Chapter 3: Fairy Tale and the Collective Unconscious in Abu
3.3 Analysis of the Novel
3.3.2 Plot Summary of Umm al-Duways
workings of the unconscious. Thus, one of the distinctive features of the Gothic and psychoanalysis is the “sense of the mysterious and immobilising past” (220). This is where the individual is represented as fundamentally confined “by an omnipotent but unseen past” (Kilgour 220). Moreover, the Gothic and psychoanalysis both view the individual as being involved with “an overdetermined chain of relations,” and the desire to stay or go back to a previous stage hinders individual change (221). This occurs in Gothic fiction when the character becomes haunted by the sins of the father or when the character tries to return to a certain period of his or her life either to return the stability of that period or to resolve a conflict raised at a previous time in his or her life. Thus, Kilgour concludes, that “psychoanalysis is a late gothic story which has emerged to help explain a twentieth-century experience of paradoxical detachment from and fears of others and the past. Both are symptoms of the alienation peculiar to a modern bourgeois society” (Kilgour 221). Overall, the Gothic and psycholanalysis share a common ground, whether in the terms they use or in their backgrounds that helped their existence. Because each of them developed separately, as Gothic preceded the existence of psychoanalysis, the former provided the latter with a fruitful ground for psychoanalytical theories. Nevertheless, literary scholars cannot only view Gothic fiction through a psychological lens, since it is not totally dependent on psychological analysis, as it also incorporates historical, political, and cultural perspectives in its analysis.
accumulated since childhood; that is, the fairy tale “Umm al-Duways” is a mythical fear that he struggles to overcome. Therefore, the employment of the fairy tale in Abu al-Reesh’s novel is not particular to a specific society, especially because the novel’s title does not imply any specificity. The novel opens with a flashback scene of Fayrouz being raped by an Iranian soldier as a child and being displaced from his island off the coast of Ras al-Khaimah.17 The people of the island are located in the city of Ras al-Khaimah, which is the setting of the novel. Besides the fairy tales that Fayrouz absorbed from his mother, this incident shapes the core of the protagonist’s struggle in the novel. The displacement is a “diasporic journey” as Fayrouz describes it, where “dreams faded away, and new dreams emerged”18 (Abu al-Reesh 9).19 Fayrouz suffers in adapting to life in a new place after being displaced from his hometown on the island. The island’s identity is obliterated; consequently, Fayrouz’s identity is as well. His mother dies sometime before the migration, and his father dies after moving to the city. Therefore, Fayrouz feels estranged in a gloomy and
17 The author does not provide any more details of this invasion except for the emotional state that is created as a result within the protagonist and the reference to an Iranian soldier. Later in the novel, the protagonist refers to certain districts that belong to the city of Ras al-Khaimah, which is one of the emirates that form the UAE. Historically, in 1971 just before the independence of the UAE, Iran occupied three islands located in the Arabian Gulf. One of them belongs to the emirate of Sharjah (called Abu Musa), while the other two belong to Ras al-Khaimah (called Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb). Both islands, Abu Musa and Greater Tunb, are inhabited by people. In this novel, Ali Abu al-Reesh is probably referring to this historical incident, although the description of the island’s location in the novel is to the east of Ras Al Khaimah city while in reality, it is to the west of the coast.
"م أ تأر و ،م أ تردوا تا رلد ةل ر ف"18 19 Translations are my own unless indicated otherwise and I owe my profound gratitude to Dr. Raja Lahiani, from the Department of Languages and Literature at the UAEU, for reviewing my translations.
depressing place. The place is no longer familiar, and the people are unconcerned about the mischievous changes and violations that people of the island have faced.
After obtaining a degree in psychology, Fayrouz faces more inner torment.
This inner conflict is between the collective unconsious image of the female figure that has been implanted in him and the psychoanalytical interpretations of the thoughts that Fayrouz shapes in his mind of the female. He suffers from continuous illusions and dreams that originate from his childhood, through the fairy tales and his rape and dislocation from his hometown. Earlier in his childhood, he had learned of Umm al-Duways and knows that she haunts males. Therefore, the tale of this female jinni occupies his thoughts. These thoughts affect him as he grows up, hindering his development. He generalises the early image of the murderer Umm al-Duways to one of all females. Therefore, he decides to determine the truth of the image of Umm al- Duways, which he believes people find troubling, and asks his childhood friend Abū Sayf to help him find the truth about this jinni. Through this investigation he intends to delve into the idea of fear. Abū Sayf is fascinated by females and used to criticise Fayrouz for living in isolation and being afraid to encounter females. He helps Fayrouz meet an old religious man who knows the Umm al-Duways myth. From the moment Fayrouz visits Abū Sayf and the old man, the conflict within Fayrouz’s inner self increases on account of the conflict between the fear that occupies his thoughts, growing by the day, and the image of the female. This is because Abū Sayf continues to provoke but also to underestimate Fayrouz. He accuses him of hating females and of not being able to deal with them. Abū Sayf’s accusation against his friend, in addition to Fayrouz’s own earlier wounds, disturbs Fayrouz’s psyche.
Fayrouz consequently lives between reminiscence of the past ‘good old days’ and the continuous illusions, dreams, and hallucinatory moments that depict his struggle with
fear and its relation to the female image. This makes him sometimes doubt that he suffers from neurotic symptoms. However, Fayrouz, the psychologist, is aware that the illusions he encounters are mere accumulations from the past and do not exist in reality.
The novel shifts back and forth between incidents of reminiscence and the current protagonist’s fear of the female. Fayrouz realises the depth of his inner conflict with the female when he reaches adulthood, and he resorts to his earlier memories in order to resolve this conflict. The past initially appears in the novel as an expression of nostalgic feelings, which its protagonist experiences after moving from his homeland. However, reflection on the past soon becomes a way for Fayrouz to cure himself by examining the relationship between what he faced once at an early age and his inability to reconcile with the female. Thus, the author tries to demonstrate that Fayrouz’s later fear resides in his early life and his unconscious.
The conflict is also depicted by the way the protagonist shifts between voices in his narration, as he combines various viewpoints and, in most instances, uses first-person (I) or second-person (you) narrative when addressing himself. This not only suggests his internal conflict but also emphasises the split in his identity and his unstable psyche. Al-Reesh’s use of this technique in this novel is important for two reasons.
One is that it helps in creating a connection between Fayrouz and the reader, thus involving the reader within the conditions that Fayrouz experiences; this is part of the Gothic tradition, in which the readers are also affected by the text’s atmosphere.
Another reason is that this technique supports the protagonist’s aim, namely searching for the truth about Umm al-Duways. The technique provides various viewpoints of the protagonist himself and the rest of the characters, rendering Fayrouz an omnipresent protagonist. This helps to question not only the myth but
also the collective unconscious of all human beings. Because of the inner conflict that the protagonist experiences, given that he does not arrive at convincing answers, he decides to abandon people and all the thoughts and reminiscences that have burdened him for so long and stays on an isolated island.
On the island, Fayrouz faces Nabhan, who is Fayrouz’s split personality.
Fayrouz reveals to Nabhan his struggle and asks him about the truth of Umm al- Duways. Nabhan clarifies to Fayrouz that in order to overcome his struggle, he needs to stop living in ignorance and to stop following the beliefs that indicate mere ignorance, one of which is the fear that resulted from the tales created around the Umm al-Duways character. Nabhan continues that in order to know the truth there is a need to falsify an existing truth and create a new truth instead. This is because truths are created by human imagination, and when we accept a particular imagination’s truth, it turns into a truth inherited throughout generations (Abu al- Reesh 325). Nabhan takes Fayrouz on a sea journey to discover the unknown and to reach the truth of Umm al-Duways. As we read more, we understand that Fayrouz has undergone such psychological trauma that he has developed a split identity, and Nabhan is just a separate character in his mind. Nabhan embodies the protagonist’s conscious, and Fayrouz symbolises the unconscious. The trip that Nabhan takes Fayrouz on is one into his own unconscious in order to unravel Fayrouz’s early struggles.