Abstract

Contemporary Arabic literature appeared later than its Western counterpart, but it quickly developed toward realism and excelled in the new realism and resistant literature, especially after the 1967 setback, the war between Israel and Arab countries. It began to approach global novels in both artistic and realistic levels, and started to reflect the live reality and the impact of characters on the course of events in Arab societies, as well as the pivotal transformations in the Islamic world. Therefore, characters take a fundamental role in constructing the novel with their varying levels and perspectives on social, cultural, political, resistance issues, and other human concerns. This includes the suffering of Arab peoples due to internal oppression by rulers and external aggression by the Zionists. The reader comes to know that the novelist is writing about events he has witnessed in real life, as is evident in the novel "The Path of the Sun" by the Lebanese writer Abdulmajid Zarqaat, which is a prominent example of resistance literature. This novel reflects the transformations the region has witnessed, including the oppression, invasion, and displacement suffered by the Palestinian people and southern Lebanon. The writer personally lived through the era of struggles and disasters faced by these oppressed peoples and experienced the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, which led to his displacement from his village to Beirut, the capital. In this study, we adopted a descriptive-analytical approach to uncover the social reality and assess the level of the desired characters in southern Lebanon. In the results, we will see how the writer was able to evaluate the level of multiple characters in his novel, employ various types of characters at different levels, and portray the scale of the tragedies suffered by the Lebanese people due to Israeli military attacks during a period of the last century. It also highlights the resistance of southern Lebanon through key characters against the invasion. The writer also excelled in describing the characters and their relationship with events and locations, comparing them at various levels. Moreover, the writer utilized colloquial language and popular proverbs to address issues related to the reality of life and society.
 
Keywords: Resistance literature, character types, character levels, Abdul Majeed Zaraqet, *Tarīq al-Shams* (The Path of the Sun)
 
Extended summary
 

Introduction

In his novel "The Path of the Sun," a realistic novel of resistance literature, writer Abdul Majeed Hussein Zaraqat embodies the conditions of the Lebanese people, the Palestinian cause, and the political struggle at the level of the National Movement for Change and Reform, and at the other level, the Palestinian factions' front to resist the Zionist enemy's occupation of Arab lands. The writer begins by noting that the construction of this novel, with its overall structure, components, and imagination, stems from a realistic reference, while simultaneously differing from it, in order to balance and reveal it from a novelistic perspective. Therefore, any similarity between the facts of the fictional reality in this novel and its characters, and the facts of real life and its characters, is purely for the sake of novelistic honesty. This means that the concept of this realistic novel emerged from perceptions that look to the realistic reference and reveal it with significance. The author also blends two realistic issues: the issue of resistance and the political and armed struggle against the enemy, and the issue of true love that was born in this struggle between the novel's hero, Kamal Al-Saher, and the heroine, Mona Rashid, who chose the path of the sun, which is the path of life and love, and the path of resistance and truth.

Materials and Methods

The novel embodies the socio-cultural structure, or in other words, the “sociology of culture” of the desired society in the novel “The Road of the Sun.” Therefore, the narrator described the characters, their culture, lifestyles, and the relationships that connect the members of this society and their social and cultural level. These are the aspects that constitute the socio-cultural structure of society. Therefore, in this novel, we will study the system of social and cultural components in constructing the novel based on the descriptive-analytical approach. We will seek to analyze the identity of the characters, their visions, and the narrator’s vision by employing the characters to fight injustice and resist occupation by various means, as stated in the text of the novel.

Research Findings

The author used narrative to tell the novel through the two main characters and a third, friendly character. These are written papers that they convey the events, facts, and developments that occurred in the novel. This is considered one of the artistic techniques that the author adopted to express his views in direct narration through the characters of the novel, which enabled him to convey the most precise details through the characters, events, and places, making the reader live in the atmosphere of the novel with a deep feeling. The author describes the characters in detail, detailing their physical, social, cultural, moral, political, and religious backgrounds. He also articulates their perspectives on social, cultural, and religious issues, as well as other common issues such as etiquette, customs, and traditions respected by people in Lebanese and Palestinian society, particularly in the border areas between the two countries, given their shared religious, national, and historical backgrounds. The novel's diverse characters symbolize the reality of Arab peoples who share similar situations and the shared Palestinian cause. The author embodies the identities of the various characters in the novel, including two main characters, the two protagonists, and the opposing characters. Other characters play a significant role in the novel's development and contribute to its unfolding. Other minor and naive characters do not directly participate in the novel's events and play no active role in its development, but their presence is essential to constructing a cohesive narrative and creating a realistic narrative.

Discussion of Results and Conclusion

The level of the various characters in the novel varies in terms of physical and intellectual aspects, whether at the level of outward features or the cultural, moral and religious level. Each has a certain level. Some of them have general physical characteristics, some carry a special intellectual culture and opinions, some have high morals, some ordinary, some low, some hold firm religious beliefs and high social values. There are also other degraded and low levels. The level of the characters varies in the novel according to the role assigned to them. Therefore, it becomes clear that the character has a tangible and apparent material side, and a hidden moral side that requires a diligent effort to uncover it. In addition to all of this, the character has fixed and changeable qualities, and thus all of them lead to the individual’s distinction from others of his kind. The author also gives the main character, that is, the hero of the novel, prominent outward characteristics such as name and surname. The two handsome men, the elegant body and the noble morals, which leads to attracting the reader and making him admire them, and he has prestigious qualities and characteristics that the other characters in the novel do not have, and thus he is distinguished from the rest of the characters, and the main antagonistic character in the novel has negative outward and inward characteristics and traits that suit that character, so that the reader is repelled by this character and stays away from bad morals and descriptions that are not appropriate for the person of a righteous human being.