Study of the novel “Al-Mahbubat” by Alia Mamdouh based on Kristeva’s theory of Strangers to Ourselves

Introduction: Literature brings us to the brink of existence. Its imaginary landscapes invite the reader to be a voyager filled with wonder, but the prospect of the marvelous that dazzles the eye may also open on to the dark world of terror and despair. Literature, like dreams, cannot be controlled. It disrupts the hold we have on our habitual experience. When we read or write, we inevitably follow the traveler’s impulses and steer across unknown countries with the help of a map. Yet, literary language most especially creates its own ephemeral universe resistant to all that is familiar. Something in this shifting landscape escapes and alienates our travelling eyes. The most intense forms of estrangement experienced by the subject, according to Julia Kristeva, are those produced by poetic language. For, while its origins are implicated in the origins of subjectivity, poetic language is a fire of tongues. It has an infinite, ecstatic quality that eludes the mastery of human consciousness. The landscape of the literature, then, is inhabited by a foreignness that deflects the traveler and isolates us from ourselves. We become, in other words, exiles.
Julia Kristeva: Julia Kristeva (born on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist and, most recently, novelist who has lived in France since the mid-1960s. She is now a professor emeritus at Diderot University of Paris. As the author of more than 30 books, such as Powers of Horror, Tales of Love, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Proust and the Sense of Time, and the trilogy Female Genius, she has been awarded Commander of the Legion of Honor, Commander of the Order of Merit, Holberg International Memorial Prize, Hannah Arendt Prize, and Vision 97 Foundation Prize. She was also awarded by the Havel Foundation.
“Strangers to Ourselves” by Julia Kristeva: This book is concerned with the notion of the “stranger”, the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own as well as the notion of strangeness within the self, a person’s deep sense of being, as distinct from their outside appearance and conscious idea of self.
 
Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining the world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in the Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France, are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world.
In the framework of the theory of strangers to ourselves, Julia Kristeva explains the life of the stranger within us. This stranger is a hidden force and an explanation for our internal contradictions, differences, and isolations that are formed under compelling environmental conditions and push the host towards the risk of social exclusion and alienation, especially if the host is an immigrant.
Alia Mamdouh: This Iraqi writer was born in Baghdad in 1944 and finished her primary and secondary studies there. Then, she joined Al-Mustansiriya University and graduated in psychology in 1971. She left Iraq in 1982 and did not return there. She haunted among capitals and cities, among Beirut and Morocco, Brighton, Cardiff, and Montreal, and temporarily settled in Paris.
The present study is the analysis of the contextual features of “Al-Mahbubat” according to the principles of the theory of Kristeva, Strangers to Ourselves, and the characters of this novel in order to lay the grounds for proposing themes of alienation with oneself.
Methodology: The method of this research is descriptive-analytical. The analysis helps to describe, show and summarize the data in a constructive way such that the patterns that emerge can fulfill every condition of the data.
Results and Discussion: “Al-Mahbubat” by Alia Mamdouh: The novel “Al-Mahbubat” presents its own artistic reality. This reality is based on the experience and alienation of Iraqi immigrants in Western society, the novelist looks at the world from their perspective and gives them the opportunity to reflect and talk about their suffering inside and outside Iraq. Thus, the novelist explains the lives of Iraqis living inside and outside Iraq based on the theory of strangers to ourselves.
Conclusion:  Iraqis who live in Iraq or migrate to a foreign land can possibly be classified as strangers because they are ready for it. This alienation arises in two ways, by their will or by force from the environment. The severity of this alienation among the immigrants is more than the other Iraqis because they are forced to live in a foreign environment and must be prepared to separate from the mother tongue and their national culture.