Dream, Imagination, and the Ends of Chapters in the Alexandrian Texts

Abstract

This study sheds light on the spaces of dream and fantasy at the ends of the chapters of Edwar al-Kharrat's novel Turābuhā Zaʻfarān/ City of Saffron (1986). Besides other modernist techniques and artistic styles that characterize this advanced stage in al-Kharrat's works, dream and fantasy in this novel contribute to the structure of semantic dimensions which are represented in: confiscating temporality, contemporizing the story to save passing times from loss, vanquishing mortality, seeking eternity, and propositioning the impossible. The phenomenon of symbolic and linguistic intensity through fantasy and dream at the ends of this novel’s chapters represents a distinctive feature of al-Kharrat's novel, Turābuhā Zaʻfarān. The scenes of 'dream and fantasy' reveal the character's frustration and its suppressed desires which it could not achieve in real life.