Applying the structural model of Wladimir Propp in the short story “Shams for Children” from the short story collection “Damascus Fires” by Zakaria Tamer.

Title

"The application of Vladimir Propp's structural model in the short story 'Shams al-Ṣighār' from the collection 'Damascus al-Harayiq' by Zakaria Tamer."

Introduction

The emergence of the Formalist movement led to the initiation of new studies in various literary fields. Formalists believed that form and structure are not tools for expressing content; rather, it is content that creates form and structure. Thus, content is merely the context in which form is realized. By focusing on the text and disregarding external factors such as the era and the author's personality, they sought to uncover the rules that generate a literary work. The "Structuralist" school emerged from this movement.

This school played a prominent role in literary theory, as it aimed to extract an internal model for analyzing literary works (School, 2014: 26). Structuralists, using the ideas of prominent structuralist theorists like Propp, Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Genette, Kristeva, Eco, and Barthes, sought to analyze the literary, social, and cultural events of various societies by focusing on the internal aspects and relationships between elements within a structure. They aimed to uncover a structure that could be examined in both written and spoken forms. Morphology was one of the key topics in this regard.

The term "morphology" refers to the study and understanding of the structure and characteristics of objects. Propp categorized folklore works based on their form and referred to this process as morphology. He used the term to describe tales based on their constituent units and the relationship between these units and the whole tale (Propp, 1989: A, 17).

Propp selected one hundred tales from the "Alexander Afanasyev" collection and analyzed them based on their actions and events. According to him, morphology means describing tales based on their components and their interrelationships with each other and the entire tale (Kupa, 2010: 104-103). In his attempt to identify fixed (functions) and variable (characters) elements in Russian fairy tales, Propp concluded that although the characters in a tale may vary, their functions are fixed and limited (School, 2014: 96). Propp called the function or "functioning" the smallest component of fairy tales, which he attributed to the action of a character in advancing the plot.

Zakaria Tamer, the great Arabic short story writer and specialist in children's literature, in one of his stories titled "Shams al-Ṣighār" (The Sun for Children), which was written for children, used all of Propp's functions (except for the functions of recognition [Q] and marriage [W]). Despite its brevity, this story shares many similarities with the structure of fairy tales and, due to the repetition of functions, can be analyzed from the perspective of Propp's morphology. The introduction of multiple characters with different functions and their impact on the progression of the plot has led to the occurrence of numerous events in the story. "Shams al-Ṣighār" in the collection "Damascus al-Harayiq" has remained relatively unknown, and no research has been conducted on it thus far

Methodology

In this article, using a descriptive-analytical method, Zakaria Tamer's short story "Shams al-Ṣighār" has been analyzed with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness and applicability of Propp's model in the morphological analysis of the story.

Results and Discussion

The results obtained are highly consistent with Propp's findings; they show that "Shams al-Ṣighār" has a unified structure, indicating that Propp's model is capable of conducting a morphological analysis of the story. Although the story is brief, it seems to align with almost all of Propp's functions—except for the functions of recognition (Q) and marriage (W). Each of the characters in the story represents a specific aspect of human traits: the mother symbolizes power and domination, the brother symbolizes evil and deceit, and the hero has a dual personality. Initially, he represents evil, not seeing himself as vulnerable, but later, a second aspect of his character emerges, showing him to be a submissive and passive individual.

Conclusion

The results of the research indicate that, although Zakaria Tamer's "Shams al-Ṣighār" is a short story, it seems to align with all of Propp's functions. Each of the characters represents a specific aspect of human traits: the mother symbolizes power and domination, the brother symbolizes evil and deceit, and the hero initially exhibits a dual personality. At first, he symbolizes evil, not perceiving himself as vulnerable, but then the second aspect of his character emerges, revealing him to be submissive and passive.

In the first movement of the story, as observed, the characters are shown through their actions, and the reader understands the nature and traits of the characters through what they say and do. Characterization occurs through their speech and actions in the story's scenes, revealing the characters to the reader. The author does not directly describe or state the characteristics of the characters, but instead, he replaces description with direct portrayal. In other words, instead of telling and describing, the narrator shows them directly.

The characters in the first movement of this short story, designed by the author, contribute to various narrative elements. Except for the hero, all of the characters are static, while the hero is dynamic. Despite the hero’s initial dialogue reflecting rebellion and recklessness, showing the function of evil, opposition, and conflict (ΗCΑ), after a short time, he transforms into a submissive and passive character, following his mother's wishes and striving to carry out her commands

Keywords: Morphology, Vladimir Propp, Zakaria Tamer, Shams for kids