The Survey of Existentialism based on Nihilism in Novel of 'Latin Neighborhood' (al-Hayyo al-Latini) by Suhayl Idris

زبان و ادبیات عربی

Article 6, Volume 8, Issue 14, March 2017, Pages 150-181   

Document Type: research article

DOI: 10.22067/jall.v8i14.47122

Author

majid mohammadi bayazidi^*

Abstract

Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
After economic, diplomatic, and social developments of 20th century and world wars special 2nd one, existentialism was spread in the world. A lot of Arab literati trended to this philosophy after it entered contemporary Arabic literature. Suhayl Idris as one of the “most exciting and zealous Arab literati toward existentialism" (Safeen, 1987: 444) has tried to introduce the philosophy to Arab society. So this essay surveys the existentialism appearances in his most popular novel 'latin neighborhood' (al-Hayyo al-Latini).

2. Theoretical Framework
Philosophy of existentialism emphasizes on primacy of nature in humanity, and believes that it can realize his nature without any necessity and predetermined plan. But the absolute freedom doesn’t mean self-abandonment, and humanity can change his life and method. (Ebrahim, n.d: 219) So this philosophy cares about humanity choices, and also sees him responsible for himself and all people (Sartre, 1964: 17) as well as emphasizing on the commitment. It is resulted that philosophers of existentialism were emphasizing on some issues like man existence, freedom, authority, anxiety, felling guilty due to choose responsibility, relaxation, loneliness, wandering, and absurdity of life and death. (Verano and others, 1993: 324) It should be noted that absurdity in existentialism is really different of nihilism. Existentialism has pointed to man absurdity and wandering, and focused on the priority of nature on existence, but nihilism believes that "there is nothing in the world or there is nothing to be understood or there is nothing valuable". (Mahdavi Seighalani and Panjevand, 2010: 28) In other words, absurdity in nihilism is the starting and ending point, but in existentialism it is only the starting point. So existentialist person tries to pass that and gives his life an intended meaning.
3. Method
The method of this paper is descriptive analytics. First of all, it is referred to existentialism and its main principles. Then the appearances of existentialism in the novel were analyzed based on the absurdity issue and the loss of heroes.

4. Results and discussion
To prove the effectiveness of existentialism for Arab world, Suhayl Idris tries to choose some special principles of existentialism, and presents an optimistic image of existentialism in his novel. So there is no trace of some principles like denying God, rrelaxation, death, anxiety, and disappointment in his novel.
By creating conflict between man and woman heroes of his novel, he introduces using the existentialism principles as the only way of going out of loss feeling and absurdity by the man hero. While the woman hero has brought to the absurdity and loss land by getting away from those principles. The nameless man hero suffers an active absurdity that is started from the knowledge of absurdity and ended to the rebellion. (Mahdavi Seighalani and Panjevand, 2010: 32) By escaping from his society to the West, he tries to rebirth. So he leaves the past and rebels against the society values by using some symbolic moves like dropping Arabic turban in the sea, not hogging his Arabic friend in Europe, and rebelling against mother domination leaves the absurdity and changes to a existentialist man in the light of future, and uses the positive principles of existentialism like the freedom, authority, responsibility, and commitment. But woman hero "Janin" because of inability of leaving the past, disappointment, fear of future, lack of freedom felling, losing her independence in love, and trending to determinism changes to a nameless hero and joins to the existential group that believes in irresponsible freedom.

5. Conclusion
The novel of 'Latin Neighborhood' (al-Hayyo al-Latini) that is shaped based on the existentialism, has used the absurdity and loss of heroes to present an optimistic and effective image of this philosophy based on the conflict between man and woman heroes. Man awareness of his loss and absurdity reasons causes his rebellion against predetermined values by symbolic moves, and tries to get rid of that absurdity as a starting point. By institutionalizing some existentialism principles in his existence, he gets rid of the absurdity, and he will be born again. While the woman hero will be caught by absurdity because of getting away of existentialism principles. The absurdity is an ending point for her.
The existentialist novelist introduces the man trend to sexual promiscuity due to absolute freedom as the perplexity factor. He gets rid of this feeling after accepting responsible freedom. He shows existential group to emphasize on the responsible freedom that Janin joins this group because of her wrong understanding. To show the ascending process of the man and woman characters, the writer greatly uses back to the past technique and prospective technique.

Keywords

existentialism; nihilism; Suhayl Idris; latin neighborhood

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