"مقصّات وسكاكين في الذاكرة" بين التّلقّي والتّأويل

Abstract

This study deals with the story Miqaṣāt wa Sakākīn / Scissors and Knives by the writer Mohammad Hamad. It is an interpretive study that reveals the implications of the text, shows the extent of interaction between the text and the reader, and explores the prominent formal and stylistic elements found in the text.

The study found that the writer has designed the atmosphere of the story in a precise manner, making it appear like a stage that is furnished in full harmony with the characters' movements. Moreover, the study examined the story’s topographic form as well as the symbols and signs found in the story. The study also deals with the dialectic relationship between the beginning and the end, finding that both are connected in a strong intellectual way. Alongside this, the study investigates the use of language at multiple levels throughout the story, i.e., the standard, the poetic, and the popular level, as well as its aesthetic role in making an impact on the recipient.

The study maintains that dealing with traditional issues through the details of an imagined reality is able to create a strong interaction between the recipient and the text. Not only that, but it also motivates the recipient to adopt social concepts that contribute to creating a modern society that reconsiders the meaning of manhood, masculinity, virility and femininity. It thus raises a debate about the conditions required for building a healthy lifestyle that brings about freedom of thought and frees individuals from the social pressures which society exert through imposing axioms and following them like a holy book over long periods of time, without daring to face them or penetrate them.

Furthermore, the study sees that this literary work is based on three inseparable pillars: the author, the text and the reader. It thus benefits from the aesthetics of reception theories, which are the most appropriate theories for inspecting the components of this literary work by means of their tools, concepts and procedural axes that can follow up, evaluate, and redress the texts. This relies on taking into consideration that each text has its own social and historical context as well as specific motivations behind its creation.

Additionally, the study investigates the reading process and the direct confrontation and interaction between the text and the reader, as well as the mutual impact and influence between them. Each new reading can reveal something new, provided that the text is rich, open onto itself, and interpretable. This allows the researcher to read the text in a creative rather than a consumptive way.

Finally, the story succeeds in moving from the specific to the general in order to express a major issue. Thus, the event turned from its small narrow focus into an idea of multiple dimensions that are beyond the specific event, and actually became an indicative act of every deadly and painful fault that can happen in every place and time if society continues its way on the road of ignorance.

The writer of this story adopted a traditional style of structure and theme. Like other classical writers, he starts the story by employing an omniscient narrator to describe the central character and its specifications, define the landmarks of the place, and describe the events. The Narrator introduces the central characters elaborately through a description of their external appearances. Then he prepares the environment in a way that suits what moves inside the characters through employing technical devices such as flashbacks, memories, monologues, and dialogues in their various types.