It examines the Gothic elements in Ali Abu al-Reesh's Umm al-Duways and Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad, and analyzes these works as examples of contemporary Arabic Gothic novels. Chapter Three is based on the connection between early European fairy tales and the Gothic elements of literature.
Introduction
This study emphasizes the study of the Gothic genre as part of contemporary Arabic novels. I show the contradictory attitudes towards the Gothic, which resulted in an indeterminate definition of the genre.
Historical and Cultural Context of the Gothic
Introduction
The Origins of the Gothic
The cultural revival of Gothic began at that time in the western parts of Europe as a result of social, economic and political changes in the 18th century, embodied in "[u]rbanization, industrialization [and] revolution" (Gotika 23 [1996] ). Thus, he notes that this genre is "an inevitable product of the revolutionary shocks that reverberated throughout Europe" (64).
Critical Approaches to Gothic
Therefore, historical analysis in Gothic fiction would not hinder the understanding of the psychological motivations of Gothic. This is because some scholars who have focused on the psychological analysis of the Gothic have ignored its historical side, while the part.
Review of the Definition of the Gothic
The journey for forbidden knowledge in the Gothic can be related to the past, the present or a future prophecy. For example, the settings of the Gothic novel when it first appeared are old castles.
Oriental Source: The Arabian Nights
The combination of the primitive and the modern helped create what Gothic is. A third reason is that the success of the Gothic novel is achieved by relying on "the unseen and the mysterious" to create a sense of suspense (3).
Medievalism and the Crusades
Walpole also declares, in his first preface to the novel, "that a writer would not be faithful to the manners of the times who must omit all mention of them. One view maintains the Eastern origin of the romance, which is "derived from oriental stories imported into Europe at the time of the Crusades - or earlier, during the Moorish rule in Spain" (Clery, "The Genesis" 34). At that time, specifically, Europe was in contact with Arabs from Andalusia (Spain and North Africa) and the northwestern regions of the Middle East as a result of the European occupation of the Levantine coast of the Mediterranean Sea during the Crusades.
In this way, knowledge from the fields of astronomy and astrology, as well as various fields of science and literature, was translated. For de Bruyn, the Middle Ages inherited this opposing view of the Orient from ancient Greek literature and philosophy. The idea of the Other could be, for example, between social classes of the same culture.
Conclusion
The nature of this period gave rise to the principles of the Gothic, which contrast two notions of love and hate, greed and benevolence, threat and peace, passive and dynamic. The European idea of being different from the East dates back to the Middle Ages, before the Crusades. Such a statement indicates a connection between the idea of the grotesque in the Middle Ages, which defines the 'other', and matters specifically related to Asia, and the idea of the grotesque felt in Gothic fiction, which writers used to define the denote medievalism.
Despite the fact that Gothic originated in Europe, Emerson's statement suggests that Gothic is not specific to European culture. Therefore, examining the historical literary influences of the East can also help define Gothic and its nature. This is consistent with Michael Gamer's view when he suggests that Gothic is not immovable and that there is a need to understand the historical alterations and general transformations that Gothic embodies.
Fairy Tale and the Collective Unconscious in Abu
Introduction
In The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre, Jack Zipes explains why fairy tales are still relevant to modern authors. When the Gothic first appeared in 1764, Walpole claimed that his work was written sometime during the Crusades, the second boom in fairy tales. Therefore, it is likely that some fairy tales can be understood as semi-Gothic stories.
Using the ideas above regarding the likely relationship between fairy tales and Gothic, this chapter will analyze Gothic elements in Ali Abu al-Reesh's novel Umm al-Duways. Abu al-Reesh is considered one of the most important writers in the UAE. Al-Reesh's use of this story helps highlight the Gothic elements in the story.
The Fairy Tale “Umm al-Duways”
His novel Umm al-Duways is based on a fairy tale popular in the Arab Gulf countries. Umm al-Duways,” on which Ali Abu al-Reesh built his novel, is one of the most famous tales in the UAE and has been passed down through countless generations. This story is also popular in other Arab Gulf states and some neighboring Arab societies such as Iraq.
According to The Concise Dictionary of the Dialect of the United Arab Emirates by Falih Handhal, the story “Umm al-Duways” depicts a mythical female jinni carrying one or two sickles in her hand (30). It is called Umm al-Duways because the word for sickle in the UAE culture is dās, and "duways" is the diminutive of. Thus, the jinni in the fairy tale "Umm al-Duways" was named after her ownership of the sickle.
Analysis of the Novel
- Gothic and Psychology
- Plot Summary of Umm al-Duways
- Themes and Motifs
A form of the repressed is expressed in the Gothic through dreams, which are related to the unconscious. He generalizes the early image of the murderer Umm al-Duways to one of all women. One way to explain Fayrouz's suffering regarding the myth of Umm al-Duways is the previous image of the woman that society shaped generations ago.
Identity lingers at the center of the themes conveyed by the Gothic genre, and it is. He seeks to confront his own fears in the search for the truth about the myth of Umm al-Duway. This doubling is also an expression of the repressed desires from Fayrouz's past life.
To overcome the identity crises he faces, Fayrouz seeks to pursue knowledge and the truth of the Umm al-Duways myth. The knowledge he gains indeed makes him weaker in the face of the myth.
Conclusion
The relationship with the woman is one of the incidents in the novel whose author questions the reader as to whether they actually occur or are merely an expression of Fayrouz's unconscious. Similarly, in Gothic, power and its influence over the protagonist, or even the power that the protagonist wields over others, is an essential characteristic of the genre. These are the hidden powers of Gothic fiction that Punter describes and which the community tries to use for the sake of “the subjugation and victimization of the subject” (quoted in Alexander 18).
As Punter explains, “Gothicism in its heyday was often concerned with the covert operations of power and the subjugation and victimization of the subject.” Due to the power exerted on the main character under the influence of the myth, Fayrouz turns out to be an ambivalent character. Durot-Bouce notes that “Gothic assumes a dual, ambivalent function” (qtd. in Georgieva, The Gothic Child 166).
The Political Gothic Novel: Ahmed Saadawi’s
Introduction
Both cases show that politics is the hidden engine that resulted in the existence of the Gothic. Punter and Hogle, among other critics, see that Gothic fiction arose out of the anxiety felt by the middle classes due to the new dominance of their ancestors over the monasteries and aristocracy. These changing titles point not only to the growing popularity of the Gothic as a genre, but also to a shift in the genre itself; hitherto essentially a subgenre of the sentimental novel, around 1794 Gothic romance began to reinvent itself as a literature of terror.
Another idea that suggests the relevance of the Gothic to pre-Revolutionary politics is the fact that the pioneering critics of Gothic fiction, De Sade, Montague Summers, and Devendra Varma, all agreed that the Gothic "became popular in response to the events of the French Revolution" (40 ). According to Miles, mortmain is "the dead hand of the past" or "the will of the father that echoes through the generations, along with his sins." The second characteristic of the political Gothic is that it "is a recognized subset of the Gothic," or in other words, the work still falls under the category of Gothic fiction (Miles, "Political Gothic Fiction" 137).
Plot Summary
As Hadi walks through one of Baghdad's districts, he realizes that he doesn't know what to do with the creature he has created. On the day after the explosion, Hadi realizes that the creature, or as he calls it, Shisma, is no longer home, and the reader learns that the spirit of Hasib Mohamed Jaafar, who dies in that explosion, has taken root in the creature. . From that time on, Baghdad witnesses mysterious murders as the monster begins to take revenge on the people who form its body by suffocating their killers.
Shisma wants to take revenge on behalf of everyone whose body parts formed him, and who were wrongly killed. Once he gets his revenge on these innocent people, he starts killing everyone he meets to keep himself alive. His body parts are then replaced with new remains of recently deceased people with the help of a group that supports the creature's mission so that he can continue to exact revenge on the remaining innocents that make up his body.
The Western and Eastern Frankensteins
Godwin's attitude is paralleled in Saadawi's novel if one bears in mind the novel's context and time. According to Sterrenburg, the political issue in Shelley's novel turns into a personal one for the main character, Victor Frankenstein, as he struggles between his own eagerness and "the horrors around him," and "[thereafter] a battle takes place within" (152) . As a result, the corpse, which he names Shisma, becomes a device symbolizing the anarchy and destruction caused by the invasion.
Therefore, evil is imposed from outside, and Shisma is a representative of the alien politics applied in Iraq after its 2003 invasion. The spirit transmigrates, and far from losing its life-principle through the change of its appearance, it is renewed in its new organs with the fresh vigor of a youthful activity. While Shelley's novel is a reflection of Victor Frankenstein's psychological evil, Saadawi's novel, according to Sterrenburg's analysis, is a reflection of external evil imposed on the Iraqis by the new policy.
Analysis of the Novel
- Themes and Motifs
Moreover, one reading of the governess in Henry James's The Turn of Screw suggests that she is mad. Ibrahim al-Dughairi notes that the image of the old woman in the conscious differs from that in the unconscious. Elishva's house plays a prominent role in conveying the Gothic elements of the novel and suggests the old woman's madness.
Meanwhile, Faraj rushes to the old house after being informed of the association member's visit. He finds that the Iraqi perception of the Assyrians created a sense of doubt in the Assyrians' history and life. Hadi is shocked at the scene of the mixed flesh of the people who die in the explosion.
Conclusion
Conclusion
