JOURNAL OF MODERN CRITICAL ARABIC LITERATURE
Year:2020 | Volume:10 | Issue:18 (20)|Papers Count:12

Elias Khoury is known as a phonetician and post-Mahfouzi writer. His novel "Mamlakat ol-Ghuraba” is a political love story whose time of narration is a significant component in its structure. The theory of Gerard Genette is considered as the most comprehensive theory about the determination of time in the field of narration. Genette demonstrates the theory of time in his story based on three basic concepts including order, persistence and frequency. Through the descriptive and analytical method, this study seeks to review the time-based narrative components of the novel" Mamlakat ol-Ghuraba" according to the Gé rard Genette`s theory. The study aims at achieving the degree of adaptation of these components to the structure of the novel and identifying the author's purpose in applying these components. Studying the time of narration shows that the narrative process in this novel is built upon inappropriate prediction, retrospection and breakage of time. Also, the narrative time structure is a circular structure expressed through the continuation of the past in the present and repetition of incidents by date. Elias Khoury has been able to use aesthetic techniques to declare the retrospective and prospective versions of the narrative. Using a postponed descriptive, restatement and poetic prose, the author has decelerated the pace of the story. However, he tries to speed up the expression of the narrative through elimination and summarization.

Using the concept of mask in the contemporary Arabic poetry is one of the most frequent methods of speech to delineate poetic experiences. Muin Besiso is a contemporary Palestinian poet and an outstanding figure of resistance poetry that has used the symbol of mask in his poem very much. The ode “ From the pages of Abuzar Ghafari” is a poem in which the poet has selected Abuzar Ghafari, one of the companions of the prophet Mohammad (PBUH), to portray his poetic experience and express his personal thoughts. This paper is an attempt to probe the ode by the descriptive-analytic method in the hope of finding distinctive symbols in Muin's poems. Since there is a similarity between the personalities of the poet and Abuzar, one can say that the functionality of the mask of Abuzar in the poem is acceptable. The dominant voice is the voice of Abuzar through which one can trace Besiso. The ode is the delineation of the realities of Arab societies, the encouragement of people to struggle and resist and the criticism of the Arab rulers.

Sahar Khalifeh is a well-known Palestinian novelist whose reputation is mostly for propounding issues related to women and defending their rights. Since women are in the focus of most of her novels, the author's feminist tendencies and topics have attracted many critics. One of the theories that form the basis of the feminist writings of Sahar Khalifeh is the theory of women's empowerment. The employment of women and their economic independence are considered in the novel as the important tools for empowerment. This paper attempts to analyze the employment of women in the novel of Abad Al-Shams based on the theory of empowerment through a descriptive-analytical method. The research findings indicate that Sahar Khalifeh is influenced by the theories in the empowerment field. The poetess seeks to inform women in her community of opportunities such as education and appropriate employment, which they are deprived of or have less access to in comparison to men. The writer is vastly bound to the potentiality of women and is very committed to trying to encourage Palestinian women to increase their participation in social and economic activities by creating heroines who can stand against the discriminatory laws in the society. Also, by referring to such virtues as self-esteem, self-sufficiency and promoting standards of life for heroines, Khalifeh seeks to convert women from passive elements into independent capable agents.

Alfred Adler (1870) was a psychoanalyst and the founder of "individualist-oriented psychology" in the twentieth century. His school of thought emphasizes the social aspect of man and views his actions and behaviors emanating from social struggles. In line with such a view, human character is based on concepts such as "feeling of inferiority", "consciousness", and "considerateness". The present study aims to investigate the character of Khalil based on the principles of Adler's theory. To this end, the content of of the story ‘ Khalil Kafir’ by Gibran Khalil Gibran is analyzed to detect its psychological capacities. The findings suggest that Gibran believes in the role of Adler’ s principles, in particular the fundamental principle of “ inferiority", in the formation and enhancement of an individual’ s personality. Hence, through the transfer of his thoughts and ideas in this regard as well as the psychological processing of a jihad character, he tries to push Lebanese unconscious people into movement and dynamism in the depressed and despotic atmosphere of the church community. This is how psychological data serve to better transfer the intended meaning in the field of fictional literature.

Realism is the social analysis of the embodiment of human life in the society, the relationship between individuals and the society, and the very structure of the society. As a literary school, realism appeared in the 20th century works especially in stories and dramas. In the meantime, plays, as the dramatic works of art played an important role in displaying the realities of the society. Ali Ahmad Baksir, (1910-1969) was an Arab committed Muslim author who practiced realism in this era. His Islamic attitudes are quite evident in his works. His “ Hablol Ghasil” is a realistic drama which shows the events and happenings in Egypt in the time of socialists. Through the descriptive-analytic method and by extracting examples of realistic themes from the dialogues of this drama, the present study seeks to study the emergence of realistic concepts in this drama to find out his views of the circumstances in Egypt. As the findings show, the author's Islamic approach in the dialogues often critically addresses the socialist society and his supporters. The author has a moderate position in expressing realistic themes, but the conversations used to explain the image of Abdul Karim Qassim and the uprising of Sho’ ubieh somewhat extreme.

Symbols are the product of agreement and carry concepts beyond their own terms. Therefore, it is possible to look at a symbol and recall all the meaning encoded in it. A authors who has focused on written codes and symbolic texts is Lebanese Jibran Khalil Jibran. One of his short works is "The Other Language", from the "almajnun" collection, which is very symbolic. In this symbolic short story, the implications and the messages make up the subject of the present paper. Through the description and analysis of the symbols, this study seeks to reach the intended meanings of the author. The result of the analysis shows that Jibran Khalil Jibran has pointed to number 3 (that symbolically means getting through three passages of darkness including abdomen, ovary and uterus and coming into the new world), number 7 (that refers to perfection and abundance), number 21 (abiding by the heavenly worlds, and making radical changes in the same time), number 33 (eternal life), the mother (the link between the life in this world and the previous world), the wet-nurse (the alternate protection and a substitute for ideal conditions), the milk (recognition and the path to immortality), the cradle (the earth and the heaven) the priest and the temple (Christian beliefs about man) and music (harmony with human nature). Jibran calls man to try to preserve this pure nature and criticizes the traditional and religious beliefs underlying people thoughts.

There are a plenty of templates and styles for the comic genre of writing. One of these templates is karikalamator, a kind of writing stunt from a different point of view to highlight the contradictions of the world and the phenomena in it. Among contemporary Arab comedians, Ahmad Matar is one of the most prolific and famous authors in this field. As a committed poet, in his poems, he recreates his subjects in his poems and presents the spiritual conflicts and inconsistencies of speech and action to his audience. In his caricatures, he uses some tools and strategies like alliteration, personification, simile, allusion, Irony, paradox, antonomasia, and half-truth. In this article using a descriptive-analytical method, first, the samples of his karikalamator are presented in the poems of Ahmad Matar as a master of this technique in the contemporary Arabic literature. Then, the strategies that have been used by the poet are categorized and described. Since Ahmad Matar was a caricature designer, some cartoons and caricature patterns have been attached to his karikalamator to show the visual capability of his karikalamator. The results of the research reveal that Ahmad Matar utilizes karikalamator as a method to show the existing contradictions and differences on the one hand and to unmask the reality of inactive and garrulous governors as well as the indifference and incuriosity of Arab citizens on the other hand. In this regard, he dreams of the ignominy of governors and betterment of the people of his land.

The phenomenon of deconstruction emerged in the late sixties of the twentieth century from the point of view of structuralism. Associated with breach of the metaphysics of presence, deconstructing criticism was raised by Jacques Derrida, within which the verbal/parole aspects of the texts are violated. The purpose of this comprehensive outlook is to delve into the hidden meanings of the text and its metaphysical dimensions. Dimashq al-Ḥ arā ʼ iq was written by Zakaria Tamer, a well-known short story writer in the Arab world. This article deals with the collection of two short stories, "Mot al-Sha'r al-Asvad" and "vajh al-ghamar" by analyzing the text using the deconstruction approach. The research method is descriptive-analytic. After the text analysis, it emerges that the main contradictions in the stories are hope / despair, dignity / inferiority and captivity / freedom. By analyzing these contradictions and deconstructing them, it is concluded that the existence of contradictory inversion in the stories is due to the disapproval of the higher classes by the oppressed lower class, which is attributed to the lack of knowledge or the lack of power for confrontation.

Najib Mahfouz, a well-known Egyptian writer, has created a solid link between philosophy and literature. One of the philosophical schools is naturalism, which was introduced into literary criticism in the nineteenth century by Emil Zola. By eliminating the supernatural aspects of human life, naturalists consider man as an inherent creature of the environment and the product of inheritance. According to these premises, human life and mood are interpreted. The present study adopts a naturalistic point of view to review "Bain ALqasrain" as the first novel in the trilogy of Najib Mahfouz. It also examines the components and foundations of the naturalistic school. It is concluded that the overwhelming expression of naturalistic principles, such as the influence of the environment, inheritance, blood and temper on the lives of the characters of the novel, has made it one of the few naturalist works in the Arabic literature. An important point, however, is the traditional and Eastern orientation of the novel in dealing with sacraments and supernatural issues which has made naturalist Najib different from Western naturalists. In addition to the existence of naturalistic components and themes, the novel enjoys particular features in terms of form and structure, including verbosity, precise description of the details and scenes, and tragic end.

The folk culture denotes the aboriginal culture and knowledge covering tangible and intangible entities such as literary and artistic products, beliefs and customs, science and technology, and the common practices. Taboos and superstitions are the manifestations of popular beliefs, whose reflection on literary texts, similar to proverbs, anecdotes and myths, has a profound effect on the hearts and minds of the masses. The Algerian author Abdelhamid Ben Hadduga, the author of Rih al-janoub, has portrayed the numerous manifestations of popular culture in this novel, as in other literary works by this author. While examining the purposes and themes in which taboo and superstition are employed by Ben Hadduga, this research is built on a descriptive-analytical and critical approach to find out Ben Hadduga’ s goal in addressing social, economic, and social characteristics as well as describing the traditional and modern Algeria. His work presents a better portrayal of the intellectual challenges of the younger and older generations and occasionally criticizes the traditions. He depicts these traditions in a wide range of taboos and superstitions by considering the circumstances of the time, events, and the evolution of the story. Punishment, place, monopoly of women, and the restricted social interactions of girls are the examples of taboos. Moreover, a few clear examples of superstitions in the Rih al-janoub novel include placing earthenware on graves to water souls of the dead, overeating at funerals to bestow more mercy upon the deceased, attributing problems and adversities to fairies and spirits, and putting the tongue on red hot sickles by dervishes to pray for rain.

Owing to its realistic expression of issues, a social novel is able to reflect the realities of society better than other genres. The novel "Mama Hessa's Mice" shows the Kuwaiti society issues realistically. Sectarianism is the central theme of the events in the story. Through the analytical descriptive method, this research describes the literary and social structures of this novel and its role in the reflection of the social realities. The social structure of the novel is composed of different groups, and the type of their interaction has led to sectarian behavior from insult to ridicule and violence. The misunderstanding of ideas, addressing superstitions and blind imitation are the causes of these behaviors in this novel. Mutual respect, acceptance of others, turning to true Islam, avoiding extremism and patriotism are the solutions to this problem. The literary structure of this novel helps to cultivate the theme through unbiased narration, different points of views, child narrators and intertextual relationships.

Literary genres illustrate the author’ s interaction with linguistic features as manifested at different levels. Recurrent patterns in any text type are distinct from those in other types. Palestinian resistance is one of the most popular themes in Arabic poetry. With its contents and approaches, it has a particular style that illuminates how the Palestinian poets are distinguished for their language style. "Challenge" is one of the most important and influential songs released during the great fire in Egypt in 1952. Because of his revolutionary and antagonistic themes, the poet was wanted by the Egyptian security police. The present study aims to investigate the elegy of Challenge in a descriptive-analytic method to notify its linguistic and literary characteristics. The results indicate that Bseiso had selected a rhythmic language and a kind of monotony that can be seen in the selection of words. The poet's communist points of view, using explicit vocabulary in standard grammar, are expressed in a plain and expressive language.