The structure of time in the novel Baghdad Clock

Abstract

The novel is one of the narrative forms that did not know stability. It is and has always been a rich field for academic research. It has attracted the attention of writers, critics, and readers. So, its writers and whom study it become diverse. Time is one of the most important constituent elements of it, as it is the template that follows to build events and their development. Time is a multifaceted category with different functions, and Perhaps this is what made us adopt the value of time in the novel. So, our research came under the title "The Structure of Time in the Baghdad Clock Novel by Shahad Al-Rawi" Time forms the geometry of the narrative art The contemporary novel reader finds a different ideology from what it was in the past. This what made us to build a set of problems represented in: What is the time? How did Shahd Al-Rawi treat time in the Baghdad Clock novel? We have chosen this topic because of the rumors and interpretations that appear on the novel, Thus, the times have multiplied in the novel and Hence, our study was divided into the concept of time. The Time is a rich field to the novel’s study when it merges with the components of the narrative speech and in the narrative term means a set of time relationship, speed distance…etc, between locations and spoken situations and their spoken process and between the time, narrative speech and the narrative process. The problem of multiple time appears, as there is a time that passed before writing, which is the time of the story, and the present time which represents the narrative time and the two times may overlap therefore, a distinction should be made between the natural time (chronological) and the story time. The natural time is a continuous linear move as a clockwise while the story time represents the time when the event happened compared to the normal time such as distant past, recent, definite and indefinite and it has its types and its importance in the novel concept.