Studies in

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Al-zaman al-Mouhesh written by Heydar Heydar portrays the values and traditions of Syrian society. It depicts characters who, in terms of being cut off from past traditions, have become desperate, defeated, incapacitated, atheist, and nihilistic, features which are far from revolutionary characteristics. This article examines the speed of narration in the novel based on the narrative theory of Gerald J. Prince. The objective is to examine the relationship between the time of the novel - measured by seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years - with the length of the story text measured by rows, pages, and paragraphs. Although the exact fictional time within which the novel is set is not acknowledged, it takes place within a three-year time span. There is not correlationship between temporal and causal elements in this novel. The unity of place and the main character (narrator) are the elements that give the novel its unity. As the novel feature no orderly beginning and ending, everything is simulteanously intertwined and irrelevant. Likewise, events are scattered. This novel deviates from traditional motifs and techniques including a concern about human beings, ancient Arab relations in the form and context of the narrative, and temporal and spatial structures. The narrative speed of the novel can be analyzed in five main categories. This study suggests that the author has made maximum use of techniques such as interplay between scenes, the phenomenon of alternation and assurance through narrative deceleration.

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The character is a main element in a dramatic text as a playwright often relies on specific dimensions of the fictional character to convey ideas, hence the character plays a significant role in developing the events. This study, based on a descriptive-analytical approach, examines characterization in Youssef Al-Ani’s I am your mother, Shaker!. This play is one of the pioneers of socialist literature in Iraqi theater due to the intertextual relationship between Umm Shaker and the character in Maxim Gorky’s The Mother. The most important findings of the study are the following: Al-Ani is the first Iraqi writer to present a woman (Umm Shaker) as the hero of the play, the mother with an iron will, extraordinary political awareness, and unwavering faith in the victory of the national revolution. Al-Ani draws the characters from ordinary people, so the audience identifies with them quickly. The message that Al-Ani intended to convey prompted him to use the colloquial dialect delivering his theatrical and intellectual speech to the illiterate members of society. It seems that Al-Ani paid more attention to conversation (monologue) than characterization as do not find any transformation in the characters throughout the play. The characters are hostage to the popular revolution and the theatrical event.

 

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The police novel is different from other types of fiction because it considerably motivates the reader. It is arguably notable that the entire Arabic literature is almost devoid of this type, i.e. the police novel. Its scope revolves around crime, investigation, and the search for a solution in the end. Even if one may identify examples of this type of fiction, they do not rise to the level of the detective novel. In order to partially fill this gap in knowledge, this study examines the structure of formation and semantics in King of India, a Lebanese novel written in police/detective mode. The following questions are, accordingly, addressed in this study: what is the status of the police novel in Arabic and Lebanese literature and how does the police appear in the The King of India. To answer these questions, the study uses a descriptive-analytical framework.

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