How the Defeated Character Tries to Appear Victorious (Um Hashim′s Lantern) Novel.

Abstract

This reading aims to situate Yahya Haqqi’s novel Qandeel Om Hashem
(Om Hashem’s Lantern) within the context of its modern historical, cultural
and Arabic narrative. This study aims to deconstruct the content and
narrative techniques of this novel and then to reconstruct it from a critical
and realistic perspective. Om Hashem’s Lantern has derived its importance
from being a masterpiece that is obsessed with journeying and serves as a
link between the East and the West in the light of previous and subsequent
attempts. It also includes a clear diagnosis of the reality of Egyptian society as
a representative of an Islamic, Arab society, on the one hand, and the British,
Christian, Western society, on the other hand. However, a close reading
of the novel shows a number of intellectual and technical contradictions.
These contradictions reinforce the educated protagonist’s submission to
his dysfunctional social reality and his resignation to the superiority of the
opposite advanced reality.