Universal Pro-Human Message Expressed in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent (Published)
This paper attempts to tackle the most important humanistic themes dealt with in Diana Abu-Jaber`s novel Crescent (2003). The novel explores universal human themes connected with exile and the quest for identity. The story of Crescent is the story of the whole Arab immigrants living in exile. The novel revolves around a multi-cultural love story between an Iraqi man expelled out of his country and an Iraqi immigrant chef named Sirine. Diana highlights in the novel the painful feelings of people who leave their countries and live in exile. In many places, she refers to the sufferings of immigrants and what may occur to them in the countries they settle in. She further laments the real loss of depressed and frustrated people who are forced to leave their homelands. The writer`s prime focus on the humanistic, innovative, and compassionate aspects of Arab and Muslim culture is a proactive denouncement against the stereotyping viewpoints by which the majority of American people perceive refugees from middle-eastern countries. This biased view permitted the US government to rule the country over several years of military conflicts, binding force, and unattained human rights in Iraq with hardly any popular resistance. The researcher employs a critical and analytical approach in discussing the themes of the novel. This paper reveals the aesthetic dimensions in the story as realistic, romantic, and symbolic trends and how the writer combines them successfully to enhance the theme of human interaction within different ethnic groups.
Keywords: Culture, Identity, Immigrants, Middle East, crescent, exile.
The Impact of Exile on the Formation of Hyphenated Identities in Abu-Jaber’s Crescent (Published)
In Crescent (2003), Abu Jaber questions the meaning of identity in relation to exile. Sirine suspects if Hanif is drawn to the American or the Iraqi side of her, which immediately fractures identity into two conflicting aspects. She herself questions her identity as an Arab American. She wants to know which part of her identity defines her the most as she finds herself on the borderline between who she is and the way she appeals to Han. Her romance with Han opens her eyes to questions such as: Does she belong better in the Middle East where flavours, scents, pictures, and stories seem to be pulling her? Is she too American for Han? Do exiled people in this situation live in imaginary homes, or does guilt, as in Han’s case, become a defining factor that determines their hyphenated identities? This article addresses these questions. It examines how the notion of hyphenated identities inform the characters’ decisions and anxieties in the novel. What does the hyphen signify? In what ways can the novel be understood as a negation or an assertion of self-divided identity? In what ways does it celebrate and represent this hyphen that determines the diasporic condition.
Keywords: Diaspora, anglophone, crescent, exile., hyphenated, identities