The Employment of Actantial Roles in Saïd Khatibi's Novel "Firewood of Sarajevo" (In Light of Greimas' Actantial Model)

Author
Abdulaziz Hammadi
Payame Noor University
Abstract
Narrative texts hold a prominent position among critics and researchers in the field of semiotics, as they are recognized as the most effective literary texts in this domain. These texts comprise narrative components and elements that encompass multiple functions. Owing to the novel’s possession of these components and functions, it has occupied a vast space for research and study, surpassing other literary genres despite their longer historical precedence. The character in the novel is recognized as the most widely utilized element in studies and theorization, because it imparts dynamism to events and exercises complete dominance over the other elements of the novel. The French researcher Greimas introduced a narrative model for analysis, in which he divided the narrative structure into three axes based on its relationships and distributed character roles into six actants that drive the novel’s events. This model is derived from the functions of the narrative structure, and the Greimasian actantial model is employed as a tool for analyzing literary texts. In this research, an analytical-descriptive method is adopted to examine the techniques of the actantial model in the novel Firewood of Sarajevo by Saïd Khatibi. This is accomplished by mapping the narrative actants and their three axes onto the text of the novel, based on Greimas’ theory of the actantial program. The aim is to comprehend the truths that lead to the subject of the novel and the motivations that propel the characters within it. The actants are identified based on the roles the characters perform in the text of the novel. Among the most significant findings of this research is that Saïd Khatibi has skillfully succeeded in distributing roles within his novel and utilizing the actantial model. This is clearly reflected in the narrative space of the novel, such that this space has become coherent and interconnected thanks to the transformations brought about by the various characters within the narrative text. Each character in the novel has played a vital role in advancing the events, lending depth and dynamism to the text. In this way, Khatibi has been able to present a complete literary work, where roles and characters are seamlessly interwoven to create a compelling narrative, rich in dramatic transformations. This strategy of role distribution based on the actantial model has significantly contributed to strengthening the novel's plot and rendering it more cohesive and engaging.
Keywords
Actantial Model, Arabic Narratology, Firewood of Sarajevo, Saï
d Khatibi
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