A Socio-Historical Analysis of "Um Sa‘ad" by Ghassan Kanafani Based on Claude Duchet’s Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Salahaddin Abdi ¹

Amin Bakht Dar ²

¹ Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Bu Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

² Ph.D. Candidate of Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Bu Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/jall.2026.97531.1625

Abstract

In the social criticism of narrative works, the literary text is regarded as a site for the representation and reproduction of power relations, class structures, ideologies, and collective actions. In this context, Claude Duchet’s theory, through its focus on textual structure, extracts social dynamics embedded within the narrative and uncovers sociological behaviors and patterns at the core of the literary work. In his novel Umm Sa‘d (1969), Ghassan Kanafani, as a committed writer drawing upon his lived experience of occupation and exile as well as an ideological perspective, constructs a symbolic figure of the Palestinian mother, whose suffering, resilience, and political consciousness emerge within the hardships of the camp. Through a polyphonic and multi-layered narrative structure, the novel establishes a dialectical relationship between literary form and socio-political conditions, with character development and plot progression advancing in parallel with the gradual process of societal consciousness-raising. By virtue of this reciprocal interaction between text and society, Kanafani provides a realistic and critical representation of Palestinian resistance, transforming literature into a vehicle for exposing structural oppression and consolidating collective identity under occupation.The present study employs a qualitative descriptive-analytical method grounded in Claude Duchet’s theory, specifically its three components: socio-text, referential society, and sociogram. Bibliographic data from the entire novel Umm Sa‘d were extracted through systematic reading and subsequently analyzed according to the three indicators of Duchet’s theory. The results indicate that the referential society (occupation, displacement, and repression in Palestine) receives an ideological representation within the socio-text, which is organized around resistance—manifested through motherhood, sacrifice, suffering, and hope—while the sociogram objectifies this dialectical link. Therefore, resistance in the novel Umm Sa‘d constitutes a socio-cultural and historical structure rather than an individual or emotional act.
 
 

Keywords

Historical-social criticism

Discourse of Resistance

Claude Duchet

Ghassan Kanafani

Um Sa‘ad

Subjects

• Literary Criticism

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