The Effectiveness of the Narrative Text within Ecocriticism: The Novel (Old Dreams of the Sea) by Shua’a’ Khalifa as an Example

Abstract

It is impossible to consider a literary text as an environmental text unless it fulfills the conditions of environmental literary premises. Therefore, it is impossible for the writer of a literary text to include the environment in his/her text unless s/he is a writer with an environmental concern whose texts refuse to be anything but an open impact that embraces ideas that elevate the status and importance of the environment, provided that the artistic and interactive value of the text does not diminish, since the evaluative outcomes resulting from the act of intentional production depend on this value. Within this approach, the constructive interpretation emerges to produce the meaning within the orbit of interactive contexts monitoring the panoramic scenes which are full of the dominances of viewpoints. It also produces the implicit systems that equate the textual meanings with an expression that legislates the signifier entrusted with the tasks of producing the intents of the language, whose most of its various manifestations focus on the morphological interdependence between the text functions. In fact, the process of investigating all these aspects is not adopted by a single approach, and the method of enriching the text with different approaches - this matter was justified by many critics, particularly Yaws - would assume the responsibility of presenting a plausible reading in which the strength of the artistic structure and the semantic bends of visions and ideas are embodied. Therefore, more than one approach will be combined in this study as deemed suitable to the textual structure transfers in order to monitor the channels of discourse and initiate a contextual reading in which all dimensions become homogeneous. This approach was applied on the novel (Old Dreams of the Sea) by Shua’a’ Khalifa. The study is based on a theoretical account in which the roots of the concept of ecocriticism are presented, then the discussion focuses on its beginnings, characteristics and conditions. Then, the procedural account comes to reveal the textual tactics that the writer employed at the contextual level, as well as the indulgence of reader in eliciting the intent of the text.