Misrepresentation of the Other: A Postcolonial Study in Selected Arab and American Novels

The paper sheds light on one of the important concepts in contemporary literature which tackles the representation of the Other in selected Arabic and American literary products. The representation of the other holds many misrepresentations and stereotypes, both varying and fixed; as such, the study of the literary representations of the other which comes as a remedy many fixed and prevalent frameworks between the self and the other which deals with the construction of an individual on cultural, political and social levels. The study tackles a topic of great importance for contemporary literary studies and critiques, especially at the level of national literature. The research aims to discuss how Arab writers envision the concept of the Other, on one hand; and it argues how American writers projects the concept in their novels, on the other hand. It also gives an insight about Arabs and Americans viewing the term the self and other or utilize the term Imagology which is very significant because it differentiates between the Oriental and Western points of view. The paper is restricted to argue the representation of the other in these four novels. Finally, the research ends up with conclusion and recommendations for further researches.

The Role of the Father in Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe

The role of the father has always been that of the breadwinner of the family in most of the American novels. Little was mentioned about his involvement in his familial duties and his relationship with his children. This created a gap between the father and his children and turned him into a far-fetched person for them. Anne Tyler (1941- ), a southern female writer presents a new image of fathers. She highlights the role of the father within the family and gives an insight to the way fathers think. This paper deals with Tyler's novel Saint Maybe (1991), exploring the character of Ian Bedloe, an unmarried person whose mistake leads him to lose his only brother, Danny. He suffers for his mistake and tries to make up for it by taking care of his brother's children offering a new image of fatherhood.

Translation, Re-translation, and the Reception of Arabic Literature in English: The Case of Ahlam Mostaghenami’s Novel Chaos of the Senses

The current study compares the two translations of Ahlam Mostaghenami’s second novel Fawda Al-Hawas into English as Chaos of the Senses by (Baria Ahmar Sreih, 2004) and Chaos of the Senses by (Nancy Roberts, 2015) and examines the reception of both translations in the English-speaking communities where they were circulated. The study seeks to find out answers to questions about: the reasons for retranslating Fawda Al-Hawas after a relatively short period of time after its first translation, the roles of human agents such as the author, translators, and publishers in the production and reception of the two translations of Fawda Al-Hawas , how the retranslation tried to avoid previous problems, if any, that hindered the circulation of the first translation, the role of paratexts in the reception of the two translations. The study draws on major concepts form reception theory as adopted by (Brown, 1994) in her study of Latin American novels published in West Germany. Specifically, the current study draws a close comparison of the paratexts associated with the two translations of Mostaghenami’s Fawda Al-Hawasas well as the roles of stakeholders. The study concludes that despite the use of more paratextual elements as well as textual improvements in the retranslation, it has not shown better results in terms of reception and circulation. Received: 4 May 2021 / Accepted: 9 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

Imagining a Mestiza-Self Through the Double-Consciousness Trope

This paper is a comparative study between two African-American novels: Caucasia by Danzy Senna (1998) and Quicksand by Lenna Larsen(1928). It specifically discusses how their respective mixed-race protagonist re-appropriates the double-consciousness trope –a term originally coined by African-American scholar W. E. Du Bois to describe the existence of blacks in the United States. More specifically, I argue that Danzy Senna’s novel Caucasia transcends traditional notions of mixed-race identity found in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand. First, I establish that Helga, the mulatta protagonist of Quicksand is constructed to play the version of the double-consciousness which assumes that mixed people (black and white) in United States live with internalized racism. Next, I demonstrate that Caucasia challenges Quicksand by providing us with a mulatta protagonist who re-appropriates the notions of double-consciousness by making it instrumental to her own survival and birth-right to be mixed.

Geomemory and Genre Friction: Infrastructural Violence and Plantation Afterlives in Contemporary African American Novels

This essay argues that contemporary African American novels turn to the gothic in order to dramatize the uncanny infrastructural and spatial afterlives of the plantation through a literary strategy it identifies as geomemory: a genre friction between mimetic and gothic modes in which postplantation spaces in the US South are imbued with temporal slippages such that past and present meet through the built environment. Tracing the plantation’s environmental and infrastructural presence in the Gulf Coast and throughout the US South, this essay argues that the plantation’s presence is fundamentally gothic. Geomemory, a trope evident across the emerging canon of contemporary African American fiction, allows writers to address the representational challenge of infrastructural and spatial violence via a defamiliarizing chronotope in which past, present, and future come into uneasy contact. Further, geomemory’s particular enmeshment with spatial design and infrastructure means that it moves from identifying the modern afterlife of the plantation to situating the present in the long context of plantation modernity.

A Comparative Study: Anxiety as an Impact of Slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!

This paper discusses the anxiety as an impact of slavery reflected in two outstanding African-American novels: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!. These novels are set in around the slavery period which shows how cruel and brutal slavery practices in the United States. The plots consist of some traditions and beliefs among White and African-American which have emerged since the antebellum period. By using a comparative approach, this paper focuses on the types of anxiety mentioned by Sigmund Freud. The analysis shows that both neurotic and moral anxieties play a pivotal psychological element throughout the intense “black-white” binary narratives. In this case, Toni Morrison’s Beloved consists of neurotic anxiety in the form of trauma experienced by Sethe and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! consist of moral anxiety in the form of shame for having Negro bloodline in aristocrat Southern plantation culture. Both novels show that slavery, whether it stands as a tradition or as an economic value, has significantly shaped the direction of American society.