The Role of Narrative Language in Characterization the Alienated Hero between the two Collections of “Death of Bed No. 12” by Ghassan Kanafani and “My Little Chapel” by Hushang Golshiri

Abstract

Characterization is one of the most important aspects of a story's success, ensuring it closely matches reality. Given that alienation is a social phenomenon increasingly prevalent in modern-day characters, emphasizing it in character development enhances the author's skill and exposes the social dysfunction it has led to. Among the most prominent authors who have explored the alienated hero in their stories are Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani and Iranian author Houshang Golshiri. This study, based on the comparative approach, compared the role of narrative language in characterizing the alienated hero in selected stories from the collections: Death of Bed No. 12 and My Little Prayer Room, by the two aforementioned authors. The research concluded that the descriptions, vocabulary, and artistic images used by the two authors showed the alienation of the heroes and were linked to the land or to alienation. The research showed that the dialogue was in harmony with the alienated spirit, and was one-sided in Kanafani's stories, showing the isolation of the hero, and aiming to prove the self in "My Little Prayer", and showing its fragility and defeatism in "The Fourth Infallible" and other results that we will discover in the study.