Marginal Literature in Yemen: The Marginalized Character in Ali al-Muqri's Novel Black Taste… Black Smell: A Case Study

Abstract

This study, entitled Marginal Literature in Yemen: The Marginalized Character in Ali al-Muqri's Novel Black Taste... Black Odour as a Model, seeks to explore how the novel represents the marginalized character by addressing the following central question: How is the marginalized character portrayed in the novel? The study adopts a thematic approach and is structured into an introduction, five main sections, and a conclusion. The introduction contextualizes the research topic, explains the rationale for its selection, outlines the scope and significance of the study, presents its hypotheses, research problems, and methodological approach, reviews and discusses previous scholarship, identifies the contribution of the present study, and concludes with the study's overall structure. The first section establishes the conceptual framework. The second examines the character between marginalization and the struggle for self-assertion and identity. The third investigates the discourse of racism in relation to social stratification and the representations of the marginalized character. The fourth is devoted to the marginalized character's self-narration, while the fifth analyzes the author's stance toward the marginalized character, tracing it from the discourse of recognition to fragility and fragmentation.

The study arrives at several findings, the most significant of which are as follows: the marginalized group's rebellion against certain customs and traditions was not the cause of their marginalization; rather, marginalization itself gave rise to their rebellion. Furthermore, marginalization is rooted in prejudice and racial discrimination based on ethnicity and skin colour. The marginalized character is portrayed in some parts of the novel as courageous, educated, and resistant to marginalization and exclusion, while in others as fragmented, vulnerable, deficient, destitute, defeated, alienated, lacking a clear identity, and lost. These contrasting representations reflect the deep-rooted social structures of exclusion and marginalization, rendering any attempt to recognize and socially integrate marginalized groups fraught with challenges and, ultimately, liable to failure.