صورة الرّيف في مسرح توفيق الحكيم

Abstract

A covering study of “the suburb” in Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s theater. Tawfiq Al-Hakim was a prominent Egyptian writer and one of the leading figures of the modern Arabic literature, and drama. This study contains a preface, an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion and a bibliography. The preface represents a general idea about the origins of the suburbs in the Egyptian theater from its first beginnings, and its close relation to Tawfiq Al-Hakim who spent his early childhood in a provincein the suburb. The initial chapter illustrates the four main issues I came across through Al-Hakim plays, which includes: the social issues, the political confusion, poverty, and the prevalence of the inexperience among the villagers. Adding to it other crucial phenomena, such as: the revenge, the unemployment, poor education, and the lack of sanitation and hygiene. For the second chapter, it demonstrates the social life in the rural Egyptian areas in two separate sections. The first one, shows the character of women, how the society looks at them as moms, daughters, unties, grandmas…, and Al-Hakim’s positive and negative points of view about their characteristics. In contrast, the second section inspects the physical, psychological, and sociological aspects of men, as well as the relationship that connects them to the women, their manners, and the environmental effects on their behaviors and morals. Five different sections are included in the third chapter, to focus the lens on the traditions, the religious tendencies and thoughts, the proverbs, the traditional songs, the local dialect, and their direct impact on the Egyptian peasants at that period of time. The final chapter, visualizes the image of villages and suburbs in two sections. The first one pictures the open fields, that played major roles in shaping the lives of the Egyptian peasants. It considers the contrast between the city and the village, and displays the symbols of the places like: the central local market, the central gathering square, the canal, and the train station etc… and their importance during the plays actions. He used them as instruments to construct his ideas and opinions and to clarify them. The second section of this chapter, is about the closed public and privet places especially those that appeared at (Asaker’s) house, the farmer, the schools, the palaces, the shrines. Furthermore, this section compromises the presentation of the situation of the public health and exposes its impact on the lives of Egyptian villagers.