Out of the Frying Pan of Identity into its Fire: Anxiety of Origin & Tongue in Hajji Jaber's Novel (Raghwah Sawdā')- A Semiotic Study

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyse the Eritrean novelist Hajji Jaber's work (Raghwah Sawdā'), from the perspective of identity. This novel offers some kind of a different image of the concept; an image that is consistent with the critical view of postmodernism. Identity seems to be one of the central issues of Jabir's narratives, as he is always concerned with questions of existence of the Eritrean people, in terms of self, home, diaspora & war. (Raghwah Sawdā') in particular can be considered an important example in this context; the hero of the work (the main character) is an Eritrean young man who finds himself in an identity crisis since he was born in deadly exceptional circumstances. Thus, he spends his short life trying to escape his reality by forging his name, origin, homeland, language & religion, until he reaches Israel where he meets his unfortunate destiny. The analysis adopts semiotics, while following the fragile relationship between the signifier & signified in every sign that is related to the concept of identity. The study is divided into seven parts.