Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study
–Menonim Menonimus
Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmine’s Picture | An Analytical Study
Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study
‘Yasmine’s Picture” is a Lebanonian Arabic short story written by Hanan al-Shaykh (1945—) a female writer. The story deals with the theme of love. It throws a flashlight on the effect of the war between Lebanon and Israel on the psychology of the inhabitants of Lebanon.
Really there is no plot in the story. It is a story of character. The story revolves round a picture of a young girl named Yasmine. She is the main character of the story though she is present nowhere in the story. The name of the protagonist of the story is not mentioned by the author. But from the story, we know that he is married to a girl who chose him as her husband. From the fact, we know that the hero of the story has no choice of his own. He is feeble-minded and lives in a state of romance and imagination. The couple, for being war-affected shifted to the other part of the land and began to stay there in a lonely building. There on the wall, he saw a picture. It was a picture of a young girl who was married to an American engineer. Seeing the picture, the protagonist fell in love with her. He seemed that he is absorbed in the picture of Yasmine whom he had never seen nor met in life. In the house, he found her diaries, letters and a collection of songs. Looking at them he imagines her hobbies and personality. He wished had he met her, loved her and married her.
He was so much obsessed with the picture and thought of Yasmine that he forgot to care for his pregnant wife. At any time he was busy either looking at the picture or observing the diaries, and letters of Yasmine.
There is a good deal of description of Yasmine in the story. She is beautiful with feline eyes. Her forehead is tanned and rising, the nose is delicate and small. Her hair is black. She is higher educated and was married to a foreign engineer and left the land.
The author has narrated the story in the third person.
The structure of the story is feeble as there is no specific plot. The story begins with a picture of Yasmine and ends with the thought of her. The middle part of the story is nothing but a romance that the protagonist imagines about Yasmine.
The author has used a few dialogues in the story. But the dialogues are meaningful and enough to express the motives of the characters. For example, we can quote the following conversation between the protagonist and his wife concerning the picture of Yasmine:
He turned to his wife and asked, “Is she beautiful as she is in the picture?”
She replied rising the bedcover, “I only had a glimpse of her from a distance, when she was with Nawal.”
There is a fine simile in the story as: “He was like a thirsty man chasing a drop of water.”
The Setting of the story is well and realistic. The author has given a realistic and vivid picture of the setting of the story.
The story bears no philosophy of life, but we can extract out that the world of imagination is more pleasant and colourful than reality and one who is absorbed in the world of imagination is indifferent to the reality of life.
The Language of the story is simple but replete with concrete expression.
In maintaining the Qualities of a good short story as —unity of purpose, brevity, spontaneity and universality the author seems to be succeeded.
In brief, to say, the present story entitled ‘Yasmine’s Picture’ by Hanan Shaykh is a story of character which teats with the theme of love to an unknown girl written in a simple but expressive language. 0 0 0
Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study
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Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study
N. B. This article entitled ‘Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study’ originally belongs to the book ‘Analytical Studies of Some Arabic Short Stories‘ by Menonim Menonimus. Hanan al-Shaykh | Yasmines Picture | An Analytical Study
Books of Literary Criticism by M. Menonimus:
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