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1. INTRODUCTION Formal and thematic duality in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1) has received significant attention. Critics have drawn attention to different kinds of duality, both [...], This paper highlights formal and thematic expressions of discursive conflicts in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. It focuses on Hawthorne's use of the "dialectical sentence," a type of sentence attributed to German dialectical thinkers, principally Theodor Adorno. Voicing two contradictory views in the same breath, the dialectical sentence provides formal expression of irresolvable discursive conflicts. Hawthorne's dialectical sentence serves as a suitable medium for expressing the conflict of interests between the Pyncheon and Maule families. The discursive conflicts are expressed through a set of binary terms, including Pyncheon/Maule, novel/romance, present/past, reason/rumor and science/superstition. The first term in each binary usually serves for the Pyncheons and the second, the Maules. Thus, expressed in dialectical sentences, the narrative voice oscillates between an irony which reflects the values of the former family and an enthusiasm which reflects those of the latter. Coming down firmly on neither side of the conflict, and through avoiding reconciliation, the novel takes on a dialectical structure which keeps the resolution of the discursive conflicts, as a utopian element, for a time outside the novel's timeframe. Keywords: American Fiction; Romanticism; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Theodor Adorno; Dialectical Sentence Este articulo destaca las expresiones formales y tematicas de los conflictos discursivos en The House of the Seven Gables de Nathaniel Hawthorne. Se centra en el uso que hace Hawthorne de la "oracion dialectica", un tipo de oracion atribuida a pensadores dialecticos alemanes, principalmente Theodor Adorno. Al expresar dos puntos de vista contradictorios al mismo tiempo, la oracion dialectica proporciona una expresion formal de conflictos discursivos irresolubles. La oracion dialectica de Hawthorne sirve como un medio adecuado para expresar el conflicto de intereses entre las familias Pyncheon y Maule. Los conflictos discursivos se expresan a traves de un conjunto de terminos binarios, que incluyen Pyncheon/Maule, novela/romance, presente/pasado, razon/rumor y ciencia/supersticion. El primer termino de cada par suele servir para referirse a los Pyncheon y el segundo para los Maule. Asi, expresada en oraciones dialecticas, la voz narrativa oscila entre una ironia que refleja los valores de la primera familia y un entusiasmo que refleja los de la segunda. Al no situarse de manera clara en ninguno de los lados del conflicto, y al evitar la resolucion y la reconciliacion, la novela se convierte en una estructura dialectica que mantiene la resolucion de los conflictos discursivos, como un elemento utopico, durante un tiempo fuera del marco temporal de la novela. Palabras clave: ficcion americana; Romanticismo; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Theodor Adorno; oracion dialectica

Divided along several ethnic, linguistic and religious lines, Iran is a multicultural country and the question of its national identity has been a matter of dispute since the beginning of the last century. Part of this dispute has been going on in literary works by national and diasporic authors. In this paper, Porochista Khakpour's Sons and Other Flammable Objects has been read in terms of its contribution to the questions of nationalism and national identity famously addressed in Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl. It seems that Khakpour has modelled her debut novel on Hedayat's magnum opus as an effective way to join the debate. Focusing on Khakpour's narrative, this study demonstrates how the novel presents a multicultural narrative of national identity in response to what is sometimes considered as Hedayat's ethnocentric nationalism in The Blind Owl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]