Fatemeh Mohabbat, Sajjad Esmaili, علیرضا حسینی,
Volume 19, Issue 2 (8-2025)
Abstract
Time in novels often follows a horizontal and linear course, but sometimes a kind of disorder occurs in the story's time, which Gerard Genette, a French structuralist theorist, called anachronism. The novel Sata'er al-Atma by Walid al-Hudeli is a depiction of Amer's feverish ninety days in the dungeons of Zionism, where the element of time plays an effective role in the believability of the main character's life and his moods and characteristics in the reader's mind. The story Sata'er al-Atma is involved in the disorder of three times and, considering the numerous time turns, it can be adapted to Gerard Genette's theory of narrative time. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the anachronism in the aforementioned novel using a descriptive-analytical method based on Gerard Genette's chronological order and sequence. The results of the research showed that the present novel is consistent with Genette's theory of time atrophy, and in this novel, Walid al-Hudeli often disrupts the linear order and sequence of the story, and uses a variety of retrospect and futurists in the time of the narrative text, giving the characters and events greater depth and richness. In addition to helping the emotional understanding of the characters, these time atrophies transform the reading experience into a deeper reflection on the concept of time and how it affects human experiences.