In this paper, we study the novel ‘Sayedaat Al Qamar’ (Celestial Bodies) from a cultural studies perspective. We will in particular consider the special relationship between literature and society which is the place where the imaginary is shaped and systems are formed. We will examine this relationship through Jokha AlHarthi’s novel ‘Sayedaat Al Qamar’, which has been interesting scholars and critics ever since it won the renowned Man Booker International prize. We seek to explore the novel’s rhetoric looking for the daily practices and rituals to discover the cultural systems standing behind them and guiding people’s communications and interactions within the Omani social context during a period Oman went though several political, economic and social conflicts and changes. There exist in the literature many rhetorical devices to reveal these systems, but in the case of ‘Sayedaat Al Qamar’, polyphony or the multiplicity of voices remains the most important rhetorical device. Polyphony, in this novel is characterized by the considerable number of voices and languages packed to echo the voices of the society’s varied groups and classes of women, men, children, nobles, slaves, tradesmen, immigrants and to tell about their thoughts, practices, and rituals in their daily life such as marriage, witchcraft, clothes, food habits, hospitality, diseases, education and movement. Given that the novel is rich with these varied cultural practices and the intertwining systems manipulating them such as the systems of racial discrimination, class antagonism and gender discrimination, our focus will mainly be on the puerperium, the post childbirth period, and its related verbal rituals and practices to unravel the systems controlling them referring for this purpose to sociological and anthological research tools.
In this paper, we study the novel ‘Sayedaat Al Qamar’ (Celestial Bodies) from a cultural studies perspective. We will in particular consider the special relationship between literature and society which is the place where the imaginary is shaped and systems are formed. We will examine this relations...