نقد ادب معاصر عربی (Jul 2020)
Adler's reading of the Khalil Kafir story by Gibran Khalil Gibran: Khalil’s psychopathology
Abstract
Alfred Adler (1870) was a psychoanalyst and the founder of "individualist-oriented psychology" in the twentieth century. His school of thought emphasizes the social aspect of man and views his actions and behaviors emanating from social struggles. In line with such a view, human character is based on concepts such as "feeling of inferiority", "consciousness", and "considerateness". The present study aims to investigate the character of Khalil based on the principles of Adler's theory. To this end, the content of of the story ‘Khalil Kafir’ by Gibran Khalil Gibran is analyzed to detect its psychological capacities. The findings suggest that Gibran believes in the role of Adler’s principles, in particular the fundamental principle of “inferiority", in the formation and enhancement of an individual’s personality. Hence, through the transfer of his thoughts and ideas in this regard as well as the psychological processing of a jihad character, he tries to push Lebanese unconscious people into movement and dynamism in the depressed and despotic atmosphere of the church community. This is how psychological data serve to better transfer the intended meaning in the field of fictional literature.
