Chapter 3: Fairy Tale and the Collective Unconscious in Abu
3.4 Conclusion
The convergence between the two genres of the fairy tale and the Gothic in terms of some of their features is undeniable, especially since some earlier fairy tales can be seen as semi-Gothic tales. Ali Abu al-Reesh’s novel, Umm al-Duways, provides a singular example of the use of the fairy tale within a Gothic context.
Although the novel’s title refers to the famous fairy tale, the way Abu al-Reesh approaches the tale turns it into a Gothic novel. Kased explains the difference between the traditional “Umm al-Duways” tale and its use in Abu al-Reesh’s text. He suggests that the author employs the traditional tale of “Umm al-Duways” in the novel as a symbol only. Therefore, the author has the freedom to manipulate the main text for his own purposes. He suggests that if the author had dealt more explicitly with the fairy tale within the text, he would have been confined to or restricted by the frame of the original work. Thus, the main text dominates the new work (Kased). Therefore, implying the original tale of Umm al-Duways, instead of employing it in the novel, helps Abu al-Reesh to move beyond the tale’s frame and allows the integration of the Gothic in this tale. The Gothic consequently works well in this novel, since it is the kind of conceptual novel that Kased suggests because it
،ىلوبد ةر لل " 52
نأ سلا ووريف
لل سدو ،سارواسو ،س غودر ،ة ذك ناك ( ".. ك لد ا ىلإ س
338 .)
does not create conflict aside from the conflict of concepts that the author aspires to convey (“Umm al-Duways: A Journey”). Abu al-Reesh aspires to deliver the notion of the social subordination of an individual that is achieved by the generation of fear, a result of the collective unconscious. He presents this conflict within his protagonist Fayrouz’s psyche, showing how the protagonist experiences prolonged and gloomy despair, fear, and psychic struggle. Indeed, various Gothic literary works do give particular attention to conceptual ideas. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one example;
it is based on the concepts of eternal life and beauty.
The conceptual perspective that some Gothic literary works follow might be a result of the “cautionary strategy” that Botting suggests is found in Gothic writing (Gothic 7 [1996]). That is, the Gothic always “warn[s] of dangers of social and moral transgression by presenting them in their darkest and most threatening form”
(Botting, Gothic 7 [1996]). Accordingly, the struggles that the Gothic represents are not necessarily something that can be seen, but they might exist conceptually. The other element that helps in focusing on concepts in the Gothic novel is that it draws something from the past. As a consequence, a dialogue occurs between the past and the present: “The present thus challenges and comments on the past; but conversely, the past is resurrected for the present age to illustrate what has been gained, and as a reminder of what could so easily be lost” (Mighall 10). The past is no longer something that can be changed or dealt with. Thus, dealing with issues from the past becomes a conceptual issue as well. The last point to illustrate the employment of the conceptual tendency in Abu al-Reesh’s novel is that the setting is mostly within the protagonist’s psyche instead of in a physical setting such as one finds in The Castle of Otranto, where the castle plays an essential role in the novel’s Gothic effect.
Both the fairy tale and the Gothic are concerned with the self. However, they have distinct approaches to self-portrayal in each genre. A significant convergence between the Gothic and fairy tale in terms of the self is that in both, the self needs to undergo certain trials to achieve the aim of each genre. Nevertheless, they conclude differently. Fayrouz goes through various obstacles in the face of the cultural myth of
“Umm al-Duways” in order to achieve selfhood. Since fairy tales’ meanings to an individual change according to their need at specific ages, the “Umm al-Duways”
tale deviates from the fairy tale standards when Fayrouz becomes an adult. This turns the tale into a Gothic one when it is associated with his earlier identity crises.
The negative impact of the myth on the protagonist is apparent in adulthood.
Fayrouz’s self is splintered and reflected in three characters in the novel, a phenomenon which hinders his redemption. His friend Abū Sayf is an expression of Fayrouz’s id. Nabhan is Fayrouz’s ego and he is what the protagonist attains by murdering Fayrouz. Fayrouz is the super-ego, the unattainable concept that he creates for himself. It might appear to the reader that Fayrouz has attained selfhood when he has a relationship with a female he claims to see at a hotel and then decides to isolate himself from people and live alone on an island. Nonetheless, Fayrouz cannot attain the identity that he aspired to, even on the island. The relationship with the female is one of the novel’s incidents regarding which the author puts the reader in doubt as to whether they really occur or are merely an expression of Fayrouz’s unconscious. The protagonist, himself, doubts if he really met that female at the hotel. Furthermore, the novel’s ending might suggest the protagonist’s reconciliation with the myth and specifically with females. In reality, Fayrouz subordinates his own personality and allows the existence of Nabhan instead. When Fayrouz describes the isolated island that he leaves to find the truth, he describes it as a metaphysical world. This can be
an indication and a warning that fear will keep on resonating among people. Fear is no longer explicable in the novel; it becomes the dominating power over individuals.
Additionally, Fayrouz returns to the point where he began, on his native island, which emphasises the idea that he has not attained self-identity.
Power is a prominent component in both the fairy tale and the Gothic. Zipes claims that “issues of power and domination” are essential to understanding fairy tales (Fairy Tales 147). Similarly, in the Gothic, power and its influence upon the protagonist, or even the protagonist’s exerting power upon others, is an essential feature of the genre. In Umm al-Duways, power and domination are evidenced by the influence of myth upon the novel’s protagonist and the fear that controls his life.
Here, myth becomes a representation of the collective unconscious of the patriarchal community and ignorance’s domination over an individual. These are the hidden powers of Gothic fiction that Punter describes and that the community tries to use for the sake of “the subjection and victimization of the subject” (qtd. in Alexander 18).
As Punter explains, “the Gothic was, in its heyday, frequently concerned with the hidden operations of the power and the subjection and victimization of the subject”
(qtd. in Alexander 18). The power exerted over Fayrouz turns him into an ambivalent character. He is both a passive and subordinated character on the one hand, and on the other, a revolutionary who aims to attain freedom by embarking on a Gothicised quest for forbidden knowledge. However, passivity prevails in the character of Fayrouz, though this contradicts his name, which means “victory” in Persian. As a result, Fayrouz is guilty of continuous boundary transgressions. The more power oppresses him, the more he transgresses the known and the acceptable. Although Fayrouz’s transgression passes by, he reasserts the existence of fear and its domination over people. Gothic writing challenges orthodox norms and social
boundaries. However, it “ends up reinstating them,” as Kilgour suggests (9), or as Botting explains, “[t]he terrors and horrors of transgression in Gothic writing become a powerful means to reassert the values of society, virtue, and propriety” (Gothic 7 [1996]).
Because of the power practised on the protagonist by the influence of myth, Fayrouz turns out to be an ambivalent character. The struggles he deals with make him unable to reconcile with his inner thoughts, and he refuses to accept social conventions. E. Durot-Bouce comments that “the gothic assumes a twofold, ambivalent function” (qtd. in Georgieva, The Gothic Child 166). Georgieva adds that the Gothic has no intention to balance these opposites (The Gothic Child 166).
Because the Gothic is built on ambivalent incidents, it does not aim at reconciling these ambivalent sides, and the novel’s ending shows that Fayrouz returns to the point where he began. Power in Gothic fiction is not only embodied in cultural beliefs and myths, but it is also present in the political atmosphere, as is evident from some early Gothic novels which depict the threat to the aristocratic social class.
Later, it appears in the colonial texts of imperialism. In the twentieth century, Gothic and its relation to political discourse are present as a result of postcolonialism, invasion, and occupation. One example is discussed in the following chapter.
Chapter 4: The Political Gothic Novel: Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in