Chronotopic adaptation in Nawal El Saadawi’s isis | ||
| مجلة کلية الآداب.جامعة بنها | ||
| Article 1, Volume 37, Issue 4, October 2014, Pages 3-51 | ||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jfab.2014.53468 | ||
| Author | ||
| , Elham Hussein Abdallah. Hussein* | ||
| Abstract | ||
Non-formalist critical theories are mainly concerned with the interrelated relationships between a literary text and the context of its production, as for example, Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope, and Gerard Gennette’s theory of literary adaptation . The chronotope theory investigates the relationship between the work of art and its tempo-spatial context. The literary adaptation theory tackles the transpositions employed to a target text as to update the original text to encompass a number of contemporary issues. In this paper, these two theories are investigated in Isis (1986), a play by the feminist, liberal, Egyptian writer, Nawal El Saadawi (1931- ). In the original myth of Isis and Osiris, Isis is introduced as the Egyptian goddess who has managed to recollect the pieces of the dead body of her husband, Osiris, after his murder by his brother, Seth, the god of earth. Isis has succeeded to resurrect Osiris, then to be impregnated by him to bear her son Horus, who later fights against Seth, and defeats him. The major sources of the myth are the inscriptions on the walls of the Egyptian temples, the pyramids funerary texts together with some papyrus copies and folk tales. The Isis myth consists of three parts: the death and resurrection of Osiris, birth and childhood of Hourus and the conflict between the adult Horus and Set. In the first part, Osiris, the ruler of Egypt is killed by his brother Seth for either kicking him or having physical union with Nephtys, Seth’s favourite. Then Osiris’s body is cut into 42 pieces and is scattered all over the Egyptian provinces. Isis, by the help of her sister Nephtys, and other benevolent deities are metamorphosed into two kites and search for and collect Osiris’s body. During Osiris’s temporal resurrection, Isis is impregnated and later gives birth to their son Horus. The second part of the myth deals with Horus’s childhood and his vulnerability. Isis is presented as a caring mother who manages to cure her son by magic spells. The third part tackles the conflict between the adult Horus and Seth which ends by the division of the kingdom between them. The Isis myth has inspired many writers to write about it, for instance, Herodotus refered to the myth in his description of Egypt in his book The Histories in the 5th century BC; Diodorus Siculus provided a summary of the myth in his work Bibliotheca Historica, in the 1st century BC; Plutarch, in the 2nd century AD recorded the myth in his work De Iside et Osiride . In Egypt, Tawfiq El Hakim (1898- 1987) wrote a play entitled Isis (1955), focusing on the image of Isis as merely a devote wife and a caring mother. El-Saadawi wrote her play, Isis, in Cairo in 1986 after she saw Isis by Tawfiq El-Hakim. She decided to write a play about Isis from a different perspective, namely a feminist one. In her introduction to the play Isis, El-Saadawi states: Many writers have written about Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess, but no one credits her as a teacher and inventor of agriculture, bread making and writing, nor do they portray her accurately as a figure who had a philosophy, values and religion […] They have formed a mundane image of her based on her loyalty to her husband and her role as a mother (11-12). In her adaptation, El Saadawi re-introduces the myth according to her feminist liberal concepts, regarding herself a daughter of Isis, the archetypal symbol of women’s empowerment. El Saadawi has performed a number of transpositions in her target text. In the transposition of characters, El Saadawi’s presentation of Isis is more realistic and pragmatic than that of the original myth. El Saadawi’s Isis is the goddess of wisdom and reason. She is a professional debator, confident, bold, persistent and rebel. El Saadawi introduces a second Osiris, a simple man working as a sailor, with dark complexion, unlike the first husband, Osiris, the god. In transposition of plot, the author transposes the original incidents in a way that enables her to ridicule and attack corruption and oppression in her society, through exposing a number of contemporary issues, such as poverty, ignorance, gender distinction, class distinction, racial discrimination, imposition of power through coercion. As a result, the writer fuses a former plot with new thematic concerns. Also, the incidents of the play are more realistic and down to earth than the original myth. Together with the transposition in plot and characters, the play has revolutionary spirit, unlike the original myth which is purely religious. These transpositions are examined through the analysis of the various types of chronotopes in the play. Two types of chronotopes are employed in the play: major and minor chronotopes. For the major chronotopes, the most prominent types investigated in the play are the generic , the documentary, and the idyllic chronotopes. While the original story has the generic chronotope of myth, the play has the generic chronotope of tragicomedy. Minor chronotpes include the chronotope of the road, meeting, threshold, the public square and regeneration. Through the discussion of these chronotopes, the close relationships between the literary text and the context of its production is demonstrated. Therefore, this paper explores the possibility of the use of the chronotope as a methodological tool in the field of adaptation studies. The purpose of the paper is to situate the chronotope in the context of adaptation studies through the literary analysis of the play Isis in comparison to its source –the ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris. The analysis depends mainly on two works: first; Bakhtin’s essay, ”Forms of Time and of the chronotype in the Novel: Notes Toward a Historical Poetics” , written in Russian in 1930s and published in English in 1981, second; Gerard Gennette’s Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree (1979). | ||
| Keywords | ||
| literature; Adaptations; History and criticism; Feminist literature | ||
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