The problem of dystopian discourse in the novel (Flowers Eaten by Fire)

Abstract

     Dystopia means a ruined place, or a corrupt city burdened by poverty and injustice, where moral and societal values ​​are absent. Dystopia forms the world of the novel "Flowers Eaten by Fire," published in 2016, by the Sudanese novelist Amir Taj Al-Sir. The story takes place in the city of "Al-Sur", where people coexist peacefully despite their religious, intellectual, and class differences. The city then descends into a dystopian world after the arrival of the extremist group "Al-Dhikra wal-Tarikh" (Memory and History), which practices torture, murder, terrorism, and enslavement. The women of "Al-Sur" suffer for a long time under their terror, physical, psychological, and intellectual abuse.

     The research focused on the unique nature of the novel's discourse, whose elements and techniques were characterized by problematic issues, beginning with the title itself, which alludes to the fire consuming the flowers—that is, the women—and continuing throughout the novel's discourse from beginning to end. Our reliance on the structuralist approach, and more specifically Genette's theories, in analyzing the discourse and exploring its underlying meanings, stems from a focus on the elements of time and form, as these are central to the problematic nature of the narrative. Time derives its problematic character from its manifestation within a dystopian space, on the one hand, and from its construction being dependent on its relationship to the characters and events, and the tragic human upheavals and crises they entail, on the other.

     The writer presented the narrative through the vision and voice of the main character (Khamila). The first chapters were presented using the flashback technique, through her troubled and shattered memory, which represented a refuge to which the character resorted to escape from the present, with its dystopian reality. The disturbance and fragmentation of the narrative time paved the way for revealing what the characters would experience in their present and future, and what they would face in terms of abuse and terror, before which they would stand helpless and deprived of their will. The techniques of stream of consciousness and dreaming worked together to reveal the inner workings of the psyche, its struggles with itself and its dystopian environment, and its hope for salvation from its nightmarish reality, thus revealing a psychic content full of conflicts, in a troubled language and unresolved vocabulary