Structural Analysis of the Characters in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Novel Honey and Bitterness Based on Greimas’s Actantial Model

In narratology, the character is not merely a living entity within the story but a fundamental component of the overall narrative structure, whose semantic and actantial roles play a decisive part in shaping the plot and generating meaning. The most basic yet essential function of the character in this framework is the role of the actant, which is systematically defined in Greimas’s actantial theory and considered applicable to all narrative forms. Greimas’s model, based on three binary pairs—Sender/Receiver, Subject/Object, Helper/Opponent—offers a structured method for analyzing the position of characters within the narrative and their contribution to meaning-making.This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Greimas’s model in the structural analysis of narrative by examining the characters in Honey and Bitterness, a novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun. The novel, with its multilayered and psychoanalytic narrative, reflects identity crises, cultural ruptures, and internal tensions experienced by the Arab individual in a transitional society. The characters are embedded in a network of actantial relations that guide the trajectory of the narrative. Using a descriptive–analytical method and applying Greimas’s model, the study investigates the fundamental roles of the characters, their interrelations, and their placement within the semantic structure of the text.Findings confirm the success of Greimas’s actantial model in analyzing the novel’s characters. In the first pair, actants include Mourad, Malika, Samia, and Wiyad, who pursue goals such as liberation, identity, and justice. In the second pair, helpers like Malika and supportive relationships, and opponents such as patriarchy and social crises, function as enabling or obstructive forces. In the third pair, the final receiver is not explicitly present; rather, the narrative’s productivity is realized through the transformation of the characters themselves.