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Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 Barthesian Codal Analysis of Mustafa Khalifa’s The Shell: Memoirs of A Hidden Observer ASFA BIBI Research Scholar, NUML, Islamabad, Pakistan. Abstract: Unrest marks the instability of any foundation wherever it spreads its roots. It weakens the superstructures and the bases that it integrates. Usually, it is viewed from opinion of big-wigs of society and the people belonging to lower strata who suffer most are ignored. Barthesian Codal analysis of the memoir, The Shell: Memoirs of A Hidden Observer weaved by Syrian Writer Mostafa Khalifa is done in this Research article in order to check the omniscient, focalized and subjective presence of the narrator and impacts of political restlessness on him. In this context the paper focuses on the implications of Barthesian model on the text and therefore, it extends the significance of the narrator in the respective work. This research on Syrian work is done by the utilization Roland Barthe Codal theory as a methodology keeping in view the qualitative mode of analysis. Keywords: Narratology, Focalisation, War Captive, incarcenation. 1. Introduction Socio- Political writings usually generate from the pens of those who are the observer of the system and the strong. When the writings of such significance are produced from the pen of Email: [email protected] Page 1 Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 those who once have been on the side of weak, the pens bleed. Such people are stronger than the strong and they become the voice of all whom they advocate. The political situation of Syria is really in instability since the decades ago. The whole political system has polluted the institutions and harmed the public institutions to the fullest. The story of the memoir, The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer, shows the same brutality happening in the cell of Syria. 1.1 The Statement of the Problem This research proposal is based on the research problem keeping in focus, the impacts of torture in imprisonment during the time period of political unrest in special reference to The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer. It also engages the researcher in deciphering the implications of incarcenation on the mode of the narration in the text by the use of narratological models. 1.2 Objectives of the Study The following are the objectives of the study: 1. To the explore the connection between narration of text and Barthsian codes of narration. 2. To investigate the restlessness keeping in view the narrator of the text. 1.3 Research Questions The following research questions have provided the framework for the present study: 1. What are the grounds that show connection between narration and the Barthesian Codes? 2. What is the impact of incarcenation on the narration? 1.4 Methodology The research has been done by using the Roland Barthes Codal analysis of the text as a methodology. The research will be done keeping in view the narratological explication of the text. It will emphasize whether the novel can be studied under the theory of narratology with specification to Roland Barthes. It will study the following elements in the text. Email: [email protected] Page 2 Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 1. Hermeneutic Code 2. Proairetic Code 3. Semantic Code (Connotational Code) 4. Symbolic Code 5. Cultural Code 1.5 Significance of the Study The significance of the research lies in the fact that it focuses on the geographical area that is marginalized by the rest of the world and people there are pressed as much as they can be. The human rights policies are recalled when such text and its authors become brave enough to give voice to himself and others suffering there or at any other place in the same way. It deals with significance of modes of narration, components of narration and narrator as a way of getting message across the readers. 1.6 Delimitations of the Study Substantial and close to truth works are created from the minds where they actually belong to. There is a huge need for the study of the texts that are born in the places that are mostly disconsolate and dejected there. Knowing what a nation thinks and feels is of utmost importance and therefore, there is dire need to study the thoughts and feelings of people there. It can be only done if the study of the works is done that are produced by the pens that they themselves hold. This research will primarily focus on the study of the translated chapter of ‗The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer‘ written by a Syrian writer Mostafa Kamal and translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. 2. Literature Review Email: [email protected] Page 3 Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 This study will focus on the critical view of the related that have been done on the same work or the writer. An interview of the writer is also added to know how he thinks. It also brings in view the brief introduction of the writer and the text. 2.1 A Review of related Researches Khalifa was born in 1948 in Syria and therefore he spent his childhood in Aleppo. There he began to work in political activities which were in turbulance. As a result, he was sent to prison twice. Upon his release, Khalifa left Syria and made his way towards France. He studied art and film direction there, and was arrested at Damascus airport when he returned from Paris. From 1982-1994, Khalifa was held a captive without trial at various state security prisons, including the infamous Tadmur Prison. The story, The Shell: Memoirs of A Hidden Observer, seems an outcome of those harsh experiences. As in an interview he says, „There is a lot of me in the protagonist, as well as part of a friend whose story has similarities.‟ (Khalifa) In an interview, Mustafa Khalifa explains, ‗I donʹt generally buy into such descriptions; neither do I agree with the notion that this novel is the "bible" of the revolution. The revolution of the Syrian people is bigger than a thousand novels.‟ (Khalifa) Therefore, the novel can be called an autobiographical creation by the writer. He also himself calls the novel a kind of catharsis for the people in Syria who have undergone the same brutality. ‗Some young people who suffered imprisonment are unable to talk about it. By reading this novel, they are able to understand more about their own experience.‟ (Khalifa) The novel, ‗The shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer‘ has been called a ‗chilling description of torture.‟ Similarly, in a web-review, it is told, ‗Khalifa (who was sent to a Syrian jail for more than a decade in 1982) captures what a long-term imprisonment feels like, both the Email: [email protected] Page 4 Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 overwhelming claustrophobia and the stray ray of light. Impressively fictionalizing his own harrowing experiences, Khalifa shines a much-needed light on a war outside the bounds of international law.‘ (Starky) A good deal of research work has not been done on the respective work yet. However, it is originally written in Arabic (Arabic: Al-Qawqaʿa: Yawmiyyāt Mutalaṣṣiṣ (and translated in French (La Coquille: Prisonnier politique en Syrie) by Stephanie Dujols. This study focuses on one of those chapters that have been translated into the English language. 3. Research Methodology This section of research proposal will deal with the explication and application of the theoretical framework and model of Roland Barthes, on the novel, The Shell: Memoirs of a Hidden Observer. 3.1 Theoretical Framework Collins English dictionary defines the term narratology as, ‗the study of narrative and narrative structure.‟ The deep examining of narrative in order to study the inner workings and functions of the literary text helps to decipher the narrative progression and influence. It helps to identify the narrative components that make the text influential. The theory will help in the study by the implication of its models which are discussed as follow: With reference to Barthesian reading of the narrative structure of the fiction by five codes defined by Felluga i.e. Hermeneutic Code (HER.), Proairetic Code (ACT.), Semantic Code (SEM.), Symbolic Code (SYM.), and Cultural Code (REF.), finding chronological and sequential order in the events of the story and paradigmatically, reversible descriptions. The five codes are briefly defined here. 1. The Hemeneutic Code (HER.) this code of Barthes refers to any element in the story that is not explained and not given sufficient account to the readers. Thus, such elements Email: [email protected] Page 5 Literary Horizon An International Peer-Reviewed English Journal Vol. 1, Issue 3 www.literaryhorizon.com August, 2021 remain enigma and need explication and interpretation to the end of the story unless its loose ends are tied. These elements are in Barthes‘s terms ‗snares‘ (Deliberate evasions of then truth), ‗equivocations‘ (mixtures of truth and snare), ‗partial answers‘, ‗suspended answers‘ and ‗jammings.‘ (Dino) 2. The Proairetic Code (ACT.) this code is termed as the second important principle of the textual narrative structure which creates interest and suspense on the part of the reader. The proairetic code implies to any action on the story that leads to another imminent action in the story. (Dino) 3. The Semantic Code (SEM.) being the third code confirms the connotational meaning of the text.