The novel Dāyerehā-ye Owj (Circles of Apogee) by Asghar Asgari-Khanqah is among the works that depict the reciprocal relationship between culture and personality within the social and cultural life of Gilan. Drawing on the Culture and Personality approach and employing a qualitative content analysis method, the present study examines how local culture and subculture influence the formation of the identity and actions of the novel’s main character. The findings indicate that the character of Gharib-Oghli is shaped through interaction with the primary and secondary institutions of society and through mechanisms such as education, modeling, and the internalization of cultural values. His trajectory-from marginalization and social exclusion to scientific and social recognition-reflects the role of culture in reconstructing individual identity.
The novel also portrays the dominant cultural patterns of Rasht society, including rationality, social responsibility, collective solidarity, and the valorization of knowledge, illustrating the process of characters’ socialization in relation to cultural structures. The analysis further shows that women, as cultural agents, play a significant role in the transmission and reproduction of social values. The study’s findings suggest that Circles of Apogee, beyond being a narrative work of fiction, possesses ethnographic potential and reveals-through the representation of lived experience-the system of meanings and cultural values of Gilan society in a period of transition. From this perspective, the novel can be understood as a literary account of the process of personality formation within a cultural context and as an example of the intersection between narrative imagination and anthropological insight.