라일라 알우스만의 페미니즘 소설에 나타난 후각표현 연구

Abstract

This study examines the description of the olfactory senses featured in the works of Laylā al-‘Uthmān. The argument that the olfactory offers a new possibility to further and develop the world of narratives is one method of approach in postmodernist research. In her feminist novels, Laylā al-‘Uthmān sought to maximize impact through the use of the olfactory to describe the psychological state of her female characters. Though the character in Picture (al-Ṣurah) attempted to start an extramarital affair, the medium which caused her to refrain from doing so was the photograph defined with ‘the smell of an old woman.’ Here, olfactory description functions as a supplementary aid to visual description. The female character in Among the Files of Women (Min Milaff Imra’ah) resorts to the murder of her husband as a result of accumulated dissatisfaction with their sex life. The lingering scent after the young married couple living next door had sexual intercourse was the trigger for this murder. After being raped by her brother-in-law, the character in The Wall has been Shredded to Pieces ( al-Judrān ···Tatamazzaq) gives birth to and murders her son in the school bathroom. The olfactory, in the transposed illustration of the bathroom as a slaughterhouse and the described stench of blood, constitutes the climax scene of the work. In Sad Night (Laylah al-Qahr), both the bathroom cleaning lady and the bourgeois woman share a commonality in that they both seduce their husbands with their perfumes. However, the ‘perfumes’ of both of these females lead to their rejection; likewise, at the centrality of the narrative, the olfactory plays a primary or at least secondary role such as in the definition of the values of the characters or in the illustration of their actions. Just as the works of Laylā al-‘Uthmān are inseparable from the themes of feminism, the crucial role of the olfactory senses in her feminist works are inextricably intertwined. It is possible to observe an indivisible relationship between the olfactory and its use as signification of the hope, desire, despair, and sacrifice of the female characters in the works of Laylā al-‘Uthmān. The importance of the use of the olfactory in the author’s works render the beginnings of a new paradigm to the diversified yet precise use of human physiology and sensory modality to deliver meaning to the reader’s cognition.