Volume 18, No. 6, 2021

Ideological Interactions And Spiritual Healing: A Dialogic Reading Of Mahfouz’s Short Story Zaabalawi


Dr. Amna Saeed , Dr. Farhat Nisar , Sana Rabbani

Abstract

This research attempts a reading of Mahfouz’s short story Zaabalawi (1961) through Bakhtin’s (1981) theory of dialogism. This research focuses on the dialogic interactions of the protagonist with his own consciousness and the society in the form of multiple voices in the text. At various points throughout the story, the protagonist engages in dialogue with his own consciousness as an individual in a specific socio-cultural and religious context, as well as the members of society, on the subject of spiritual healing. This research argues that the protagonist’s preference for spiritual healing over medical treatment is an outcome of his dialogic interaction with the socio-cultural and religious realities around him. The ideological nature of language in plays a central role in the development of the protagonist’s ideological worldview that spiritual healing is the ultimate treatment for serious physical ailments. This qualitative research, using Alan McKee’s method of textual analysis, is a quest to identify such multiple contradictory ideologies expressed in the form of a multitude of voices.


Pages: 6309-6317

Keywords: Dialogism, Ideology, Bakhtin, Spiritual Healing.

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