Alienated Cultural Realism in the Modern Arabic Novel

Abstract

Words are interconnected within a network of meanings, which necessarily requires the introduction of new terms to deal with the changing forms of life. Among these old-yet-modern terms is alienation (al-istilab), a word that carries specific meanings within fields of knowledge ranging from social and economic theory to psychology and philosophy. It also has other synonyms in Arabic and overlaps with related meanings. In Maqayis al-Lughah, it denotes removal or dispossession; in Sihah al-Lughah, it means embezzlement or theft; while Lisan al-Arab indicates that its meaning lies in snatching, uprooting, and plundering, referring as well to spoils taken in war. This concept is therefore not far removed from the meaning of theft, among many other senses recorded in Arabic dictionaries. All of these meanings ultimately refer to one central idea: overriding the victim’s own will and taking something by force, which constitutes a violation of human nature.

In cultural studies, this concept intersects with practices of enslavement and subjugation, social and cultural practices known throughout history. Human nature has often sought to dominate the weaker other. Hence, alienation manifests itself in both material and immaterial forms, since it is closely associated with the concepts of exclusion and marginalization. Human consciousness perceives this feeling when it realizes that its confinement and restriction are the result of alienation. For this reason, freedom and liberation from colonialism became among the most important demands of colonized peoples, because the greatest form of alienation is the alienation of homelands, with all their history and civilization, in addition to the plunder and dispossession of their economic wealth. Alienation has also led Arab novelists to employ this mode of representation as a serious artistic strategy in order to express the depth of lived social reality. This is what prompted us to select some of those novels for study.