The Semiotics of Characters in The Stories of Hasab-Allah Yahya 2001-2017

Abstract

The character is one of the most important elements of the narrative work, because it is concerned with the creation and development of the event. It is one of the important elements in which the main components of the story revolve. The character is the mixing of reality and imagination, created by the storyteller in his imagination, borrowing its features from real reality and adding to it the artistic touch that makes it closer to realism and convincing. Therefore, the character element has its artistic value at the narrative level, regardless of the differences in viewpoints .
The artistic importance of the character lies in its activity, movement, and knowledge of the task of the narrative actions that are integrated in the narrative text, and this is what Aristotle went for when he stressed the importance of depicting the action in addition to clarifying with it the role of the actor. This is clear from his saying: (In order to judge something that was said or occurred to the extent Its importance: We must not only look at the action itself, but we must also take into account the person who performed the action or said it .
Storytelling means employing the character from the inside and outside in a way that often leads to confusion between the character in the fictional reality and the character in the lived reality, with a desire to make the recipient believe in the realism of that character, which is often described as a living being with a physical existence, describing its features, stature, voice, clothing, and age .
The character occupied special importance in the nineteenth century by separating it from the event and giving it an active role in narrative works. It was necessary for the character to be characterized by special characteristics that remain unique and cannot be replaced by anything else, and at the same time to enjoy generality until it becomes universal. If this indicates that it indicates the high value of the individual in society by giving the personality a higher value, and this has been confirmed by studies in this aspect .
As for modern narration, it began to look at character in a different way than it was in the past, and interest in character began to gradually diminish following the emergence of formalist critics, as these critics made it clear that character does not play an important role in moving the narrative dynamic, and this is what the Russian critic (Vladimir Propp) argued in An analysis of the Russian tale through which he sought to reveal the elements of the narrative text in the context of his focus on the functions performed by the characters as a semantic unit and not a fixed a priori given .
It is worth noting that the characters differ depending on the methods of presenting them, as each storyteller has his own way of drawing the features of the characters externally and internally, and even determining their narrative function and scope of movement. This is achieved by the writer’s ability to create and innovate, and he convinces us to accept the types of characters, interact with them, and feel their realism, even though they are imaginary .
The types of characters vary according to the researcher’s ability to classify them based on the narrative work. There are those who divide them into three sections as follows :
1. The main character: He is the character who dominates the narrative work in presence, influence, and portrayal .
2. Flat personality: It is the one that remains as it is without development .
3. The rounded or developing character: He is the one whose appearance is not complete until the end of the story .
We will try to shed light on the method of constructing characters in Hasaballah Yahya’s stories, as the characters that appeared in all of his stories varied between realism, that is, familiar to the reader, or that the reader does not feel strange about, and fantasy, which are those that have a unique imaginative dimension, with features Unreasonable dimensions.