The Perception of Memory and Identity in The Sacred Night of Tahar Ben Jelloun
Çağatay Yılmaz, Zeynep Seza TabaklarIn France, the semiotic method of analysis that developed as an important branch of structuralism accepts text as a semantic construction. Considering this, the Paris school of Semiotics developed a method that gradually phased out texts as surface and deep structure. In this study, we use semiotic methods to analyze the book The Sacred Night, which is a continuation of the novel titled The Sand Child, for which the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun won the “Prix Goncourt” in 1987. The semiotics of Greimas, also known as the Paris school of Semiotics, comes from the basic principles of metamorphosis and includes a description and analysis of narrative elements. In our study, the narrative level of the action areas covers the protagonist and other characters involved in the novel La nuit sacrée, the discursive level contains the figurative and thematic roles that people engage in, and the semes and the isotopies appear in the deep structure by which means the semantic structure of texte. We examine the fantastic story of Zehra, who is raised as a male child and explores feminine identity after his father’s death in the context of memory and identity. After determining the semantic boundaries of memory and identity, we separate the narrative parts and evaluate the narrative processes in the context of time and space.
Tahar Ben Jelloun’un Kutsal Gece Adlı Romanında Bellek ve Kimlik Algısı
Çağatay Yılmaz, Zeynep Seza TabaklarFransa’da Yapısalcılığın önemli bir dalı olarak gelişen göstergebilimsel çözümleme yöntemi metni bir anlam bütünü olarak kabul etmiştir. Bu yöntemin ışığında Paris Göstergebilim Çevresi metinleri yüzey ve derin yapı olmak üzere aşamalı biçimde inceleyen bir yöntem geliştirmiştir. Bu çalışmada, göstergebilimden esinlenerek Faslı yazar Tahar Ben Jelloun’un 1987’de Goncourt Ödülünü kazandığı, 1985’te yayımlanan Kum Çocuk adlı romanın devamı olan Kutsal Gece adlı kitabını analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktayız. Yaklaşımımız Paris Göstergebilim Okulu diye de anılan Greimas göstergebiliminin temel ilkelerinden yola çıkmakta, incelenen bütünceyi oluşturan anlatısal öğelerin işlevleri açısından betimlenmesi ve çözümlenmesini kapsamaktadır. Kutsal Gece romanında yer alan kişi ve kişilerin eylem alanları çözümlememizin anlatısal düzeyini, kişilerin üstlendikleri izleksel ve betisel roller söylemsel düzeyini, anlambirimcikler ve yerdeşlikler derin yapı düzeyini kapsamaktadır. Bir erkek çocuğu olarak büyütülmüş ve babasının ölümünden sonra dişil kimliğini keşfetme yolculuğuna çıkan Zehra’nın olağanüstü hikâyesini, bellek ve kimlik kavramları bağlamında inceleyeceğiz. Bellek ve kimliğin semantik sınırlarını belirledikten sonra, anlatıyı bölümlere ayırıp metindeki anlatı süreçlerini uzam ve zaman çerçevesinde değerlendireceğiz.
Tahar Ben Jelloun, one of the most important representatives of French literature, has masterfully reflected the individual, social, and cultural troubles of the other. The imaginary atmosphere created by him in his stories is a major factor that attracts readers. Jelloun received the “Prix Goncourt”, considered one of the most important awards in literature. The Sacred Night, for which he won this literary award in 1987, is a continuation of The Sand Child. In this work, Jelloun examines the problem of living as a woman and the struggles occurring from the existence of a woman as an individual in Moroccan society; he presents his story in an impressive way through a character called Zehra who is raised as a boy from childhood although she is a female because of his father’s desire to have a male child. The truth about Zehra’s identity comes to light during Ramadan, at the night of Power, while his father is in his deathbed. Since the time she learns her true identity, the outrageous journey of Zehra to exist as a woman forms the whole of the novel. In this study, we examine Tahar Ben Jelloun’s impressive novel by following the path of the semiotic method of Greimas, also known as the Paris school of Semiotics. This semiotic study aims to reveal the transformation of the narrative process in the text on the basis of semantic oppositions and the relation of the individual to the space and time in the direction of these transformations in the surface and deep structure. Before starting our study, it is necessary to create a definition that involves the concepts of memory and identity in the literature because both memory and identity provide an epistemologically large perspective. Once we limit this perspective in a certain way, we observe the identity structure of the protagonist (Zehra) in her
