Narrative Structure in the Novel “Shadows of Qatamoun” by Ibrahim Al-Saafin: A Critical Reading

Abstract

Objectives: The study aims to provide a critical reading of the narrative structure of the novel “Shadows of Qatamoun” by the novelist Ibrahim Al-Saafin.

Methods: The study benefited from the narrative theory, using the tools of description and analysis. This is to demonstrate the narrative structure of the novel by following up on the novel techniques and the formal structural dimensions that the novelist employed in the artistic and aesthetic narrative aspect of the novel, as well as the study's grasp of the content and visionary joints of the novel.

Results: The study monitored the formal artistic structure of the novel as an aesthetic narrative that raises a realistic and articulated issue in the history of the Arabs in general and Palestine in particular. The study showed that the structural artistic architecture of the novel was based on a set of basic structures that achieved coherence and solidarity in the world of the novel. On the other hand, the study illuminated the overall picture in which the imaginary and the historical were combined in what the novelist Ibrahim al-Saafin presented to the Palestinian individual and collective scene.

Conclusions: The study recommends that the novel “Shadows of Qatamoun” formed part of the historical creative code for Palestine before and after the Nakba, to serve the preservation of memory through the artistic linguistic achievement of the narrative.