Abstract:
This study deals with an important topic in the narrative
representations of the place through the narrative text. This topic is the
significance of the open space in the novels of the Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon
who published two collections of poetry: 'A Prism saturated with War' and 'One
night for All Cities'; and four novels: 'I'Jaam', 'Alone is a Pomegranate
Tree',' Fahrs' and 'Ya Maryam'. The latter was nominated for the Arab Poker
Prize and was among the final short list in 2012.
The research is divided into six sections; each section is
dedicated for a selected type of open space such as: streets, pubs and bars,
worship place, stadiums, university, and some other open places. The study
opens with an introduction about the place in general and the open space in
specific. The open space is an extension for the natural space with some
changes made by man and his needs. This space has a special importance for the
individual and his feelings because it forms a sort of belonging, sometimes man
can express himself through the places he visits. It can be noticed that open
spaces do not differ from closed one in terms of the symbolic value and their
representations in the four novels. Despite the fact that these places are
familiar and intimate to people, most of them are disappointing as
The book of a novel
is considered one of the most popular narrative proverbs in the pocke
lantern, and one of the sciences of the arts of prose
literature for humans, due to its aesthetic nature resulting from the illusion
of truth, and its arousal of pleasure and suspense in following its events
similar to the course of life that a person lives, which places it in the prose
arts edition in analysis and work, and as a goal of Therefore, analysts were
created around the clock, by following up on the clarity of the dependent
ratios between the windows and clarifying them more and more in the research
studies that were dealt with in the novel’s works.
The representation of place in the novel is an important
component of the narrative, because it adds truth to the fictional work based
on imagination, but the circle of place in the narrative text is wider and more
developed, and has a deeper vision of the abstract natural place that is not
based on a philosophical vision, so it is characterized from this angle by
stagnation compared to its fetishism. The writer relies on it because of its
aesthetic function with infinite semantic dimensions aimed at creating youthful
creativity, and the place with all its dimensions, whether real or imagined, is
formally linked to the story and its contents of character and event, in
addition to time, which cannot be imagined to exist without it.Place.
We chose the Iraqi novelist (Sinan Antun) to be the subject
of this study, and for many justifications, the most important of which is: the
passion for clarifying everything beautiful in an Iraqi style. He left a good
contribution in the path of the bright novel, because of his ability in the
components and operation of the novel in general, and the setting in
particular.
We chose the romance of an open place in Sinan Antun, due to
the diversity of connotations of this type of place, and because the writer
enjoys employing it against stereotypes, in addition to the fact that an open
place is not limited by nomination boundaries, and does not prevent freedom of
movement and its outbursts, as it inspires spaciousness, relaxation, and escape
from the world. Narrowness to the world of extroversion and openness, and thus
it becomes a stage for the movement and movements of the characters. The
research dealt with studying the manifestations of the open space in the novels
of Sinan Antun.
Therefore, we decided to organize this study into six
demands preceded and followed by a conclusion containing the results reached by
the study. In the first section, we dealt with the streets, and we devoted the
second section to bars, the third section was from the group of owners and
shrines, the fourth section was from the playground portion, the fifth section
was from college luck, and the sixth section was good and specific to
sub-places, which are difficult to include under one name that combines them.
Sinan Antun's failure to adhere to a fixed method in writing
his four novels, as each novel has a distinct writing method from the others,
called us not to limit ourselves to a specific approach in dealing with and
analyzing the topics of his novels.
This study was keen to benefit from university sources and
dissertations in which the idea of the appearance of the open place and its
manifestations in the fictional text was clarified. Among the most important of
these sources is the place and its significance in the novel Cities of Salt by
Abd al-Rahman Munif in Saleh’s Pleasure and the Aesthetics of the Place by Yuri
Lotman and others) and (The Aesthetics of the Place by Shaker al-Nabulsi. ),
(The Novel and the Place by Yassin Al-Naseer) and others.
As for the difficulties, perhaps the most notable ones faced
by this study are the same difficulties that most critical studies suffer from,
which take the narrative arts as their subject, because these arts in general,
and the novel in particular, are not written in accordance with specific
controls and principles that pave the way for the critic to deal with them
easily and smoothly. The difference is clear in their treatment and adoption
from one novelist to another, in addition to the confusion that narrative terms
suffer from in revealing their essence and basic function, not to mention the
multiplicity and diversity of their functions from one novel to another, as
there is no fixed performative feature that enables the reader to grasp the
meanings of those components or Narrative techniques and confirm their
operation once and for all.[1]
The first requirement: the streets
The street is one of the prominent signs in the novel, and
one of the most important components of the city, as it is “the mouth into
which day and night pour their work and manifestations. The street is an open
place with its turns and transformations in time and place, its capacity for a
rural urban vision, and its narrowness for the vision of small cities.
Moderation, and its residents have freedom of action, the possibility of
movement, and the ability to learn and change, and therefore its instability is
another stability” .The street takes its dimensions
from the movement of the characters in it back and forth when they leave their
places of residence or work.
When we touch upon the most intimate open space, which is
the street, we infer that the city is no longer alive without it, as it is
vibrant and full of riders, footmen, itinerants, vendors, and those moving from
street to street. Accordingly, the doors of homes open, and people flow into
the hustle and bustle of life. It is “from above.” Patterns of open space, and
semantically it means more than geography. It is the dividing line between two
worlds: the secret world and the open world, as at the doorsteps of houses and
homes, people’s secret world ends, and their public world begins, where the
street begins, and where secrets are revealed, and the depths reveal their
secrets: Demonstrations take place, weddings, funerals, kidnappings and assassinations
take place"
The moment of collision with authority in the novel (Ijam)
and the entry of the hero (Firat) into prison marks a new stage for the self by
forming an attitude towards what surrounds it, and here comes the presence of
the open external place in the novel through browsing through memory. These
places, like the streets, are supposed to be a symbol of freedom. The character
is liberated and tries to escape from the problems and psychological repression
that afflicts him in closed spaces by moving to large, spacious places.
However, Furat fails to achieve social contact with the outside place in
general and the street in particular, so the street becomes a negative symbol
contradictory to its reality. In openness and spaciousness, he looks at it with
suspicion and doubt, feeling his alienation in it, after (the street) lost its
cohesion and the rupture of its values as a result of the influential authority
changing its true concept that encourages self-liberation and unleashing its
movement, as he says: “...the side streets were guarded by the comrades who
were (They prevent any student from dropping out. Escaping was essentially
useless in marches like these. It is difficult, or even impossible, to find
buses or taxis because all the roads, or at least the main ones surrounding the
main assembly areas, were closed and cars were prevented from passing through
them.) so Furat tried resorting to imagination to get out of the crisis of the
forbidden street, when he says: “Everything was calm outside the outer gate.
There were not many cars on the street. I saw two columns of smoke from the
northern side. A cold, timid wind kissed my cheek as if it was welcoming me to
the streets of Baghdad again. The same wind was surrounding the branches of the
trees sprawling on both sides of the street, exchanging them with a beautiful
rustle. A simple and profound idea occurred to me at the same time: Isn't
freedom the most beautiful feeling in existence? Simple, trivial daily freedom.
I did not allow the “No Walking” sign that was stabbing the sidewalk to spoil
my mood. How nice it is to walk without the wall slapping me! [2]
The writer gave the streets leading to the General Security
headquarters a hostile character, because a person’s feeling of the place’s
hostility to him is not limited to prisons and detention centers. Rather, the
hostile place may be part of the city, a street, a house, or another place. The
road was similar to the one leading to Jahtam, leaving its impact on the area
and its streets and alleys. He says: “The car left the entrance to the college
and headed towards Al-Waziriya. We passed by the library from which I used to
buy some books sometimes, then we turned right towards Muhammad Al-Qasim Road
(the highway) and from there south towards Al-Shaab Stadium... A drop of sweat
fell from my forehead onto the lens of my right glasses, mocking my attempt to
look rocky... Muhammad Al-Qasim Road was passing over an old cemetery... The
car left the highway, heading towards Al-Nidal Street. I realized that while we
were heading towards Public Security). Drops of sweat increased on my forehead,
and my heart became a tribe of drums chasing each other). After reviewing the
above piece, it becomes clear to us that the street does not have the freedom that
is supposed to characterize it, and all of this is because those streets lead
To the most heinous and ugliest place, where various types of torture and human
rights violations are practiced, in addition to the fact that the street has
become equivalent to the psychological state of the hero, and this is
attributed to the reason for its devoid of any physical description, as it is
full of moral descriptions that distinguished the place and defined its data,
and with it the writer’s stamp on the rest of the streets. The novel has the
same hateful character, as all the streets that the reader will encounter will
appear similar in appearance and significance, and thus Anton confirms to us
the ugliness of the political reality at the time of the novel, by presenting
to us a picture of what the Iraqi street has become under the influence of the
powerful authority, turning into forbidden places designated only for marches
and demonstrations in support of For power and its contrived war.
Antoun tried to write down his city of Baghdad, and he did
not commit to describing it as a direct, living description. Rather, he touched
on the most prominent features that distinguish this city, and looked at its
parts that make up it, such as the empty streets and the Tigris River, as well
as its components and its cultural image resulting from that specificity that
this ancient [3]city
enjoys. By distinguishing it from other cities in the Arab countries, with its
residents, their whims, and their own jargon, he says: “Baghdad is still
yawning tiredly. Most of its shops have their eyes closed. Some passersby are
walking on the sidewalks, but the streets are almost empty”. The writer tried
to capture the most important feature that distinguishes the city of Baghdad,
which is the street, to show the impact of violence on it as a result of the
war. He did not care whether these features belong to humans or non-humans.
Rather, what is important is to take into account the distinctive, because it
is where the eye falls and the picture to be conveyed to the reader is
completed. So, if we wanted To seek the homeland in the novel, we had to look
at Baghdad, and if we wanted to imagine Baghdad, we should have looked at its
streets, the Tigris, and its distinctive places.
The street was very present in the novel (Index), as it is
one of the places where the common people move, and is characterized by freedom
of movement and the ease of establishing relationships due to its openness to
the outside world. The streets of America were devoid of direct declarative
descriptions, and full of moral descriptions. They conveyed to us feelings of
alienation according to Numair, and deepened them. The idea of nostalgia for
the streets of Baghdad. Despite their beauty and crowdedness with people, he
did not see in them the beauty that he saw in Baghdad. His feelings were not
real towards New York, the large and distinguished city on the face of the
earth, because he lived there temporarily, so his spatial experience could not
be trusted. Therefore, he is trying hard to disgrace the image of America and
beautify the image of Iraq. When the head of the committee asked him why he
applied for the job in New York, he said: “I grew up in Baghdad, which is a big
city. Although I love nature and tranquility, I adore cities, and New York is
the city of cities”. Even its most beautiful streets were not exciting in and
of themselves. Rather, they were an incentive to attend the streets of Baghdad
and the city of Al-Ghay Al-Baghdadi. He says: “...the entire ritual reminded me
of Al-Ghay Al-Baghdadi”. So the writer resorted to balancing between places,
which is “a narrative technique that he resorts to.” The novelist, when he
compares two places because they are clearly and widely different worlds, to
determine the extent of the difference between them on the cultural level”.
On the contrary, he sympathized with the streets of Baghdad
despite the harshness of its landscape and the change in its features due to
the war. Antoun could not hide the traps of nostalgia and its effect on his
characters in all of his novels. I particularly mention the novel (Index), as
it is the only novel in which most of its events take place outside Iraq, in
the United States of America. This explains the writer’s invention of the
character of Wadud, who is sitting in Baghdad, to be close to the place and a
clear witness to the deterioration of the situation. So he began by presenting
one of his deep and complex ideas preceded by the word (logic) on Al-Rashid
Street. In (The Caliph’s Logic), there is a beautiful presentation of the
mentally ill character (Haroun), who makes his home on Al-Rashid Street. The
narrator presents his conditions and circumstances that led him to madness, and
he concludes by saying: “ Harun was checking the corners of his street looking
for one of his subjects or ministers who pretended that he was not the Caliph
whenever they saw him in order to rebuke them, and he did not understand why
his kingdom was empty this morning”.[4]
The moral values in Ya Maryam’s novel are linked in some way
to the street place. Women’s freedom is associated with geographically wide
places more than it is associated with closed streets and narrow popular
neighborhoods that control the pattern of their freedom, because the streets
and large cities do not impose any conditions on women’s movement and behavior,
and their system is independent and not governed by it. Tribal or tribal
customs and traditions are more widespread in the narrow alleys. Although Dalal
(Habiba Youssef) comes from a European town, she does not prefer that Youssef
drive her to a point close to her home or the street in which she lives,
because traditions restrict her movement and prevent her from doing so. He
says: “She apologized to him and asked that he drop her off a few streets away
from the house in the Mohandiseen neighborhood and not in front of him so she
could hide herself, as she said.” Questions from neighbors and rumors,. The
writer shows us an inverse process, describing to us the wide streets as if
they were narrow places.
It is hostile, in which the individual does not have full
freedom, as strict customs and traditions have occupied the street and stripped
it of its well-known privacy. It is a place where the individual unleashes his
actions and movements away from the social rules and regulations established
for some private places such as the home, the café, and others.
The reader may see the aesthetics of the street by linking
it to a specific memory or incident, as Alzheimer’s had lost the mind of Elias
(Youssef’s brother), but Al-Rashid Street remained in his memory, as it was
where he met with his political work colleagues secretly, and this is the best
evidence of the place’s connection to the human soul. And its manifestations:
“And after he asked about the circumstances of his death while drinking coffee,
they told him about the street in which he died, and his eyes filled with tears
and he said: (See, Glory be to God! Was there a boy’s house where you made us
meet during the days of secret work? Alzheimer’s or dementia had erased
everything except... The party’s den”.[5]
The street in the novel Alone, the Pomegranate Tree, was no
different from its predecessors, as the war had done its work in it and changed
its features: “I rode a Kia car to Bab al-Muadham. Hills of rubbish had piled
up in the streets, leaving a stink. The traffic lights were not working and the
drivers were negotiating the signals, but there was no severe crowding.” (Anton
(2), 2013 (104), the hills of garbage, the stench, and the traffic chaos are
enough to convey the aesthetics of the naturally ugly and artistically
beautiful street, which the writer wanted to appear, so he was able to depict
the fragmentation and loss that befell it.
In his words: “It was about five o’clock in the afternoon and
the street seemed deserted. Hamid said that crimes are widespread and there is
murder and robbery, so many do not open their shops, and those who open their
shops close them early. My uncle was affected by his sight and said: (Is it
possible that this is what will happen to Al-Rashid Street? It is always full.
Now
Its appearance breaks the heart He depicted for us the
street empty, and the emptyness indicates that there is no sound in it, as if
it is deserted, that is, there is no life.
In it, the writer paved the way for his intellectual theses,
most notably sectarianism and random killing, by drawing Al-Rashid Street empty
and devoid of life, as if it were a barren desert. While the aforementioned
street is one of the busiest streets in Baghdad, as it is located in the heart
of the capital, it has historical roots that distinguish it from the rest of
the streets in the city.
In general, the street was linked to the themes and events
of the four novels according to Antoun, and appeared in two contradictory
appearances: one, an open, intimate place, and this is clear in all of his
novels despite its smallness, and the other does not differ in its
characteristics from a closed place, and we do not see any intimacy in it, but
rather the opposite. InThe novel (Ijam) was not characterized by openness and
freedom of movement, as it is dedicated to marches supporting the authority,
that is: it is restricted and geographically limited. As for the place in the
novel (Ya Maryam), we find that the character (Maha) did not enjoy freedom in
it, as people’s eyes were directed towards her, watching her. It limits her
freedom of movement, not to mention the words of Youssef when he walked in the
streets overlooking the houses whose people neglected the palm tree, and in (the
pomegranate tree alone), the writer used it as a stage on which he presented
the tragedy of sectarianism. As for Fahras’s novel, it is intimate if it is
outside Iraq, and horrific and terrifying inside it. The duality of
(inside/outside) had the task of conveying alienation and the traps of
nostalgia for the homeland. For Namir, it is a cause of estrangement and
loneliness and a good reminder of the streets and alleys of the homeland, and
for Wadud it is a place in...[6]
Its way to disappear and end.
Second requirement: bars (bar or bar)
The bar is a place in contemporary Arabic novels, to which
the character resorts in cases of sadness, anger, and distress to alleviate the
distress of the psychological state he is experiencing. It is often mentioned in
political novels and novels that express social and sexual repression, as it is
considered a place of alcohol, which the Arab person resorts to as an escape.
From his crushing reality, and his oppressed and suppressed present”
It constitutes a transpersonal rest stop, or a place where
personalities meet to exchange opinions and ideas, or to pass on conversations
and news. Its situation is like the case of cafes and restaurants, where it
attracts a person who does not find a loophole in his routine places that would
enable him to present some of his frank opinions or those that are prohibited
from being circulated in those places, so he takes refuge in the bar. Where
there is freedom, and not besieged by social systems.
The mission of the bar or restaurant and the like is not in
the place itself or in itself, but rather in the events that it will present to
us because it does not have a synthetic nature of its own, so it is easy to
replace it with another place similar to it in the advantages of places for eating
and drinking. The point is in this place, not in itself, so that through this
self-configuration it is difficult to replace it with another place, but what
matters in this place is what will happen after dealing with it, touching it,
or being adjacent to it.”
From the following excerpt, it becomes clear to us that the
Righteous One was not mentioned for his own sake. Antoun did not bother
describing his details and tools. Rather, the purpose of his presence was to
open up to topics that were close to the goal of the novel and its basic theme.
Most of the talk came about this man who was a regular in attending. The bar,
and about the absurdity of the war that took his son from him. It is obvious
that the bar distances the events of the novel and changes its course according
to its nature, being a place for drinking and losing one’s mind and balance, or
a place for entertainment and killing some time. However, the writer stripped
it of its specificity and used it as a vessel that does not keep its temporary
residents, but rather takes them around the places from which they came and
will go when he says: “We did not feel overwhelming joy, but rather
With calm comfort, because we knew that our death would be
postponed until further notice, or another committee, or another war, we
celebrated that day by going to our favorite bar on Al-Saadoun Street (Mansour
Mansour). The bar was next to the Iranian Airlines office, which people
attacked in the first days of the war, burned it, and turned it into a urinal for
drunks... A man we had always seen there was sitting next to us that day. He
used to come regularly every day, as the waiter told us, after work ended at
three in the afternoon and sit in the corner alone, then put in front of him a
picture of his son who had been missing in the war for four years...” The bar
is a familiar place frequented by intellectuals. The writer wanted to present
it in a different way than what is commonly known about it and is known, which
is that it is a despicable place where drunks and destitute people sit. He
says: “We entered the first bar we encountered and stayed drinking for three
hours... At that time, Saadoun was studying the Arabic language in Secondary
school... He invited me to join the (Al-Khayyam Association and its weekly
sessions. The origin of the name is that the bar of the Al-Khayyam Hotel was,
and remained, for more than a decade and a half of years, the headquarters of
the leadership of ((Capacity Operations)). This is the term coined by Saadoun,
who was adept at launching... Terminology and nicknames, on the weekly drinking
sessions that were held every Thursday... and she, along with Saadoun, became a
permanent and active member in the last years of the association. What remained
constant and unchanged was Saadoun’s madness, who used to liven up the nights
with his jokes, sideburns, and poems, especially Al-Khamriyat, who was He
memorizes it and remembers it easily). It is clear that the sessions in this
place were not to kill time, to spend happy moments, or for the purpose of
drinking and addiction to it. Rather, the place gathered an educated class of
people, whose only concern was to gather around a table. One, even if this
table is set for drinking alcohol. They exchange news about sports, politics,
and art, and exchange opinions. They visit outside the family to obtain a
degree of liberation that comes from housing and work. Their last concern is
drinking alcohol. The evidence is that most of them stopped drinking for health
reasons or because of their progress in... the age.
There is no doubt that the bar is a place designated for
drinking alcohol, and that this image is fixed in people’s imagination, but
Antoun conveyed to us a different image, as he says in the words of Numair: “..
Miraya said to her ((I will take him to the old man’s house.)) and her mother
said: (( This is an excellent idea. If someone eats our food, let him listen to
our music.)) I liked the name of the store ((The Old Cradle)) and the cradle in
black culture means home. Maraya said that it is a small bar where young jazz
and blues musicians come to play, and sometimes some celebrities pass by.[7]
..The old cradle was not far, but it was small. We paid the
entrance fee at the door and found two chairs at the bar and had to carefully
sneak between the tables to get to the bar.. It was a whispered phrase. “Music
is more beautiful than your voices.” It is written on a piece hanging behind
the bar in reference to remaining silent while playingThe image of the place is
beautiful, as it was intended for listening to music before it was a place for
drinking alcohol, revealing the culture of its visitors. Their main purpose, in
addition to calling it (the old cradle), which overturned Namir’s pains,
incited his wounds, and revealed his intentions, is in the sense of the house
that he always searched for, the young, represented by the family, and the old,
represented by the homeland.
The third requirement: places of worship and shrines
The religious place is the place that has constant
communication between the lowest and the highest, and is characterized by
sanctity for a certain sect, and in most cases it is a center for people to
seek refuge and refuge, in addition to being a place of worship and prayer, and
a refuge for every individual who seeks Comfort, peace and tranquility.
The religious place is the material (earthly) side of
religion compared to the spiritual (heavenly) side of it, and there is a real
dialectic between religion as a heavenly law, and the earthly place that links
the individual to his belief and religion, and from here the truth of the
relationship between heaven and earth emerges.
What justifies a person’s refuge in a religious place is his
feeling of the depth of the place’s spiritual dimensions, as if it is a gateway
to the divine presence according to the majority of religious beliefs. Symbols
(prophets and saints) play a prominent role in demonstrating the strength of
this spiritual affiliation, as the religious symbol remains present in the
corridors of the place. Indeed, it assumes the personality entering those
corridors, and from this we have Muslim, Christian, and Jewish personalities,
and thus we cannot define the features of religion in all its frameworks
without seeking help from the place. Rather, the religious place acquires a
special sanctity. Generations, despite the diversity of their culture, have not
been able to abandon the essence of their belonging[8]
Anton's religious places varied, as he dealt with religious
places specific to Christians and others specific to Muslims. The church is in
the novel Ijam, and the novel Oh Mary is of special importance because of the
many roles and functions it plays that have a hand in enlightening the
significance of the novel. In the novel (Ijam), Furat talks about His grandmother
and her going to the church located in the Christian decade in Baghdad, and he
takes the opportunity to reveal the extent of his belief in religion and its
people, as he says: “I loved that church because it used to take me to it when
I was a child. I loved the solemnity of the rituals and the incense before the
books led me away from the faith. And I still do.” I remember the stork's nest
that I used to see on its dome. I participated in the ritual of the First
Communion, after which Jesus was supposed to enter my heart. In it (our father)
washed my feet with a group of boys, as Christ did with the apostles. I refused
to participate at first, but she insisted and made me swear an oath. In memory
of my father. But (our father) did not kiss my feet as Christ did. Rather, he
merely brought his lips close to them after washing them with soap and water.
My grandmother became angry when I told her about the missing kiss and accused
me of fabricating the accusation. (Our father) is the representative of Christ
on earth, and he cannot deceive her. She was That was the beginning of our
disagreements between her and me about the church and its men. The writer chose
a character who was intellectually far removed from religion and its teachings,
and her storming of the church place played a major role in defining his
relationship with religion, and his fascination with the sanctity of the place,
because these places remain preserved. With its prestige, sanctity, and ability
to attract those who enter it, but the writer took advantage of the mention of
the place to justify his character’s weak faith, and her outlook towards the
church and its representatives, to practice the same rejection that we see
spread throughout the conflicting parties of the novel. He does not accept
authority or those who influence it, and we seek the same rejection with
religion, its beliefs, and its men. Emphasizing the hero's anger at the
diversity of types of corruption in all parts of the country and its
institutions.
This is also the case with the character of Joseph in the
novel, Mary, who was fair in his view of religions. He was not religious, and
he rarely visited the church, despite his absolute belief in religion and its
beliefs. We see him feeling in awe of the place and starting with complete
freedom, so he described the place in a way mixed with the feelings and
feelings that The reader does not expect it from a character like this;
Throughout the novel, he criticizes religions and does not favor one side over
the other. He takes a position against the ideas of the Christian as well as
the Muslim. Religion did not constitute a burden on his life. Rather, he lived
a life saturated with culture and free, free thought. He says: “Although I was
not regular in attending... However, I loved its aesthetics and enjoyed its
ancient rituals and traditions, especially if the deacon or priest’s voice was
melodious. The hymns, incense, bells, the priests’ decorated clothes, and the
invocations resonated with my soul... I used to imagine that the priest’s
voice, especially when he chanted in Aramaic or Syriac, Coming from the distant
past and from mysterious beginnings. I saw the Mass as a celebration of life,
of birth, death, and resurrection, not for Christ alone, but for everyone. I
imagined Christ as a sacred tree that would not die, no matter how storms
uprooted it or whether it was swept away by floods. A tree that returns to life
every springIn order to give the reader a sense of the realism of the place, we
note that the writer sought harmony between the words used in describing those
holy places, to highlight the value of those places to the reader as holy
places that comfort the souls within, despite his neutral view of religions.
The holy place did not achieve its significance in the
pomegranate tree alone until after the character of Jawad entered it, and it
was characterized by other expressions related to the depth of the visitor’s
thought. These holy places did not arouse Jawad’s interest, and he did not
intend to visit them because he did not find in it a way to escape from his
miserable and miserable situation, because It is common knowledge that people
visit these shrines to receive blessings, out of their belief in the ability of
the saint to mediate with God, and there are those who believe that the saint
himself has the ability to fulfill supplications. But Jawad goes into depth in
describing the place, Mazar al-Kadhim, not to bless the place and sanctify it
like the common people, but because he sees it as a space that allows him the freedom
of self-confidence and the unleashing of emotion to control his actions and
responses. He says: “I looked at the two domes and the four pulpits and then at
the black sky. Then my eyes went down to the two domes, then to the door of the
shrine, and I began a silent conversation with Al-Kadhim that I had not
planned. I said to him: Sorry, I have not visited you for years. I have chosen
another road, which is full of dirt and does not lead to mosques. A bumpy and
difficult road that crowds do not take. And my travel companions are few, and I
still am. And I ended up being a prisoner like you, my lord. But I am a
prisoner of my family and my people, and a prisoner of death that has descended
upon this land. It is now possible for me to escape from this prison” (Anton
(2)) (2013: 237), the shrine took on its old form after Jawad bestowed on it
his bitter positions, situations, and events. The act of visiting combined
Jawad and his impressions with the old signs that the shrine possesses, and
through their struggle, they produced the act of practice that gave the place a
new, youthful form, and what helped in this is The shrine contains its ancient
historical practices in addition to new ones, which in turn will turn into a
language that strengthens the place and makes it alive and renewable. In
addition, the shrine is one of the places deeply rooted in the past, so events
will multiply within its scope and images will overlap in its newly created
present due to the abundance of its past, which is a generator of connotations.
And concepts.
The novelist presents us with places of a different nature
in the unsafe city environment. The religious shrines had a different
inspiration than what the writer is accustomed to about the hero. He is
desperate and miserable, and does not see a glimmer of hope in changing the
situation, but he achieves unity of communication with his confused self,
immersed in doubt. Because the place spoke to him and gave him an opportunity
to reconcile and dialogue with himself, to vent. Thus, the place achieved its
desired goal and gained the individual’s trust and made him feel familiar and
safe. He says: “Images and feelings gathered in my two inner domes: my head and
my heart. All the statues that I had not sculpted and the drawings that remained
sketches in my head were crowded together. Reem and her breast that the wounds
removed and our relationship with it. Ghaida And her body that flew away from
me like a dove. My father, my mother, and my Hamoudi. The faces of the bodies
that I washed and shrouded on their way to the grave. Tears poured down and
covered my face. I remained in that space in which I could cry without the need
for explanation and without shame. Pain and wounds now have a lung to breathe
from. Sorry, oh Musa bin Jaafar, I cry myself in your presence and on your day.
I am the stranger among your visitors, a stranger like you, and I cry myself
(Anton (2) 2013: 238237). In the hero Jawad’s dialogue with Al-Kadhim, we see a
strange characteristic of death. It has become like a prison in its form and
characteristics, so death was colored and varied. His nature: he is one time
the main character of the novel, and another time he is a place and lords over
all the other places in the novel, and at other times he is time with its ugly
face. This religious place provided the opportunity to look at the other side
of the character of the hero Jawad, as the place imposed its sanctity and
prestige on him, and enabled him From what was on his chest to come out, he
cried bitterly and without shame.
The fourth requirement: the stadium
The image of the place may change and change according to
the circumstances surrounding it, or affecting it. Football stadiums in Iraq
have become devoid of an atmosphere of joy, entertainment, and joy, due to the
practices of certain individuals who have the authority to command and prohibit
the place. This is an indication that the place is not isolated from its
external surroundings. Rather, it may take on different dimensions depending on
the circumstances controlling it, so it loses its ability to choose its
occupants, and its true qualities are lost in the midst of new characteristics
imposed on it by the tyrant in accordance with his principle of monopolizing
freedom, as Furat says: “The emergency forces charged with protecting the
palace were the ones who supervised the security of the stadium.” When the
professor attended the matches, and as soon as Falah arrived, we joined the
crowds crowding outside the outer gate... then we were inside the stadium wall.
There were many emergency forces soldiers in full gear, with police dogs... and
they were unleashing the police dogs in moments.
“The slander caused some spectators to bite while they
sadistically laughed at himThis narrative passage clearly illustrates the great
gap between the people and the authority, and the narrator’s use of the stadium
came to expose the dimensions of a place that people had always imagined was
intended - only - for entertainment and enjoyment, but the writer deliberately
stripped this place of its basic structure, so he changed its appearance,
played in its original form, and then occupied it with people who would take -
Obviously, he had a bad impression of him. This process is one of the most
prominent methods used to demonstrate the extent of the dominance of the
authority that confiscates the people’s freedom and stifles them through
various means. By turning the familiar, happy place into a theater of absurdity
and injustice. It can be said that the writer in such realistic novels is far
removed from the architecture of the place. We do not see the construction hand
that he practices in building his imaginary places, but he is credited with
Attaching characteristics specific to the focal (central)
place to this secondary place; That place is the primary driver of events and
the cause of all of them. The writer is also credited with his ability to
neglect that focal place/prison, and unleash the hero’s memory to delve into
other places that have only a little of the brutality and terror of prison. No
matter how much some of them try to attach the idea of hostility to these
places by issuing the most horrific descriptions against them, we will see them
maintaining Despite its low degree of hostility compared to prison and the
heinous practices that the human soul is subjected to there. The writer wanted
to describe the real imprisonment that the people suffer through the vulgar
practices practiced by the authorities against the people and in all aspects of
life, and in places that are not expected to be characterized by these
characteristics.Hideous.[9]
In his words: “The seats began to fill up, with the
exception of a small corner on the right side of the field behind one of the
goals. One of the geniuses had decided to put a large picture of himself and
hang it on the poles so that it faces the field (perhaps) so that the seater
could watch all the matches), and thus the stands became located Behind the
dead picture, where the green rectangle cannot be seen, the writer was able,
through a public place such as a football field, to place the reader in front
of the main subject of the novel, indicating that the authority has the most
prominent role in determining the names of the place and its functions. The
place had its own dimensions, but the authority changed its taboos and
manipulated its privacy, filling the place with features far from its nature,
turning it into a hostile environment that the authority exploits to exercise
its power over the people.[10]
We can see the true picture of the stadium in the novel
Alone, The Pomegranate Tree. The place is beautiful and brings joy and
enjoyment, and this explains the true qualities that this place has. Thus,
Antoun has touched on all the possible aspects of the place. It is familiar at
times, and hostile at other times. We notice in The novel itself is that Antoun
did not mention the actions and practices of the authorities in transforming
the stadium into a military barracks, as in Ijam’s novel. The reason is that in
Ijam, he used the stadium to bring the image of the prison closer to the
reader’s mind, whereas in The Pomegranate Tree alone, it was the place to bring
the image of the father and his view towards his son, Jawad, closer to the
reader. In addition to highlighting the personality of Uncle Sabri and his love
for Al-Zawraa Club, and for the player Falah (Hassan), Jawad says: “I was very
happy after the match and I told my mother and father all its details and the
atmosphere of the stadium until my father’s patience became exhausted and he
said: (It is enough, my son is not dizzy with Al-Zawraa. Hey, how is it?
dilemma?"
onAfter extrapolating and following up on the four novels,
we can be certain of the writer’s attachment to this club and to the player
(Falah) (Hassan), as the club was mentioned in the first three novels, with the
exception of the novel by Index, and the name of the player Falah (Hassan)
appeared in two novels, in addition to naming one of the characters in the
novel Ijam. In the name of (Falah). In the novel, Oh Maryam, the writer conveys
to us through the mouth of the hero Youssef the news of this sports figure with
extreme accuracy, and this explains the real purpose behind using this place,
as the writer visited it documenting his favorite football team, in addition to
it being the place with which the writer opened the third chapter of the novel,
not to mention His introduction to the character (Saadoun), who is credited
with referring to the main event of the novel and its founding, as he says: “I
decided that the date
The writer insists on distinguishing between Youssef's
optimistic view of goodness and Maha's pessimistic view, by presenting - over
and over again - Youssef's opinions that inspire reassurance, security, and
stability, to make it easier for himself to describe the condition of Maha's
character, whose opinions intersect with Youssef's opinions, and she differs
from him in his optimism, and considers him exaggerated. In it, he says: “Maybe
I remember all of this today because I read that Falah, who two months ago had
returned permanently to Iraq after two decades of exile in America, would run
for president of the Anton Football Association, Here the writer was forced to Acting on the
reality of events in order to pass them on according to what the events of his
imaginary novel, its propositions, and what is compatible with its basic issue
dictated to him, so he should have been exposed to what is imaginary and of his
own making, not distorting and arranging real events, because Falah Hassan - in
reality - refuses to assume the position of president. The Football Association
in Iraq, due to the security conditions and the miserable situation that Iraq
suffered from in that era, and this will create a rift between the writer and
the competent and educated reader, not to mention that the novel depends
entirely on realistic events, including the church incident (Our Lady of
Deliverance and other events). Historicism is rooted in the minds of Iraqis,
past and present, and this in turn will make the recipient doubt the events
that the writer wanted to appear without frills or manipulation of their
reality.And its realism.
Fifth requirement: College
The writer's choice of the college as a location for his
novels was not an easy matter, because the place is full of connotations, has
multiple functions and images, and is suitable for being a hotbed for any human
activity, in addition to its primary function as an institution specialized in
research and education whose primary mission is to spread science and
knowledge. The semantic fragmentation of the place/totality is the reason for
the diversity of its type, the multiplicity of its identity and the function
assigned to it from one novel to another according to Anton, so the place
performed its duties in line with the author’s desire to address the themes of
his four novels. In Ijam's novel, the concept of this place was linked to the
basic theme of the novel, which is the relationship between power and language.
More events were mentioned in it than the events of the focal place, which is
the prison. Thus, the place of the narration (the college) became contradictory
to the place of the main event (the prison), and it became a means of
expressing the larger prison, or These virtual prisons were established by the
authorities and their dictatorship throughout the country.
The difficulty of dealing with this place becomes more
apparent after the writer decides to diversify the process of employing it.
Sometimes it is more like a prison in that it closes in on the student and
prevents him from exercising his rights and duties, and sometimes it takes on
its natural and customary role and is a creative place, in which the character
moves easily and establishes his natural relationships. This is evident through
the relationship of the hero Furat with Areej in the same place from which he
was taken to Public Security.
Various types of torture were inflicted on him, mixed with
extreme sadism. He says: “...we walked towards the main gate. I always
complained about the long distance between it and the classrooms and the
courtyard, but it seemed very short that morning. I liked to arrive early to
avoid the crowds. There was not a lot of traffic.” The students had arrived
yet. I searched for a face that knew me, perhaps to record my absence.” The
college corridors are a place for the general student population to move, and
it is an open and familiar place, but it took on a hostile character in
exceptional cases, due to the original situation and the hero being taken to
the General Security headquarters. The distance was long in normal days, but it
became very short at that moment.
Thus, the fictional place cannot be isolated from human
existence because “the place is a lived reality, and it affects people to the
same extent that they affect it, so there is no empty or negative placemeaning
that the college was not an accidental place, or It is of no use in the process
of conducting the events of the novel. Rather, we see the positive in it, as it
is the place opposite or a striking rival to the General Security headquarters,
and the movement of all events begins from it, not to mention its election as a
place from which the epic of injustice and tyranny begins.
The value of this place becomes more and more clear as the
events of the novel progress and develop until we become certain that the
college is not a secondary, passing place, but rather a real alternative to the
prison, full of connotations that any writer looking for ease in presenting a
topic like this desires. Furat says: “Professor Kamal was talking about the
historical and social context that... It led to the emergence of the Theater of
the Absurd and the importance of Beckett’s plays, when it was interrupted by
knocks on the classroom door and one of the comrades entered in his khaki suit.
It is time for the Baath to boycott the absurd . The writer emphasizes to us
the arrogance of power by employing most of the state’s institutions to serve
its interests. The college is a place dedicated to education, where people of
knowledge, including students and professors, meet. The writer has achieved his
goal of exposing the authority’s treatment of the people by exploiting a place
that had long been forbidden to desecrate, breaking the monotony and stability
of the significance of the place, and giving it to him from his imagination, to
obtain in the end a place charged with meanings. It is filled with connotations
and contradictions; it is a deaf prison, a paradise of love, a hotbed of
knowledge, and a micro-society for the emergence of relationships and
friendships.
The novel (Only the Pomegranate Tree) places every place
with its own special significance, not different from the general significance
and the state of destruction that befell Iraq and the sadness and pain that
befell its people. These places became a true witness to the interaction of
society’s sorrows with the places that were destroyed, as happened in the
college, as Jawad says: “ I descended from the hill of rubble and felt the
rubble that I was carrying inside me growing higher, suffocating my heart. I
passed the Fine Arts Department. Its building was intact, except for the
windows that were shattered and the air conditioners that had been removed from
their iron frames. In contrast to the places that encourage In death, the
writer resorts to something else that brings happiness. The College of Fine
Arts was a real and clear alternative to those places indicating fear and
terror, but we notice that it also included a share of destruction and
devastation, so the place that inspired life turned into another state
different from its reality, and it became desolate and depressing, losing its
characteristics. known about him.
We can glimpse that particularity that stems from the
writer’s value of one place over another through his conscious choice of it,
and his derivation of it from the subject being treated, which gives it a
functional aesthetic. He was unable to evade those places that were familiar
and beloved to himself, because they were far from the places of the turbulent,
agitated, and sad topics in the book. His four novels were mentioned to add a
kind of joy to the novels, despite their falling - sometimes - into the trap of
depression and sadness. Accordingly, the focal (central) place in the novel did
not achieve success in its performance except by relying on the secondary place
and relying on it to complete its given task.
The totality in the novel (Index) had a different function
than what we saw in the three novels by Antoun, because the writer, in order to
reduce the excesses of imagination in the novel, tried to balance experimenting
with places that give credibility to what he narrates, and through Namir’s
text, making the place in the novel similar to its real appearance, stemming
from its reference. Realism, after he had relied on places steeped in
imagination through a friendly text.
It is known that the construction of the fictional place takes
place through language, and it is not the place in its nature and reality, but
rather it is a place that the author creates in the text through words.
Therefore, the novelist intends credibility in what he narrates when he makes
the place in the novel conform in its external appearance to the truth. Fenmir
is a university professor (PhD student) and it is obvious that most of his
movements take place in the university and college in which he studies and
teaches, so a large number of important events that served the theme of the
novel took place in the college, except that the college was not the place that
the writer intended, rather there were places Its affiliates took the
leadership role, and the college is only an incubator for those central or intended
places. The novelist may limit himself to a specific spatial focus, or
marginalize the place - as Antoun did to make room for the event, despite the
importance of the place that is the incubator of this event. After Namir
responded to the invitation of an assistant professor in the Department of
Political Science to attend a lecture in his class to talk about Iraq and the
war, He says: “I tried to talk objectively about the contradictions of the war
discourse and its strategic goals, away from the illusions of democracy. I
mentioned what the economic blockade had done to Iraqi society, and I pointed
out the escalating violence and the necessity of ending the occupation as soon
as possible and handing over Iraq to the United Nations ,So the college
had a good nature. In revealing Namir's critical view of the war and its
contradictions, and talking about the afflicted Iraq instead of offering
gratitude to America for ridding the country of dictatorship, and talking about
the siege that destroyed the fabric of Iraqi society, and the war that ignited
the flame of sectarianism, the college in America became a parallel and
complementary place to the central place/Iraq in which it is located. The
action, and the overall image of the place in which the event takes place
seemed secondary, or unclear compared to the place/Iraq that is being talked
about. The author did not focus on the totality as much as he focused on the
event and its events despite the fact that the totality contains focal places,
and central events took place in them, because He took it as a framework for
those events, not to mention that Antoun had poured his energies into Wadud's
text after having prepared all the means for himself, beginning with Wadud's
eccentric character and ending with Wadud's trick and his project entitled
(Index), and his adoption of that philosophical view calling for writing the
history of the victim's victim. And it did not differ
And in the first minute of it.[11]
Sixth requirement: Open sub-places
The construction of the place according to Antoun did not
take place according to certain controls, or fixed methods that were
established according to their terms and conditions. We explained this in the
fifth section of the first section, which forced us to study a group of diverse
closed places in an independent study, which was not easy to include under the
name One thing unites them all, and the reason for this is the decentralization
in the construction of the place that characterizes the four novels, especially
the novel Index, in which the writer relied on the method of writing it on
indexing, that is, mentioning everything without its details, as he says in a
friendly voice: “In the beginning, the explosion and all of existence was a
forest.” Of the fragments that fly and escape in the cosmic darkness...”
(Anton, 2016: 246). Thus forming a very complex painting, in which the place
becomes a symbol or a puzzle, even if it is marginal, we will see it performing
its function within the framework of its marginality .-
These places are infrequent in the novels compared to the
central places that the writer relied on, and their quality varies from one
novel to another, except that “the place plays its role without necessarily
being prominent in the titles. Rather, this invisibility in prominence may be
an indication of the depth of the spatial influence That is, the significance
inspired by the place does not necessarily emerge from the place as a whole, as
it can emerge from one of its elements or its complements, and the decisive
factor in that is the spatial context in the fictional text and the composition
of the novel’s elements within this context. Therefore, we will adopt the same
approach. Various open data, in order to maintain the accuracy of the research
and its safety from methodological errors.
places with The fictional character in the
novel (Index) is the list of actions that the writer wants, and it is a tool
for depicting and representing elements of human beings, and it is often the
most important element of stories, even if those characters are animals,
plants, or inanimate objects, as they represent or depict people, i.e. Exposed
to human traits. It was the reason behind the diversity of the place and the
difference in its dimensions and boundaries from one story (logic) to another.
It is worth noting that the writer did not want to present the tragedies and
scourges of war in a superficial way, because this method has become common and
vulgar. Rather, he created a symbolic method in which he narrated plants,
animals, and inanimate objects, presenting their whims or desires, and then
stopping at that moment to describe their death, and their endings were that
one unifying characteristic. she has. So he prepared the reader’s mind to
accept this delirium by choosing the character of Wadud, who is psychologically
disturbed, to undertake the narration of what cannot be narrated, because
listening to things and the dead is not one of the characteristics of a normal,
rational person, but rather one of the characteristics of the insane, as his
psychological disorder produced a confusion between the real and the imaginary.
This is a characteristic reserved for the insane, but it became poetic as soon
as it entered the text. We found the Kashan speaking, the oven groaning, and
the animal regretting its past.
And so on: “Humans only bid farewell to their acquaintances
and loved ones. As for things, they bid farewell to each other, but they also
bid farewell to humans. But we rarely hear their voices and whispers because we
do not try. We rarely glimpse the smiles of things. Yes, things, too, have
faces. But we do not see them, and who does see them yet? To suffer and train
himself to do so, and whoever talks to her becomes crazy, according to you”.
that it Wars work to release the hidden
energies of man. With awareness and will, he transforms from a being imprisoned
within his existential walls imposed on him by his restricted life to a being
who has the ability to live after re-transforming and modifying the self, and
formulating it anew, so he is able to fly, and escape himself from his forced
place that shackles him. With harsh restrictions, he is liberated, carrying
with him a message full of will and determination. All of this is not
accomplished except after liberation from a place where living is forbidden to
another that expands life and its hopes. He will only find the sky a place that
embraces his hopes and dreams. Flying in the sky can be interpreted as a symbol
of freedom, as it may be the vastness of the place. An affirmation of the
freedom of the individual, or an affirmation of the exit from oneself to the
other, and the sky itself can be a symbol of ascension, spiritual ascension,
and immortality, because in many religious and mythological beliefs it is
considered the throne of the gods and their abode. The eternal, as “it is
common among many primitive peoples to have an awareness of a distant god
present in the sky”, as “the Sumerians linked kingship to the sky as it is its
source, and there was a god named (An). , meaning the sky, and he is the father
of the gods, and his name was a symbol of the sky and divinity at the same
time,
Man, of course, does not fly, but he sees the freedom that
birds possess, so he tries to interact with them and fly with them,
experiencing their spacious sky, and starting out in it: “The sky is all mine
and the earth belongs to my eyes. With a slight movement of my wings I tilt and
turn, rising and falling..., but he soon collides with a bitter reality, as his
sky is occupied by large birds scattering fire everywhere, and black smoke
changes its blueness and disturbs its serenity. This is how the writer wanted
to describe Iraq as a place that is not suitable for living, and does not house
humans or non-humans. He says: “...I am afraid of flocks of huge iron birds.
They may come back again, as they did before, to hover above us and chase us.
Their sound is deafening, and I do not know how they fly.” She is blind? Why
are fires spreading everywhere
The places took on different dimensions and different
interpretations after they reversed their meaning and their concepts deviated
from their usual path. The sky, which was associated with blue and
transparency, became a habitat for metal planes and their missiles and missiles
instead of playful birds. The place that returns to dreamy nature is associated
with sleep that reveals death, and thus the scales of life were turned and
disturbed with vibration. The throne of place and its absolute reality.
The nature in the novel (Fahrs) is colored according to the
psychological state of Wadud’s character, so it expresses its sadness,
brokenness, and pessimism. It shares Wadud’s sorrows and suffering. At times,
the sky becomes dark and covered with dust at other times. He suffers and is
admitted to the hospital to be treated because of his deteriorating
psychological state, as a result of his torture, and it is destroyed. His
psychological state, as he says: “A huge dust storm arose, covering everything
and everyone of us with a thick layer. Despite the effort of cleaning the place
in...
The next day, and from the taste of the dust, the view of
the sky that day was wonderful, for me at least” (Antoun, 2016: 223). This
confirms nature’s sympathy with Wadud, as it shared his concern and expressed
its innermost feelings, so its color became darker and more pessimistic, to
align with Wadud according to the influential changes. What happened to his
condition, which added a dark, sad color to nature, which in turn was reflected
in the character’s psychology, as nature is not “a geographical place that embraces
events and personalities in a certain period of time, but it is also an
intellectual, historical, psychological formation and a future outlook
Anton did not look at things in isolation from the
characters. They were not merely a follower, an echo, or a complement to the
work of the characters so that they could perform their role to the fullest.
Rather, things, plants and animals played a starring role in most of Wadud’s
stories, and in many cases it was humans who completed her work and were subordinate
to her, and the logic of the oud is a good example, in which he says: “I saw
him breathing the soul into my brothers all these years with a mixture of joy
and sadness. A brother would leave sooner or later. Musicians would come and
point to my brothers, and my father would carry them to them. They would play
on them and deal with the price, and another brother would leave without me
seeing him. And I would remain alone with my father. But he had not come for
three days” (Antoun, 2016: 120). It is clearly visible that the heroic role in
this story was played by the thing (the oud), as it is the only speaker, and it
is the one around which the events are based, and it is the meaning of the
whole work. It is also clear - the secondary, complementary role assigned to
the human element, as the writer chose (the thing the oud) to be the rudder.
Events, as it leads us to the fate of the only human character in the story,
because “writing a novel is not only based on bringing together human actions,
but also on bringing together things that are all necessarily linked to people,
distantly or closely. In the same way, Antoun wanders into the space of his
imagination to accustom us to understanding these stories and grasping their
meaning and purpose, which are linked to facts that he wanted to embody for the
reader in a fantastic way to distance himself from imitation and simulation,
and in a cinematic way that comes from his directing ability in making and
filming films. The same method is repeated in a group of the writer’s stories
in which he instructed Wadud to write, such as: (The Logic of Al-
We will not find the important details of the daily lives of
people in the general, specific and framed places, but rather we find them in
the corners, isolations, sub-places, and ambiguous spaces Al-Hudood Al-Nasir,
2015 (58), and that is through the creation of a new place by breaking it up
into small units, that is: isolating the place from its natural relationship. ,
demolishing and shattering his totality, and then making him possess his own
selves or entities, each of which has its own boundaries far from the totality
to which it belongs, and from here the parts become to have their own powers,
in addition to their subjectivity, and to be able to speak with their own tongue
and language .[12]
If “focusing on a specific place means its centrality and
importance in the eyes of the character, then the multiplicity of places and
their fragmentation indicates the dispersion of this character (Allam, 2012:
152-153), meaning that the multiplicity of foci in the text is the result of
the multiplicity of discourses intertwined in it” and in This
characteristic is shared by both Numair and Wadud in the novel (Index), as they
are divided; The first suffers from alienation and loss in his country and in
the diaspora, and the second has lost his mind through torture, and is tired of
successive wars against his country, the last of which was the war that took
his soul, so we do not find them in the text focusing on a specific place. This,
in turn, was reflected in the novel as a whole, as it is characterized by
fragmentation, and its events are characterized by spatial disarray, as the
places were numerous and varied between realistic and fictional ones, and the
critical reading of it may differ from one critic to another, as there are
those who consider it spatially fragmented and others specify a focal place for
it, taking Iraq as an explicit example. (Unrealized utopia).
A careful reading of Antoun’s fictional place gives us
confidence in the interpretation of its semantic results. Destroying the old
place and establishing another place in its place will have a negative impact
on society, by dismantling the bonds and relationships known to the people, and
imposing a kind of sadism and tyranny by the authorities, as he discusses The
narrator in the novel Ijam referred to this affliction, saying: What, “Shakan
binu rahu demono? Attjakh, sweet, it was!” And I agreed with her that the new
unknown soldier that was built near the palace is one of the ugliest things. I
wonder if it will also be demolished or transformed into a museum for the years
of misery and ugliness? .Conflicts arise
between civil society and the authority. Each authority comes to begin a
campaign to refine and disfigure the one before it. The first thing it begins
its campaign with is to change - as much as possible - the topography of the
place to suit its ideology: “It is as if there is a huge shovel.” Each regime
kidnaps it from the one before it to continue the demolition and deepen the
“grave, and society will then be a witness to this transformation, and to the
values that have begun to be undermined and retreat to make way for the
mentality of the new authority, to dominate the entire institutions and
facilities of the country. The rift between society and the ruling authority
deepens.
And since the place represents the central framework of the
novel Alone (The Pomegranate Tree), as it is the subject of events, the novel
overflowed and its realistic images varied, as “no single image can contain the
place, because some images deal with the history of the place, others bear its
marks, a third designates its location and spot, and a fourth It deals with the
successive periods that it went through, and a fifth deals with its continuity
in the present, and this is what led the writer towards experimenting with
different and frequent visions about the place, to deepen with it the general
state of confusion that created a rift in the Iraqi social fabric, so he
presented the place metaphorically. Outside the scope of any practice or
observation by the mind, all of this is reflected in the structure of the text,
which seemed more flighty and dark, as Jawad says, describing sectarianism: “In
the past, there were lines or some waterways between the Six and the Shiites
and between this group and that group, which were easy to cross or not.” We see
it. And now, after the earthquake, the ground cracked and the streams became
gullies. Then the gullies became valleys filled with blood, in which those who
ventured to cross drowned. The image of those on the other side of the valley
became enlarged and distorted. And from these valleys appeared creatures that
had become extinct or who thought they were extinct. Ancient myths returned to
cover the sun with darkness and then shatter it until every sect and sect had
its own sun, moon, and world. Then the concrete walls rose to conclude “The
Tragedy. The novel tried to be closer and more involved within its fractured
reality. Therefore, it decided to express the most prominent and present
phenomenon, which is the tragic sectarian conflict that emerged after the
occupation, and in which the writer wanted, in most of the pages of the novel,
to record and depict its obscene remnants, uttering warning cries in the face
of this destructive curse, in which the reputation of death was widespread,
with an almost complete absence of love, hope, and the future. Trying to
normalize a single image that only establishes pessimistic patterns.
We are not about to reveal everything that is beautiful,
because it is immersed in the existence of beauty away from ugliness, because
the ugly is beautiful in itself, meaning that the writer’s places are not
necessarily beautiful in order to produce a distinctive painting for us. The
writer “who paints away from imagination and without the colors and images of
this imagination, does not He draws nothing but surfaces, and the viewer sees
nothing but surfaces, meaning that the writer is first and last responsible for
adding beauty to his places, not because they are beautiful or ugly, but
because he adds to them from his imagination, to bring them closer to the
recipient’s minds in a way that has an impact. It has a positive impact on the
reader, in addition to its integration with the subject of the novel, its
contexts, and its desired goal. “The place becomes a solution for the creator
when he wants to escape, or when he goes to a world that is foreign to his
reality, to project upon him his visions that he is afraid to address. Here,
the place turns into a symbol and a mask that hides the directness and allows
the creative’s thought to flow.” To leak through it.The destruction
that appears clearly in a place is more severe and clear than the effect of the
same destruction on people, and this explains why Anton resorts to places and
things more than people to show the extent of the enormous devastation left by
the war.
The desolation of the place and the intensity of its
hostility is the reason behind the writer's reliance - sometimes - on imagined
places, and the reason is either that he wants to surround their hostility by
making them mythical in order to reduce their impact on the reader, or because
he wants to flesh them out or intensify them more after adding to them from his
wild imagination, which is In this way, he will succeed in introducing the
reader into his own world with all its aspects.
The writer may use the place as an excuse to ask
philosophical questions, such as those that came to his mind when he observed a
group of actors performing their acting roles. He says: “I returned to my
apartment thinking about the fate of the character. The movie must end. The
senior actors assume the characters and identify with them. The actor’s
character disappears temporarily.” But where do the characters go after the
acting ends? Do they die? And if they die, do their ghosts hover around us? Or
do they remain homeless, searching for a new story to live in temporarily?. He
did not go on to talk for a complementary or cosmetic purpose. ,
The scene was not without benefit. Rather, it was at the
heart of the idea and meaning of the novel. It compared a person to a ghost
that is not embraced by a specific place, because place has no importance for
ghosts. They - as is believed - wander around however and wherever they want,
and this is consistent with the situation of Iraq, which has lost familiarity
and safety. After the war affected it and destroyed its structure, it became a
place unfit for life.
[1] Al-Nabulsi,
Shaker, (1994), The Aesthetics of Place in the Arabic Novel, first edition,
Arab
[2] metaphor,
first edition, Nineveh House for Studies, Publishing and Distribution, Damascus
- Syria.
[3] Dr.
Saleh, (2010 AD), Place and its Significance in the Novel Cities of Salt by Abd
al-Rahman Munif, first edition, Modern World of Books for Publishing and
Distribution, Irbid
[4] Publishing
and Distribution. Al-Nusair, Yassin, (2015 AD), Introduction to Spatial
Criticism (Discourse, familiar boundaries - differentiation - placement between
distance - efficient metaphor, first edition, Nineveh House for Studies,
Publishing and Distribution, Damascus -
[5] Dr.
Saleh, (2010 AD), Place and its Significance in the Novel Cities of Salt by Abd
al-Rahman Munif, first edition, Modern World of Books for Publishing and
Distribution, Irbid
[6] Antoun
Sinan, (2013 AD), The Pomegranate Tree Alone (a novel), second edition, Dar
Al-Jamal, Beirut - Baghdad.
[7] Al-Bazai,
Saad,), Narrating Cities in Novel and Cinema, first edition, Arab House of
Science Publishers, Difference Publications, Algeria. Butor, Michel, (1986),
Research in the New Novel
[8] Al-Sawah,
Firas, (2017 AD, Complete Works / 14, Encyclopedia of the History of Religions,
Primitive Peoples and the Stone Age, Book One), fourth edition, Dar Al-Takween
for Authoring, Translation and Publishing, Damascus - Syria.
[9] Al-Majidi,
Dr. Khazal, 2018 AD, Sumerian Prophets (How did ten Sumerian kings turn into
ten Biblical prophets?), first edition, Cultural Book Center, Casablanca -
Morocco.
[10] Same
previous source
[11] Allam,
Abeer Hassan, (2012), The Poetics of Narrative and Its Semiotics in the
Metaphor of Love, second edition, Dar Al-Hiwar for Publishing and Distribution,
Lattakia - Syria. Lotman
[12] Same
previous source
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق