The Irish writer Samuel Beckett's and the Iranian writer Gholam Hossein Sa'edi's pantomimes share some common features. The theory of intertextuality proves to be a helpful approach to analyse their shared characteristics. Both pantomime as a literary genre and intertextuality as a literary approach have universal purposes. The former is the study of any relationship between and among different texts from different historical periods, cultures, genres and languages. While in the latter, language loses its significance and mimes and gestures replace its mediatory function. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to show how Becketts pantomimes "Act without Words I and II" resemble Saedis pantomimes "the Black Hoopoe, Hapless and Murk" in terms of themes, structure and symbols. The study shows that both Beckett and Saedi chose the medium of pantomime in order to express what were mainly inexpressible in their writing languages. They both used pantomime form as an artistic need in order to escape from the constraint and oppression of the dominant language and their sociopolitical circumstances.

Naghmeh Varghaiyan was born in Tabriz in 1982. She did her BA in English Literature at Tabriz Univ. in 2005, her MA in English Lit. at Tabriz Azad Univ. in 2008 and her PhD at KTÜ, Turkey in 2015. She has been teaching at Fatih Faculty of Education,KTÜ as a member of staff. Her research interests include comparative literature and women's writing.