A study of the mechanisms of narrative time in the novel “Binte Dejla” by Mohsen Al-Ramli, according to the vision of Gerard Genette

Abstract

The novel is a literary genre characterized by strong cohesion between its constituent elements. Time is one of the basic elements of the novel. Narrative time is the course of events that occur at different times in the story. This research, based on the descriptive analytical method, aims to study the mechanisms of narrative time in the novel “The Daughter of the Tigris” by the Iraqi narrator Mohsen Al-Ramli, according to the vision of Gerard Genette. Gérard Genette distinguishes between the calendar time and the narrative time of the text and expresses it through three main mechanisms of narrative discourse: order, duration, and frequency. The arrangement is either organized or unorganized, and it is divided into retrieval and anticipation. The mechanisms of duration are: summary, deletion, description, and scene. There are also three types of tawātur: singular, repeated, and composed. The results of the research indicate that the mechanisms of time, with their different types and names, are used in this novel, but the amount of retrieval, both internal and external, is much greater than anticipation. Also, deletion and summarization were used extensively in the novel as a result of the nature of the narrative work, and since there are not many monologues in the novel “The Daughter of the Tigris,” it was adopted. The writer is on the scene and the description is in the narrator’s tongue instead, and the description in the novel emerges without introductions, announcing his presence within the narrative scenes. The writer also prolonged some descriptive pauses, paying attention to physical relationships, but the writer was finally very successful in shedding light on some of the events and matters that accompanied the process of political transformation. By highlighting the theft and plundering of contemporary Iraq's wealth.