소설 『야쿠비얀 빌딩』에 나타난 이집트 사회의 결혼 규범

Norms of Marriage in Egyptian Society as Shown in Yacoubian Building

The study surveys norms of marriage that are shown in Arabic novel Yacoubian Building by Egyptian author Alaa al-Aswani. Modern novels are created in certain societies reflecting the traits of their members, who think, act, react and conflict. Man’s nature is so compound that he acts instinctively at times, and sensibly at other times. Human society imposes moral standards upon its members to comply. The various norms used be regulating factors. So man experiences conflict between desires and norms, and his attitude toward the norms is regarded as a key to understand his characters in the real and fictional world. Yacoubian Building contains a lot of actions and events, and there are three cases of marriage among them; that of Hajj Azzam and Suad, Taha and Radwa, and Zaki Bek and Buthayna. These characters represent respectively their social classes in Egyptian society. Their marriages reveal that they exploit or succumb to the social and religious norms. It is interesting that every couple unites a man and a woman who keep the similar distance from the norms. Azzam and Suad utilize them to realize their own benefits, and Taha and Radwa adapt themselves, while Zaki Bek and Buthayna stand aloof from what the religious norm demands. This means that the norms function as a means to enhancement of verisimilitude in the fiction in spite of the disparity in the characters’ social classes. The paper draws a conclusion that a part of the Yacoubian Building’s success consists in the realistic representation of contemporary Egyptian society that was, in turn, attained by the author’s keen concern for factual reproduction of the social and religious norm, while constructing fictionally the characters and events. On the other hand the inner conflict between the norms and desires affects behavior of an individual. Therefore the understanding the deep conflict in Yacoubian Building elevates positively the level of understanding of the literary work’s characters and actions.