The artistic structure in the novel “Manazel Al-Lawaa” by Mahmoud Al-Samarrai

Abstract

The novel “Manazel Al-Lawa” by the writer Mahmoud Ramadan Al-Samarrai, published in 2024, is one of the novels that dealt with an important stage in the modern history of Iraq, which is the era of the founding of the republic in the sixties and after the disappearance of the monarchy, as it shows a society full of transformations and ideas that would put it before a number of changes, and it came with the intention of... The novel is cohesive and woven, as this structure consists of narrative elements that would create an original, creative text, the first of which is the characters. The text is full of characters, some of which appear to be major and some are secondary, and the writer treats the characters as beings of paper, not of flesh and blood. That is, the writer's approach was based on the Russian Formalists, who treated the character as one of multiple elements that interact with each other in order to create coherent events, the second of which is the events, and the death of the grandfather formed a fulcrum in the novel Manazel Al-Lu'ah, as it is a major event, and from this event, events branched out. There are many ways to achieve a pictorial and artistic goal in the narrative text. The third is place, which is an important element considering that a person is a reflection of his environment and culture. The characters are centered in a geometric spatial space, and this narrative space universe is the one in which the events take place. Therefore, the events are reflected on these structural foundations. Then comes time, which is an important axis and a necessary space in the formation of... The narrative text. Al-Samarrai dealt with time professionally and precisely through temporal overlap and playing with time and its levels in the narration in a way that harmonizes with the course of the story. There is anticipation and there is retrieval or recall in which he narrates stories before or after the time of narration, and in the end he all seeks to write an integrated novel. Through a precise structure based on narrative elements and what these elements lead to an aesthetic vision.