Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

From the time Syria broke away from Ottoman rule in the 20th century until the War of Independence against the French, great changes took place in Arab society. The Syrian novel has also undergone major changes in terms of form and content. Writers have used the art of the novel as a way of expressing individual or social problems. One of the authors who used this form of expression was the Syrian writer Ghada Samman. Ghada Samman wrote a novel The Night of the First Billion to deal with the problems of her time. The fact that the novel, which deals with issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the wasteful Arab world, expatriate Arabs and the second-class treatment of women is considered one of the most important Arab novels published in the eighties shows the importance of the work in terms of Arab novels. In this study, the work named The Nıght of the First Billion was examined technically in order to determine to what extent the rules of the art of the novel were used, and thematically in order to determine which subjects were discussed. Considering the period in which the novel was written, this study aims to draw attention to social problems such as war, exile, asylum and migration and the effects of these problems on people.
The novel depicts the drama and alienation experienced by people who have emigrated from their homeland, especially Halil, who took refuge in Switzerland with his family due to the war in Lebanon, and the luxurious and extravagant lives of rich westernized Arabs who are indifferent to the war, all this misery and hunger. In the novel, Lebanon is personalized with the mysterious heroine Bahriye. The speechlessness of the young girl, whose body is full of wounds and bruises, expresses the pain and oppression in Lebanon, especially the silence in the face of Israeli occupation and massacres. The smell of the sea emanating from her body evokes the meaning of her name and reminds us of the city of Beirut overlooking the sea.
In addition to the divine point of view, the events in the novel are conveyed to the reader through the observations and impressions of the novel's characters. It is seen that the name of the novel is chosen in a way that will arouse curiosity in the reader and keep the interest alive. The year 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, was chosen as the objective time of the novel, and in this respect, the work is a historical novel. Through flashbacks, recollections, associations and fictionalized imaginary times, the author has added a deeper dimension to the events. Although the events in the novel take place in Geneva throughout the narrative, the place where the events begin is Beirut. The fact that Beirut is the place of return at the end of the narrative is important in terms of the place being an element that can witness the sense of citizenship and belonging.
The author has preferred classical Arabic in almost all of the novel. The literary language he used in the novel enhanced the beauty of his descriptions and gave it life and colour. Especially subjective descriptions draw attention from the first pages of the novel. Different styles such as critical style, stream of consciousness style and artistic style are used in the novel.
The novel has an impressive and gripping narrative thanks to the skilful use of modern narrative techniques such as internal monologue, internal dialog, stream of consciousness and free association. The psychological depths of the novel's characters and their psychological analysis show that the stream of consciousness technique and its manifestations, which were popular in the Western novel at the time, were used in the most successful way. Especially the hallucinatory scenes in which internal reckoning is depicted in all its dimensions increase the novel's impressiveness and reality.
The fact that the majority of the cast of characters in the novel is composed of typecasting shows that the author tends to convey his thoughts through these people. These types created by the author shed light on the social problems of the period, such as people enslaved to the capitalist order, intellectuals who exhibit a passive attitude in raising public awareness, and people who still take refuge in superstition in the modern age. Considering the issues which we mentioned during the technical analysis of the novel, it is seen that the art of the novel in Arabic literature is in the stage of development. The literary language used by the author has brought the novel to an artistically superior position.