according to the Harre’s idea. He suggested to divide objects according to their usages in the narration. So, some objects have potential usages. These objects can be used in future situation. Other objects have practical usages, they are used just for their usages. In addition, some of the furniture belongs to inner happenings. Some personal events are inner happenings that are marked with some objects. But other objects take part into outer happenings. Meanwhile, other objects try change the narration path. These objects can change lifestyle and the social class. The results showed that although ads and propagandas were affected the residents of this house, they have bought a piece of furniture for personal reasons, usually. In fact, Simin and Jalal were care about returning to self-values and preventing from consumerism. Finally, we have understood that although Simin and Jalal used to buy modern furniture and change their social class, they also bought according to their needs at inner or outer happenings. They less care about ads or propaganda for spreading new lifestyle during 1960’s and 1970’s years.