Fragments of memory: a story of a Syrian family – Theme Analysis
Hanna Minah is a renowned author in the Syrian literary world and is famous among many readers of Arab language. However, the author is not equally renowned in the international literary community, though he has 40 books published, countless editorials as well as a plethora of television scripts to his credited, and possibly, the most popular among all these works is the semi-autobiographical memoir ‘Fragments of Memory,’ which was published by Interlink Books in a translated and revised edition.
Fragments of Memory, is a captivating biographical account, where the author depicts the almost unimaginable poverty that his family experienced. The author’s family used had the shade of a fig tree as their home, which was on a filthy wayside. The whole family was believed to have suffered unbearable heat along with extreme hunger almost persistently, the whole of their lives.
Minah offers an intense, profound, insider’s portrayal of the dejected and disheartened life of the rural people during the early-twentieth-century. Life then was actually dominated intensely by communal feud, as a majority of people were slaves who became indebted to their masters, almost for their entire life. When the silkworm industry broke down because of contemporary technological sophistication in various other places of the world, the lives of the farmers, which were already subjugated to the maximum degree, was further affected as a result.
The family portrayed in the book is seen to have struggled incessantly for their very survival as the politics of empire(s), either individually or jointly, played a very crucial yet shadowy role in so happening. The struggle for survival was actually a between their urban roots and their life in the northern Syrian coastal side, where they earn their livelihood from agriculture, and they are wisely differentiated from the so called city folk.
Tussling amidst the myriad perspective of the only young son and the matured and logical personality of the speaker, this story beautifully, yet humorously captures the fumbling understanding of the young minds. The depiction clearly depicts the way in which details of the excruciating levels of intense poverty and the socioeconomic structure and cadence of the rural society after the First World War. The author also offers remarkably captivating portrayal of the silkworm agronomy as well as its sudden and surprising erasure from the then society, which was predominantly a result of the advent of a synthetic alternative.
Death and suffering were the two most significant themes that are perpetually present throughout the narration. The narration can actually be perceived as a strategy that is used by people to survive by recalling their past life memories.
While portraying the pathetic life and the never-ending miseries that his family had to experience, which was predominantly because of the impact that First World War had upon the whole world, the author also is seen occasionally wondering about the psychological state of his mother, in her effort to look contented with their lives. This speculation of the author denotes his pursuit to reenact the past happenings using his own imaginations, and ultimately trying to construe all of them.
The backdrop of the story, as it is clear was during the aftermath of the First World War. The author, being a young and only son, would not have had the required maturity to construe that his mother was purely acting as if she is highly contented. Instead, Minah must have grasped that instance over and over again in the years the ensued, just to comprehend that his mother was actually hiding the reality of life.
While through the factually describing style applied to the narration, Minah depicts his own experience of each and every single minute of his childhood life after the First World War; on the other hand, Minah presents his speculation on his mother’s psychological state, which adds yet another dimension to the perception of the readers towards the historical incidents that took place. The speculation took the form of an interpretive style of narration.
Constantly dwindling between both an independent yet unprejudiced narrations, Minah displays his pursuits towards not only reliving his non-fictional recollections of life, but also construe his memory in an imaginary as well as illusory manner. In many instances, it can be noticed that Minah is actually manipulating the external environment as allegories of his mother’s psychological state. The narration that took the form of a memoir is carefully, yet exquisitely blended with an imaginary and ubiquitous perspective that empowers the author to construe things in the manner that he feels to be most appropriate.
Works Cited
Dam, Nikolaos van. What to Read Now: Syria. 2012. Web. 25 February 2016. <http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2012/may/what-read-now-syria>.
Minah, Hanna. Fragments of memory : a story of a Syrian family. Northampton: Interlink Books, 2004. Print.
