Analysis of karikalamator in Ahmad Matar’s poetry and its rhetorical strategies

Abstract

There are a plenty of templates and styles for the comic genre of writing. One of these templates is karikalamator, a kind of writing stunt from a different point of view to highlight the contradictions of the world and the phenomena in it. Among contemporary Arab comedians, Ahmad Matar is one of the most prolific and famous authors in this field. As a committed poet, in his poems, he recreates his subjects in his poems and presents the spiritual conflicts and inconsistencies of speech and action to his audience. In his caricatures, he uses some tools and strategies like alliteration, personification, simile, allusion, Irony, paradox, antonomasia, and half-truth. In this article using a descriptive-analytical method, first, the samples of his karikalamator are presented in the poems of Ahmad Matar as a master of this technique in the contemporary Arabic literature. Then, the strategies that have been used by the poet are categorized and described. Since Ahmad Matar was a caricature designer, some cartoons and caricature patterns have been attached to his karikalamator to show the visual capability of his karikalamator. The results of the research reveal that Ahmad Matar utilizes karikalamator as a method to show the existing contradictions and differences on the one hand and to unmask the reality of inactive and garrulous governors as well as the indifference and incuriosity of Arab citizens on the other hand. In this regard, he dreams of the ignominy of governors and betterment of the people of his land.

Keywords

• humor
• caricature
• rhetorical strategies
• overstatement
• ahmad matar