Volume 04 Issue 07-2024
16
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(ISSN
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VOLUME
04
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07
P
AGES
:
16-29
OCLC
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1121105677
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ABSTRACT
Objectives:
In view of the changes that happened after Nakba which this reality wrought in all aspects of everyday life, we wish
to see how this was reflected in very short stories and the extent to which writers used the grotesque in order to
describe the unfortunate situation in which people found themselves, the resulting tendency to avoid the dominant
ideologies and ideas and to attempt to promote marginal notions, for the purpose of stimulating the reader and
restoring his equilibrium.
Methods:
In this study I will examine the use of grotesque events in very short stories written by Palestinians from three different
sectors: Palestinians inside Israel, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians abroad. Our aim
is to discover how the distorted reality imposed by the wake of the War of 1948 affected the use of the grotesque as
a literary technique for expressing this reality. The study consists of two parts. In the theoretical part we define the
grotesque in literature and its use by writers, especially since the twentieth century. In the applied part we analyze
very short Palestinian stories of three types and examine the use of the grotesque in them.
Conclusions:
I Found that The grotesque in the stories reflects the state of decline among human beings on every level, especially
in the superficial and mechanical way people treat their fellow human beings, and the lack of empathy with the other.
KEYWORDS
Research Article
THE GROTESQUE IN EVENTS OF PALESTINIAN VERY SHORT STORIES
Submission Date:
July 02, 2024,
Accepted Date:
July 07, 2024,
Published Date:
July 12, 2024
Crossref doi:
https://doi.org/10.37547/ijll/Volume04Issue07-04
Dr. Samah Saffuri Khoury
Oranim College, Israel
Journal
Website:
https://theusajournals.
com/index.php/ijll
Copyright:
Original
content from this work
may be used under the
terms of the creative
commons
attributes
4.0 licence.
Volume 04 Issue 07-2024
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International Journal Of Literature And Languages
(ISSN
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VOLUME
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P
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:
16-29
OCLC
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1121105677
Publisher:
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Servi
Very short story, Palestinian writers, grotesque, Israel, West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinians abroad.
INTRODUCTION
Composers of very short fiction use a variety of devices
to criticize reality, including caricature, ridicule, the
grotesque, and more. Palestinian writers use these
techniques to express the situation of defeated,
exploited Palestinians, who are deprived of liberty and
live in a world filled with contradictions, conflicts,
ethnic divisions and successive defeats. These have
had a negative effect on the Palestinian psyche and
have made Palestinians delight in failure, defeat and
poverty. The aim of Palestinian very short stories, of
conveying the ideas of resistance and opposition to the
situation of the Palestinians, cannot be realized
without using black humor with which to express the
Palestinians' bitterness and grief at their sorry situation
in a way that arouses both laughter and tears at one-
and-the-same time. This makes it possible to go beyond
the familiar and reject the existing state of affairs
through the use of irony, ridicule and rebuke, especially
in two domains: politics and women. Very short stories
can accomplish this more than any other genre thanks
to a large number of unique features which they
possess: Brevity, conciseness, density and elision. The
fact that all these features are present in a single
literary genre enables it to shock the reader and arouse
in him a desire to improve his environment or his
homeland. The elision of information and descriptions
can help attract the reader's attention to the core of
the story, through the use of a variety of devices,
including irony, ridicule, paradox, contradiction,
caricature, the bizarre and the grotesque. These
devices prompt the reader into participating in a
work's reception and interpretation and make him
aware of the reality expressed by the author.
Directness and speed do not necessarily imply clarity
and superficiality; rather, they ensure a quick
presentation and the creation of a textual experience
through the omission of information, characters and
events that could slow down the narration. In order to
stretch meanings to the utmost degree it is vital to use
the afore-mentioned devices in order to express the
distortion in the current situation of the Palestinians,
to draw the reader's attention to it, and to push him to
bring about change.
There are those who count irony and the grotesque
among the most important constituents of very short
stories, because they make it possible to express
paradox, logical shifts, contradictions, the dominance
of mental disorder, the rupture of prevailing values,
and dwarfing of human beings. As such, it is based on
the caricature-like and grotesque exposure of
characters, ridicule, satire, the unexpected and the
contradictory. The characters in very short stories are
quite anonymous, lacking individual features. This is to
a great extent in keeping with the age of globalization,
in which human beings are encased, objectified and
marginalized in their own society and suffer from a
sharp sense of alienation and inferiority. In addition,
very short stories and caricatures have many features
in common, as noted by Jūrj Shuway
ṭ
: "Both are
characterized by density of time in writing or drawing,
and the appearance of the elements of joy and
pleasure at the presentation of a certain idea".
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In many of the stories, paradox and irony in all their
forms predominate. On occasion they shock and
sharpen the imagination, by highlighting the
paradoxes of human existence: the innocent are
punished, the just are unhappy, thieves enjoy life and
the diligent are pursued by the sword. Some of the
stories are funny and sad at the same time, arousing
tearful and painful laughter in the way they deal with
pain of the paradoxes that rob us of our sleep and
cause us to take another look at the chaos which
pervades our society, so that we may reorganize it.
There are those who maintain that the very short story
"plays a special game of its own, through its play with
the receiver, whom it incites to rebel, or through its
dreadful texts, which describe social phenomena
which expose its unwanted aspects and present the
receiver with situations of laughter mixed with biting
tears, giving rise to reflection of a special kind".
Very short stories are built on the extraordinary and
the fantastic, since the world has begun to expose all
the masks behind which it hides, such as increasing
violence and lack of human values and morality,
rejecting social reconciliation in favor of a skeptical
attitude towards science and other certainties which
mankind held in common. According to Mahmoud
Shuqair, very short stories are interesting because of
the irony and fantasy which they contain, through
which they express the need "for us to move away for
a while from our everyday concerns, in order to deride
our bitter reality and to laugh at it a bit".
In what follows we analyze the way the grotesque in
Palestinian very short stories is used in order to
describe the people's sad situation by steering away
from dominant ideologies and concepts and
presenting instead marginal ideas and a reality filled
with distortion and deviation, with the aim of causing
the reader to act and regain his equilibrium.
We decided to deal with the topic of the grotesque
through the plot, since the latter participates in its
creation and depiction, and since it possesses the
features needed for refining the grotesque image
which the author wishes to shape and present.
Through the grotesque and illogical events the author
describes a brutal, unjust world, using shocking,
violent, dark and illogical scenes that reveal an
unbalanced reality filled with internal contradictions. It
is the element of surprise which exposes the comedy
and the terror used in each story in order to express a
reality lacking in rules.
The study has two parts. In Part One we survey the use
of the grotesque in literature generally, and its use as a
literary technique especially in the twentieth century,
in the wake of the destruction which the two world
wars of that century wrought at many levels. Part Two
is the applied part, in which we analyze three very short
Palestinian stories from three different sectors: the
Palestinians in Israel, the Palestinians of the West Bank,
and the dispersion. In this part we show the role played
by the grotesque in the events of each of the stories.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The art of the grotesque in literature
The grotesque first appeared in literature in sixteenth-
century Italy, in the form of the commedia dell'arte. In
the following century it was adopted in France, and
later also in Germany. Until that time, artists
attempted to imitate nature as closely as possible, so
that art depended mainly on the artist's personal skill.
With time, to the skills of drawing or writing another
was added: An ability to gaze into the inner reality of
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things, based on one's imagination and on seeing
beyond what can be observed naturally.
The art of the grotesque did not remain restricted to
painting and murals, but also came to be used in other
art forms, such as sculpture, architecture, jewelry and
literature. In the sixteenth century we note its
presence in Italy through the commedia dell'arte, while
in the seventeenth century French poets used it in their
words, as did many German poets, too. The function
of poetry in general was to convey reality as it was,
whether beautiful or ugly. But some Greek poets tried
to use the technique of the grotesque to beautify what
was ugly, and to present the ugly as beautiful. This
technique was also used by Arab poets and writers.
The art of the grotesque involves a mixture of the
funny and the terrifying, as in cartoon pictures, which
arouse laughter and are perceived as funny, but in fact
express a brutal world filled with injustice, creating in
the receiver a desire to resist this injustice and to
change the reality in which he lives. The grotesque
illuminates dark and previously ignored aspects of
human experience, and tries to get rid of them.
However, they cannot actually be destroyed, so the
grotesque tries to push them away as far as possible or
to hide them, metaphorically, underground or in the
recesses of our experience. The grotesque sheds light
on the tragedy of the marginalized and the defeated
and exposes mankind's ugly and brutal aspects, the
decline in human values and the lack of morality. For
this reason, grotesque art has been variously described
as "weird", "extreme", "whimsical", "imaginary" and
"deviant". These epithets were applied especially in
French society, where they were used to criticize
people also for their dress, movement and behavior.
The art of the grotesque attempts to move away from
what is real, fashionable and traditional. It therefore
appears in poetry, narrative prose and painting on two
levels. A work of art can express its truth through
graphic construction and iconography either through
brutal caricature or through uncrystallized forms. For
this reason, icons are very important in literature, and
iconic figures are indispensable for the creation of
grotesque art, since ethics and religion impose the use
of icons and imagination on the writer.
In order for iconicity to be realized, a mythical
character is needed, in order to turn our attention
towards the myth. Ernst Cassirer distinguished
between two types of language. One type, discursive
language, is the language of science and contains
mainly objective descriptions. The other type is
mythological language, which arouses emotions; this is
the language of poetry and religion. The language of
the grotesque is the language of myth, which relies on
imagery, imagination and metaphor. It is a story which
evokes
ideas,
feelings
and
intuitions in
a
comprehensive way. The language of myth is the
language of the imagination, which embodies ideas in
symbolic form. By using this language, the art of the
grotesque is able to emdiv reality in a symbolic way.
In the story, the grotesque helps to maintain unity, and
at the same time it also determines the nature of its
contents, ensuring that the events are brief and
continuous, with little attention to detail or
description. In addition, many scenes which appear
important in the stories are abridged and become
meaningless, and familiar things are made to appear
strange.
Authors use this way of presentation to undermine the
reader's confidence in the world, by removing the
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values and habits which provide confidence and
balance. The reader then attempts to regain his
balance by resisting and challenging the repugnant
reality he faces, attempting to change things for the
better, and rejecting the demonic forces that dominate
and shackle the world. The authors enter the world of
the unknown, an imaginary, frightening and
nonsensical world, lacking in logic and dominated by
chaos and hallucination. They use numerous
techniques to bolster the sense of the grotesque in
their art, such as masks, which are considered among
the most important devices for creating alienation. All
of the above ensure that the reader will by affected,
and driven to want to change the social norms which
suppress freedom and imagination.
1.1.1.
The art of the grotesque in the twentieth
century
In modern literature many opposites came to be placed
together, such as the non-poetic with traditional
poetry, the vulgar with the heroic, the despicable with
the noble, the realistic with the romantic, the ugly with
the beautiful, the depraved with the positive.
The art of the grotesque became widespread in the
twentieth century, because it made it possible to
depict mankind's sad state. The technique became
common in all literary genres, including surrealistic
poetry and drama (Brecht, Ionescu, Becket).
Traditional literary forms and genres no longer had a
great emotional effect; stronger and more advanced
techniques were thus needed in order to affect
people's psyche and cause them to regain their balance
and to change the bitter reality of their lives. Many
genres thus attempted to distance themselves from
the dominant ideologies, including socialist realism and
bourgeois philosophy, and chose instead funny animal
cartoon images.
Susan Corey is of the opinion that that art of the
grotesque became prominent in the twentieth century
because it was capable of expressing the complex,
fragmented nature of contemporary human life. It was
the preferred device for evoking the religious
dimensions of narrative fiction, because of its ability to
create obscurity and the meanings revealed by
everyday human experience. According to Corey, any
writer who uses the art of the grotesque does so in the
belief that life will always be obscure, that what lies on
the surface is not interesting, and that what deserves
to be written about lies in obscurity. Flannery
O'Connor argued that grotesque art is but the
reflection of the realities experienced by the writer,
which are full of deviations and distortions, due to
humankind's deviation from its original nature as God's
creatures.
The art of the grotesque enables writers to break with
the past, to challenge social norms and to cross the
bounds of familiar and the natural in order to express
the oppression and corruption that are rife in social
institutions. It gives writers a way to present a vision
that is in contradiction to the existing world, which is
dominated by demonic powers, thus granting the
reader moments of hope, in which he can strive for
renewal and be exposed to new meanings.
The art of the grotesque has proven attractive to many
women writers, because of its two main features: it
promotes obscurity and strengthens the impulse to
challenge the existing state of affairs. The grotesque
has provided women with the ability to speak of their
oppression and to criticize everything which makes
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one feel isolated from the world, while at the same
time it granted them spiritual liberation.
The art of the grotesque gives writers the ability to
undermine facts, to question things that were erased
from reality or aspects of it that had been ignored, and
to expose contradictions and obscure aspects of the
complex nature of human life. It broadens human
horizons, and makes one aware of new experiences
that attract one and promote one's connection with
nature. As Bakhtin said, it gives mankind the
opportunity to become exposed to another world,
another system, a different way of life.
The grotesque appears in literature in a number of
ways, through exaggeration, contradiction, diminution
and abbreviation. The grotesque diminishes sublime
ideas and models by lowering them to the material
level, or by associating them with roots in the material
world. In literature the grotesque presents shocking
and distorted images, violent events, eccentric,
despicable and distorted characters, and natural and
physical transformations, such as birth, death and the
seasons.
The narrative structure in which the art of the
grotesque is reflected uses a number of devices, such
as mingling different genres, vagueness, incomplete
endings, and incongruity instead of the traditional
system. According to Bakhtin, stories which are based
on the grotesque are occasionally transformed into a
battle arena in which the characters fight over what
the truth is, and violate the norms posed by the author
himself. The focus on decline and the physical and
material is consistent with the act of creation in
theology, which speaks of a constant act of creation in
the world and its improvement.
Abbreviation is considered one of the best devices for
writers of satire, because it diminishes the characters'
standing and honor. This technique affects not only the
plot, but also requires a style and a language of its own.
METHODOLOGY
2.1. Grotesque events
2.1.1. In the very short story "Shadows" ("
Ẓ
ilāl") by the
Palestinian writer
ʿ
Im
ā
d Ab
ī
Ḥ
a
ṭ
ab (who lived in
Libanon and Moved to Germany), security forces obey
the orders of their superiors, although these orders
violate their sense of morality:
Shadows
The orders came to shoot at the m
ob in the streets …
The officers loaded their weapons … Before they
pulled the trigger the shadow of each policeman
stepped forward and announced that it would not
obey the order … The shadows stood as a barrier
between the security forces and the demonstrators
… The orders arrived quickly: Execute the shadows …
From that day the executioners operated without
shadows.
The story opens with an order received by the security
forces, to shoot at the demonstrators. They get ready
to shoot, but then a surprise happens: The officers'
shadows rebel against the orders from above and tell
them that they will not obey, then form a barrier that
shields the demonstrators. As a result, it is the shadows
who are shot and killed, instead of the demonstrators.
In this story the shadows highlight the brutality of the
authorities, and at the same time they also
demonstrate that the executioners oppose the orders,
but are forced to carry them out, because they have
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been brainwashed. Their shadows, on the other hand,
have not lost their conscience and resist the orders. As
a result, they remain without shadows in the end, that
is, without a conscience, as if they are but tools, or
ghosts, with no shadow, without their humanity. The
great paradox at the end of the story is the
executioners' lack of a shadow, that is, lack of a
conscience, so that all hope for reform and change is
lost.
The story describes a brutal reality, in which every voice
that wishes to express itself freely is savagely silenced.
One ironic element in the story is the fact that the
shooters are called "security forces", that is, forces
whose main function should be to ensure the safety
and well-being of every citizen, but which in fact act to
instill fear in the demonstrators and to put down every
attempt to bring about change. They rob the people of
security, instead of giving it to them.
The paradox in this story lies in the signs of hope that
emerge from the shadows of the police officers and
that act in violation of the orders they were given. This
expresses the inner conflict in the minds of the officers,
who agreed to serve the regime and to silence their
own conscience. Shadows by their nature lack a will of
their own or feelings of their own, and follow their
owners wherever they go, without any opposition. But
here the roles are reversed: It is the shadows who rebel
and refuse to obey, while the policemen themselves
are in fact nothing more than the shadows of the
regime. The shadows leave the officers' bodies and
rebel against them. They stand with the demonstrators
against the security forces, from whom they have
become completely detached. At this moment, the
reader expects the policemen, after their shadows
have ceased to obey them and have detached
themselves, to change their minds and stand as one
with their shadows.
But this is not what happens. Shockingly and against all
expectations, the security forces shoot their own
shadows, which symbolize their own consciences,
which are still alive in this world dominated by injustice
and oppression. This act puts an end to any hope for
opposition to the oppressor.
The unexpected turn of events takes the reader by
surprise, and in the end the writer extinguishes the last
spark of hope against oppression, the executioner's
conscience. After the shadows of all the soldiers of the
security forces are killed, the shadows are helpless and
the executioners themselves have no choice but to
obey orders, otherwise they and their shadows will be
killed.
The executioner is the last station for the condemned,
the point that separates life from death. The orders
may come from above, but the executioner can decide
for himself, if he has the willpower to do so. This can
happen only in the ideal situation that represents the
dream of every citizen who wishes to attain justice in
this life. However, the real situation is very different
from this utopia; in fact, it is a dystopia, a world of
utmost brutality and injustice, and no freedom.
The story represents the fierce struggle between
utopia and dystopia. In the utopia the author tries to
show positive conduct which could be expected of the
police officers, since they belonged to the people and
should stand with them in their confrontation with the
despotic regime. This is made very clear in the scene
when the shadows stand as a barrier between the
police and the people and protect the latter. This is
something which expected by anyone who lives in a
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democratic state, which provides safety and
protection from harm to its citizenry. This is an image
which presents an integrated world, in which the police
are a model worthy of imitation, an expression of
humanity and dedication to the welfare one's fellow
man. However, instead of this beautiful scenario, far
removed from reality, we are presented with a brutal
picture of the world, a distorted reality dominated by
arrogant, violent beings, beginning with the regime,
through the security forces and ending with the
executioner. The chain is thus closed, with no room for
change and no expectation that those in positions of
authority will help the simple, oppressed citizen. This
comparison between the ideal world and brutal reality
makes us quite certain that the dream will remain an
impossibility in the face of bitter reality, despite the
shadows' decision to rebel against the source of evil
and to join the ranks of the demonstrators, even at the
price of their lives, an act which expresses the fact that
nature as a whole opposes the oppression; in fact, even
the executioners are opposed to it. However, the
rebellion is carried out by helpless shadows, whose
very existence depends on the bodies of the police
officers. The shadows can only disappear if the bodies
disappear, so with the act of executing the shadows,
the security forces themselves become nothing but
powerless ghosts. The same is true of the executioner,
who executes himself as well as his shadow, thus
erasing the last trace of any possible rebellion, even in
a dream.
ʿ
Imād Abū
Ḥ
a
ṭ
ab in this story makes it clear that the
reality in which he lives is bitter; it is the reality of a
person who has lost all hope, in a brutal world in which
the regime rules the people with an iron hand and
crushes any sign of change.
2.
The Jerusalemite writer Ziyād Khadāsh in his
story "War" ("
Ḥ
arb") addresses the theme of the
mutual ill-will between Jews and Palestinians, which is
impossible to overlook, despite the attempts by some
to do so.
War
I was making love to a European prostitute. Suddenly,
as I burned above her, I heard her whispering
flirtatiously: Boker tov ("Good morning" in Hebrew),
my love, boker tov. I realized then that I was making
love to an Israeli woman. My ecstasy did not prevent
me from saying to her in Hebrew, a language I speak
fluently, as I panted: This is the best kind of war, my
little one. We both laughed, and climaxed. The
strange surprise was that after my ejaculation we
discovered that the color of our fluids was red.
The author deals with a daring theme. The hero is
having sex with a prostitute. He thinks that she is
European, but then, in the middle of the sex act, he
hears her speaking Hebrew. He does not show his
surprise, nor does he stop his love-making. They both
climax he shows his appreciation despite his
comparison of the sex act to war, and calls her
affectionately "my little one". He expresses his
pleasure and his excitation, despite the conflict- and
contradiction-filled situation. The reader is presented
with a distorted scene, far removed from reality. The
author shocks us at the end of the story, when the
prostitute and the narrator discover that the semen
was red, in other words, that there was blood after the
sex. This constitutes the second deviation from the
story's expected course, the first being his description
of the sex act with the Israeli woman as "the best kind
of war". The latter statement constitutes an
oxymoron, whose objective is to show the
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contradiction between the real world and the
narrator's feelings. The second deviation is the blood
which the narrator and the prostitute find after having
consummated the sex act. Here the narrator, although
having chosen to ignore the fact that the woman he
was with was an Israeli, it was a relationship that was
doomed to fail, because the two nations are engaged
in an endless conflict, resulting in victims on both sides,
although that is not what he wants.
From the very beginning, the narrator is detached from
himself. He says that he is "making love" to a
prostitute, although an act of love can only take place
between two lovers. He therefore imagines that such
love exists with a prostitute whom he does not know
at all, not even her nationality. He again becomes
detached from himself when he does not exhibit any
response upon discovering that she is Israeli; indeed,
he feels nothing but ecstasy and pleasure during the
sex act. This detachment indicates that the narrator's
intercourse with the prostitute is without emotion. He
tries to distance himself from his feelings and to
deceive himself as much as possible, but in the end,
after he climaxes and comes back to his senses, he
feels surprise and realizes that this relationship cannot
be natural: Although he had denied the existing
enmity, their bodies could not deny the history of the
distorted relationship between the two nations.
In this story the author uses the device of paralipsis. He
immediately and without any introductions begins to
describe the main event with no introduction ("I was
making love"), followed directly by the surprise he
experienced during the sex act. He does not describe
his feelings, but uses numerous verbs which attest to
his willing participation: "I burned", "I panted", "we
laughed". Nor does she give expression to her feelings.
The fact that feelings are kept out of the story makes a
strange impression on the reader. For although the
narrator does mention at the beginning that he was
surprised, he ignores his surprise and continues the
story as if nothing happened. In fact, what happened
seems to make him more ardent than ever. Here lies
the contradiction between word and deed, which
creates a gap for the reader, who is shocked once more
at the end, filling the initial gap formed upon learning
that the prostitute is Jewish.
Another device which the author uses in the narration
is that of "making strange", and the poetic language at
the end of the story, when the two discover that their
fluids are red. The story's surprise ending expresses
the complex and distorted reality in which Palestinians
and Jews live in every respect. Thus even if a
Palestinian ignores his history and his people, the
enmity with the Jews will follow him despite his
attempts at pretending it does not exist. In fact, it will
lie in wait for him even in his most pleasurable
moments, with the ultimate result that the interaction
between the two nations will consist of war and
bloodshed, despite the fact that neither side wants
this. The narrator challenges society's norms and goes
beyond the bounds of the familiar by denying reality
and resisting the feelings that should have been
aroused in him upon discovering that the girl was
Jewish. He diminishes supreme values such as being
loyal to one's homeland and not betraying it, and
enhances the value of his relationship with the
prostitute, which now overtakes that of loyalty to the
homeland. Exaggerated excitement and deviant
strangeness are masters of the situation. Both
techniques are used in order to create a grotesque
reality and a mixture of the comic and the terrifying.
Abandonment of rules and laws is the means used for
expressing the great chaos in a person's mind, the
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result of restrictions and barriers imposed by the
mighty in order to enable or prevent mutual
interactions, such as religious, ideological and ethnic
divisions. At the beginning the story offers the reader
some hope that peace will be possible if Palestinians
and Jew pretend that there is no conflict between
them, and substitute love and pleasure for it. The
narrator expresses his attempt at integration be
speaking to the prostitute in Hebrew and pretending
that he has no conflict with her. He is the active
instigator of the sex act and situates himself over the
prostitute. However, this contradicts the actual
situation of the Palestinians, who are the dominated
and occupied side. At the end of the story, both are
victims of these wars. The last grotesque event shocks
the reader, constituting a violent scene which
contradicts all the other events mentioned in the story:
While the laughter, the passion and the expression "my
little one" all point to joy, happiness and mutual
harmony between the two characters, the ending
shocks both, in addition to shocking the reader.
The painful reality is thus stronger than the two
characters' hopes and moves contrary to their desires.
Their dream becomes a nightmare, which constitutes
the reality in which they live. In the art of the
grotesque the writer puts the rivals together, distorts
the laws created by humankind and rejects the
dominant customary culture, but in the end of this
story man proves too weak for this challenge and is
defeated by the war. Reality imposes itself and scorns
every human effort to overcome it. The story makes it
clear how small man is when confronted with the
power of reality and the will of leaders and dominant
forces.
C. The Palestinians in Israel
Jeries Khoury a writer from the village of
Ṭ
ur
ʿ
ā
n,
addressed in his story "Humananimal" ("
Ḥ
ayawsān")
the lack of humanity among people as a result of the
constant warfare and violence in the world.
Humananimal
After a pack of dogs found several dismembered
corpses between Aleppo and Ba
ṣ
ra, and noticed signs
of biting, kicking and piercing on them, it decided to
establish a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Humans.
In this story the author begins by presenting a brutal
image in a definite location, between Aleppo and
Ba
ṣ
ra, where a pack of dogs found dismembered
corpses, victims of the barbarous things which men do
to each other because of ethnic, religious and
ideological disputes. The dogs see signs of violence on
the corpses, such a s biting and kicking, which are
usually marks left by beasts of prey. What is surprising
is the dogs' decision at the end of the story, to establish
a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans.
After they saw the horrible things which happened to
humans in general, and Arabs in particular, and the lack
of freedom and rights, they realized that their situation
as animals was preferable to that of humans, and so
decided to establish an association that would ensure
at least the minimal rights of humans, to life and to an
honorable existence.
The information provided in this story is extremely
concise. Much is kept from the reader. However,
enough is provided to make the story's intention clear.
Nothing is said about why there were corpses between
Aleppo and Ba
ṣ
ra, nor are we told who was responsible
for their mutilation. The reader naturally asks who did
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this, man or beast? However, the author does give us
some hints at the meaning. The very mention of the
two cities connects the story to the events of the last
two decades, in which thousands of people died
because of the political or religious group to which
they belonged. It evokes the inhuman brutality of ISIS,
from which the people of Syria and Iraq suffered, in
particular in the two afore-mentioned regions, the
inconceivable acts of torture and murder committed
by that organization. The words which the author
chose to describe this brutality were taken from the
animal world: biting, kicking, piercing, which do not
convey the full horror of what ISIS did.
In this story the author uses the device of
aggrandizement and debasing: The dogs are presented
as superior to humans, while the humans are shown to
lack humanity, because mankind kept silent in the face
of the crimes against humanity committed in Syria, Iraq
and the rest of the Arab world, in Yemen, Libya, Egypt
and elsewhere. In the last two decades conditions have
constantly deteriorated, men lost their moral values
and engaged in brutal acts of violence, such as
beheading, rape and murder, biting and kicking. They
lost that ability to maintain dialogue in order to settle
conflicts, using beastly methods that are unworthy of
humanity.
The word "human" is only mentioned at the very end
of the story. Humans are mentioned only as
dismembered bodies, which cannot affect the course
of the story. No human character appears in it, only
distorted, dismembered and disfigured remnants,
evidence for the brutality and lack of values among
mankind, whose "humanity" has become an object
rather than an agent. In this text it is the dogs who are
active. They have the ability to determine what will
happen, to accomplish things which the Arabs are
incapable of. The dogs realize that humans are in dire
need of being saved, and try to do what they can,
something which men have not done for their fellow
man, especially for those who speak the same
language and have the same customs, because they
were raised to hate each other kill each other in cold
blood.
The name of the story, too, points to the distorted
nature of reality. The Arabic title
Ḥ
ayawsān is a
portmanteau word created by the author, consisting of
ḥ
ayawān ("animal") and insān ("human being"). The
word here refers to the fact that human being have
become animal-like in their behavior and in the way
they resolve conflicts, while the animals have begun to
behave more humanely. The word thus presents the
animals as more human and the humans as more
animal-like. Neither of the word's constituent parts
appears in its full form. The hybrid word created by the
author is fitting for describing the kind of human
beings encountered in our times, and its animals, which
the author considers to be wiser than humankind.
The dogs in the pack, after they had seen the mutilated
human corpses, came to an agreement among
themselves, something which the Arabs are incapable
of, in line with the popular saying: "The Arabs agreed
not to agree". The idea expressed by this saying is
clearly reflected in this story, in which the dogs all
agreed, without any debate or reservations, to
establish a "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Humans". After just two verbs, "found" and "noticed",
it was immediately decided to create this Society, in
contrast to the Arabs, who hold one summit meeting
after another and cannot come to a decision that
would put an end to the acts of barbarity that afflict
the Arab world, which remains as it is, despite the
shameful situation in which it finds itself.
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RESULTS
In the present study we discussed the use of the
grotesque in Palestinian very short stories in three
distinct sectors: Inside Israel, the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, and the Dispersion. It discussed the
grotesque as it appears in the narrated events. The
study found that the use of the technique of the
grotesque can be discerned quite clearly from a
number of aspects. The grotesque in the stories
reflects the state of decline among human beings on
every level, especially in the superficial and mechanical
way people treat their fellow human beings, and the
lack of empathy with the other.
DISCUSSION
The story "Shadows" by
ʿ
Im
ā
d Ab
ī
Ḥ
a
ṭ
ab deals with
escalating violence, the brutality with which the regime
treats its citizenry, and the lack of conscience it instills
in its security forces so that they will do whatever the
authorities demand of them.
Ziyād
Ḥ
adāsh's story "War" describes an attempt to
disregard the hostility between the Palestinian and
Jewish nations and to pretend that love between the
two characters is possible, only to be surprised in the
end by the traces of war on their bodies, which refused
to ignore reality.
Jeries Khouri's "Humananimal" reflects the growing
violence in the Arab world, which has become a single
entity in which the people are oppressed. In the story,
humans have deteriorated so much that animals take
their place and take steps to solve the problems
created by humans.
All of these stories share the theme of the citizenry's
helplessness, its lack of protection, and its need to
escape from reality, by ignoring it and becoming
indifferent to one's principles, language and humanity.
CONCLUSION
The technique of the grotesque was used in describing
the events in order to evoke a sense of strangeness in
the reader and to shake his faith in a world that has
gradually become ever more brutal, and has been
taken over by forces of evil, who force the citizenry to
give up the values, customs and language which grant
them a sense of equilibrium, confidence and security.
The grotesque in the stories we examined here
appears in a number of different ways, including
through the use of exaggeration, paradox and
diminution. These devices serve to diminish the status
and honor of the protagonists. They are also used to
distort language and to highlight the way the
characters' deviations are reflected in the language
they use to express their distorted needs and ideas.
Very short stories have played an important role in
presenting this reality, thanks to their unique
constituents, which enable them to highlight the
relevant themes and create a powerful message that
can affect the reader's mind. The most important of
these constituents is paradox, used prominently to
expose the gap between wish and reality. This gap is
constantly widening, and individuals feel ever more
alienated from their contradiction-filled world which is
ruled by the forces of evil. The authors express this
state of affairs through the use of irony, contradiction
and satire.
The grotesque is used mainly to create a feeling of
strangeness. The distorted nature of reality, admittedly
described in exaggerated form, evokes a sense of
strangeness. The technique helps shed light on certain
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details in the narration or on prominent features of the
characters, and can also be used to distort language so
that it is no longer consistent with logic, and to create
images that arouse disgust and whose incongruity,
irrationality and exaggeration inflame the imagination.
All of the above contributes to creating in the reader
an aversion towards the image or the event, and drives
him to its antithesis, and arouses in him a desire for
movement and change, and for rejecting the dominant
culture which controls society. Strangeness is used
frequently in association with political themes, through
which the author aims to criticize the ruler's policies
and the way he treats his nation.
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