The Social Dimension Of War During The Retrieved Time In The Iraqi Feminist Novel "2004-2015" : A Social Narrative Study

Abstract

This research addresses the social dimension of war during theretrieved time in the Iraqi feminist novel (2004-2015), in which the researcher addressed the social aspect of war through the times diversity. The research was represented in the external retrieval, which represents the date and time of writing, as well as the internal retrieval, which represents the time of the text that comes late. This topic addressed the external and internal retrieval functions. The researcher tried to stand at the retrieved time in the wars, and the manifestations it left in the spirit of the chosen feminist novels, as well as the relationship of the retrievedtime with time and place, and the extent of their effect on it. Time is one of the active narrative elements and “it represents a great effectiveness in the narrative text, as it is one of the main pillars on which the narrative process is based. The study of time in the narrative text is what reveals the clues through which it is possible to determine how time works in the literary work.” ^[1] Time is a tool that has functional dimensions through which the writer embodies his feelings, feelings and literary material.The element of time that regulates the narration process cannot be neglected. It is necessary to tell the story using the types of past, present and future tenses, and the use of time technique results in a determination of meanings, connotations and functions. Gerar Jenette distinguished between two times, the story time, which he considered a natural time, and whose events are sequenced according to logical reasons, and the tale time, which goes according to the narrator's vision, because he goes back to the past to retrieve events, and moves to the future to anticipate them, which is what Jenette called as “Time Paradoxes”.^[2] What is meant by different time techniques, including the retrieved time technique, has been called by several names, including retrieval, recall, antecedents, and regression ^[3]. These names, despite their different pronunciations, agree in the semantic meaning of retrieval, which is “a modern novelist term that means going back in memory to the far and near back” ^[4] , that is, the narrator inserts a previous event, and when he inserts it, he disrupts the course of events,because he recalls important past events in the course of narration.Retrieval, in general, is an artistic technique through which the writer innovates in leaving the successive storytelling to narrate events that occurred in the past, and then completes his narration. The process of temporal retrieval may come through an external retrieval of events that dates back to before the beginning of the novel, and an internal retrieval dates back to a past after the beginning of the novel that has been delayed in the narrative text, and there is a mixed retrieval that combines the two previous types ^[5]. Some critics considered retrieval time as a kind of time paradox, which means “the deviation of the narration time, as the narrator’s continuity stops in his finite narration to make way for him to jump backwards.” ^[6] The writer employs this paradox through his narrators, and some of them enter the paradox of retrieval between two times: the time of discourse and the time of the tale, as if he wanted the recipient to enter into this paradox since the beginning of the retrieval time, which was called the zero time of the narrative process. This process is intended to involve the recipient in the process of remembering the time, so he shares this remembrance with the narrator. It is a kind of process of slowing down time through retrospective pauses in which the narrator takes a time break in which the recipient also participates ^[7]. Retrieval narrative time “breaks up into a group of temporal fragments that separate at the beginning to meet at last.” ^[8] What distinguishes this study, is the tracing of the temporal narrative process through the social and cultural criticism approach. The novel before it is literature, it is a form of culture, and as long as the novel is a culture, it resembles others in cultural products, as it is subject to social and political variables. After this preface, in which we addressed the definition of the time narration and the technique of retrieval, it is worth talking about applying this technique to the Iraqi feminist novels that dealt with the issue of war, and an explanation of how to employ this technique through the social and cultural dimensions of the repercussions of these wars.This will be discussed through different types of retrieval, such as: external retrieval: it goes back to before the beginning of the novel, and internal retrieval: it goes back to a subsequent past after the beginning of the novel.