Schema Theory and the Language of Fear in Leila Abouzeid's Novel ...

Volume 3, Issue 1, 2011, ISSN 1948-5778
Schema Theory and the Language of Fear in Leila Abouzeid’s Novel Year of the Elephant
Ahmed Fakhri, Associate Professor of Linguistics, West Virginia University, afakhri@wvu.edu
Abstract
Leila Abouzeid‟s Arabic novel Year of the Elephant is arguably one of the best known novels in modern
Moroccan literature. Using insights from Schema Theory, the study focuses on the interpretation of various
events that provoke fear and anxiety, a major theme in the novel. In particular, a sample of fear-provoking
episodes are analyzed to show how the interface between information provided in the text and readers‟
variable background knowledge results in different interpretations of these episodes. The analysis is
significant in two ways. First, the potential for multiple interpretations identified can serve to account for the
text‟s appeal to various readers. Second, the analysis highlights the value of the linguistic stylistics
approach adopted for determining the role of culture-specific knowledge in understanding the narratives of
other literary traditions.
Introduction and Background
Leila Abouzeid‟s novel „aamu alfiil “Year of the Elephant” is arguably one of the best known and highly
praised novels in modern Moroccan literature 1 . It was first published in 1983 and is set in the 1950s during
the last stages of Morocco‟s occupation by the French (Abouzeid 1983, 1989). The novel has attracted a lot
of attention, and several studies have been devoted to various issues that it has raised regarding the
conditions of women in third world countries and the Arab and Muslim world in particular, the impact of
colonialism on these societies, and the concerns and aspirations of their members, who are at the same
time constrained by tradition and challenged by modernity (Fernea 1989, Moukhlis 2003, Guessous 2006).
The novel deals simultaneously with Morocco‟s struggle for independence and the personal predicament of
Zahra, the main protagonist, who is entangled in a bad marriage that eventually ends in divorce. Both
situations inevitably generate an atmosphere dominated by fear, anxiety, and shock because of the
inequality between the opponents involved. The present study focuses on this theme of fear and, in
particular, it draws upon insights from Schema Theory in order to examine aspects of the semantic potential
of the text through an analysis of various fear-provoking events. The motivation for this Schema Theory
approach is that the interpretation of these events and the appreciation of the intensity of the fearful
emotions they evoke are often dependent on the socio-cultural knowledge available to readers. Variability
regarding this background knowledge is bound to result in different interpretations, and to the extent that
such multiple interpretations are triggered by the kind of information provided in the text and by the degree
of its explicitness, the present analysis contributes to a better understanding of the appeal of the novel and
its success.
As background to the discussion of the role of prior knowledge in the interpretation of the text, a summary of
the main narrative events is presented, with particular emphasis on the manifestation of fear associated with
these events. The novel tells the story of Zahra, an uneducated woman whose family arranges her marriage
to a teacher of French. The couple moves to Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco and its most important
economic center, where they join the resistance movement against the French occupation. The novel
details Zahra‟s active participation in the movement. She smuggles to safety in the North of Morocco, Faqih,
a resistance fighter sought by the French, distributes arms to various resistance cells, and actively supports
her husband and other militants during their imprisonment by the French. After the independence of
Morocco in 1956, Zahra‟s husband is appointed to an important office in the capital city, Rabat. The
couple‟s new social status only leads to discord between them and eventually to a bitter divorce. With no
education, job skills, or financial means, since her husband has been the only source of family income,
Zahra is faced with the harsh reality of fending for herself in a male dominated environment. After several
attempts to secure gainful employment, she finds a job as a cleaning lady at the French cultural center in
Casablanca.
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It should be noted, however, that this chronology of events is not followed in the novel. Instead, the author
skillfully interweaves the events relating Morocco‟s struggle for independence and Zahra‟s personal quarrel
with an abusive husband empowered by a social order that is very detrimental to women. On numerous
occasions, the author explicitly draws parallels and establishes links between the public resistance against
the colonizers and Zahra‟s private marital predicament. For example, when her husband boasts that he has
helped to get rid of the French, Zahra cannot resist the thought that now it is her turn: he is planning to get
rid of her. Perhaps more relevant to the topic of the present study are instances where shock and fear
provide the linkage between the two situations. For example, when recalling how she learnt that the French
had caught her husband and sent him to prison, Zahra had the following thought (see the chart below for the
phonetic value of the transcription symbols used and footnote 2 for information about the translation):
Hasibtuhaa ‟ahwala laHDha Hattaa jalasa ‟amaamii fii dhaalika alyawmi wa qaala wa lam yaTrif
lahu jafn:
“sataSiluki waraqatuk ma„a maa yuxawwiluhu alqaanuun.”
I thought that was the most dreadful moment [the capture of her husband] until that day when he
sat in front of me and said without a blink: “You will get your paper and whatever the law provides.”
(p. 53) 2
The paper in question is the divorce notification. Besides such explicit linkage by the author, it is not hard to
detect similarities between the two conflicts regarding the tendency of both to generate shock and fear.
Typically fear is triggered by violent encounters with the enemy. Perhaps the most tragic and dreadful
encounter occurs when Zahra witnesses in the streets of Casablanca the slaughter of innocent and
defenseless women and children by machinegun-toting soldiers from the French Foreign Legion. That day
is described as yawmun ’aswad “a black day” and yamun rahiib “a horrific day.” Fear and violence are also
present in the quarrels between Zahra and her husband. When she confronts him with the fact that he has
been cheating on her with his secretary, he simply turns around and slaps her (p. 71). This incident echoes
a previous one during which a French soldier slaps a woman while interrogating her about the whereabouts
of her fugitive husband (p. 37).
Such fear-provoking situations, whether related to the bad marriage or the foreign occupation, have similar
effects on the victim: typically they provoke numbness, contortion, nauseous feelings, and loss of
awareness. After witnessing the killing of women and children in Casablanca, Zahra experiences a
frightening loss of awareness and walks away “as if she were asleep.” She has similar feelings just thinking
about how awful her repudiation has been: when she gets her divorce notification at the post office, she
leaves the building and aimlessly wanders around until she finds a bench and sits down to rest. Only then
does she realize where she is. These various aspects of the symmetry between the public and the private
struggles enhance the coherence of the narrative and account in part for its appeal. This brief discussion of
the manifestation of shock and fear in the novel will suffice as a background for the specific purpose of the
study, namely, the consideration of the expression of fear from a Schema Theory perspective.
Phonetic Value of Symbols Used in the Arabic Transcription
________________________________________________________________
dh interdental voiced fricative
th interdental voiceless fricative
D voiced pharyngealized dental stop (emphatic equivalent of [d])
Dh voiced pharyngealized interdental fricative (emphatic equivalent of dh)
T voiceless pharyngealized dental stop (emphatic equivalent of [t])
S voiceless pharyngealized alveolar fricative (emphatic equivalent of [s])
H voiceless pharyngeal fricative
gh voiced uvular fricative
q voiceless uvular stop
x voiceless uvular fricative
‟ glottal stop
„ voiced pharyngeal fricative
_________________________________________________________________
2

Schema Theory and the Interpretation of Fear-Provoking Scenes
The application of schema theory in the present analysis aims at showing how readers‟ awareness of
culturally specific knowledge (or the lack thereof) may affect their interpretation of information, events, or
behaviors described in the text. This application is carried out in two steps. First, the relationship between
prior knowledge and the interpretation of fear-provoking scenes is illustrated through examples of
confrontations between Zahra and her husband and between the French occupiers and the Moroccan
population. Second, it is shown how expectations based on particular prior knowledge may need to be
adjusted in order to accommodate new information provided in the text and to achieve a coherent
understanding of the outcomes of the narrative. These two issues are elaborated upon after a brief
presentation of relevant aspects of Schema Theory.
Schema Theory posits that the interpretation of texts involves both processing what is explicitly presented in
the text itself and making intricate inferences based on previously acquired knowledge (Brown and Yule
1984, Mandler 1984). This body of prior knowledge consists of schemata, scripts, or frames which
represent typical concepts, entities, events, and everyday routines shared by members of the same sociocultural
community. Once activated by input from the text, these scripts are used to organize incoming
information in a coherent fashion in order to make sense out of it. Typical examples of scripts often cited in
the Schema Theory literature are the birthday party script and the restaurant script (Thorndyke and Yekovich
1980, Mandler 1984). Consider the following example adopted from Thorndyke and Yekovich (1980:28):
John‟s birthday party was a success. He liked both the cake and the new
sweater.
The mention of the term “birthday party” in the first sentence activates readers‟ knowledge of birthday parties
in general, which enables them to fill in information gaps in the text and interpret the term “cake” as being
the birthday cake and “new sweater” as being a present given to John, since normally birthday parties
include such events as giving presents and eating cake.
The present study is not concerned with the minute details of schema theory or its various
conceptualizations and their relative merits (see Mandler 1984 for a concise and accessible discussion of
these issues). Following the example of previous studies such as Freundlieb (1982), which used Schema
Theory to propose different readings of some of Edgar Allan Poe‟s tales, an informal application of selected
aspects of Schema Theory is deemed sufficient for gaining insights into the topic at hand, namely the role of
prior knowledge in the interpretation of passages evoking fear. Aspects of Schema Theory which are
relevant for the present analysis include the following. First, scripts contain structured information about
typical situations that is temporally or hierarchically organized. Thus the script of eating in a restaurant
includes a particular sequence of events such as entering a restaurant, being seated, and ordering food.
Each event subsumes lower level details. For example, ordering food is a main event consisting of the
following sub-events: reading the menu, inquiring about particular food items, and making a selection (den
Uyl and van Oostendorp 1980). Second, in the process of interpreting a text, expectations entailed by a
particular script may be contradicted by new information which forces the reader to resort to other scripts
and make necessary adjustments in order to resolve the contradictions (Spiro 1980). Third, writers‟
awareness of the presence or absence of particular schemata in readers‟ background knowledge
determines the kind and amount of information they provide (Spiro 1980). These three aspects will be
recalled as needed in the following discussion of prior knowledge and the interpretation of the text.
The use of prior knowledge for understanding fear-provoking situations and the character behavior they
entail can be illustrated through passages depicting encounters between the occupation army and the local
population on the one hand, and between Zahra and her husband, on the other. In one of the most dramatic
scenes in the novel, a group of soldiers descend on Zahra‟s neighborhood, looking for a member of the
resistance movement. The soldiers bring out a woman and proceed to interrogate her about the
whereabouts of the wanted man. This scene is witnessed from behind closed doors by Zahra, her husband,
and Faqih, another militant. Initially the woman denies any knowledge of where her husband is. The
narration proceeds as follows:
Safa„ahaa ‟aHaduhum wa qaala bi al„arabiyya wa huwa yanTiqu arraa„a ghaynan:
---fi alma„aarif ta„rifiin.
3

---yuujadu „inda ‟ibni „ammih.
One of them [the soldiers] slapped her and said in Arabic pronouncing the “r” as a “ghayn,” [a
uvular sound]:
---In Maarif you will know.
---He is at his cousin‟s. (p. 37)
The woman‟s confession can be interpreted differently depending on the prior knowledge available to the
reader. According to the explicit information provided in the text, the confession can be seen mainly as the
result of the violent treatment to which the woman has been subjected. However, the following culturally
specific knowledge will no doubt affect the interpretation of this scene and the appreciation of the intensity of
the fear it must have provoked in the woman. First, Maarif was a notorious police station in Casablanca,
which over the years had been associated in the minds of the local population with the brutal treatment of
detainees. The script associated with Maarif includes anxiety, mistreatment, and humiliation, and,
depending on readers‟ experiences, it may even include particular violent incidents or unpleasant events
that the mention of the term would conjure up. Second, the detail regarding the pronunciation of the “r” in the
word “Maarif” is not fortuitous. It is quite significant because it signals the presence of the French enemy,
betrayed by the Parisian pronunciation of the “r” as a voiced uvular fricative. In Schema Theory terms, the
author‟s subtle hint that the speaker is French is motivated by her awareness that many readers, especially
the Arabic-French bilinguals, possess, as part of their prior knowledge, the sociolinguistic information
regarding the French pronunciation of the “r”. The availability or non-availability to the readers of such prior
knowledge will influence their assessment of the dangerousness of the situation and their understanding of
the reaction of the participants. If the mentioned background details about the Maarif police station and the
French pronunciation of the “r” are available to the reader, the latter will conclude that the victim of the
encounter has not turned in her husband simply because she is slapped; but also, and perhaps more
importantly, because of the ominous threat evoked by her potential destination, Maarif, and by the identity of
the people she will have to deal with, the French occupiers. The way this incident is interpreted has further
implications for understanding subsequent events. When Faqih asks Zahra‟s husband for help because he
no longer has the strength to pursue his activities as a resistance fighter, the husband exploits the incident
just witnessed and quite disingenuously highlights the importance of the slap in the woman‟s confession at
the detriment of the other factors mentioned. His intention is to demean Faqih and portray him as lacking
courage; he says to him:
---tusallimu nafsak? hih? ‟alam tara? biSaf„atin ‟a„Tat zawjahaa.
You are going to turn yourself in, aren‟t you? Did you see that? A simple slap,
and she turns in her husband. (p. 37)
In fact readers would be more sympathetic toward Faqih‟s plight if they realize that in case he is
apprehended, the retribution will be more severe than a mere slap: he might end up in the notorious Maarif
police station and endure mistreatment by the French enemy. Indeed he admits that he will confess “under
the whip.”
Concerning the private strife between Zahra and her husband, one of the most poignant encounters occurs
when the latter abruptly tells her that he has repudiated her and that her divorce papers will be sent to her.
jalasa wa qaal: “sataSiluki waraqatuk ma„a maa yuxawwiluhu alqaanuun.”
---limaadhaa?”
---laysa „indii ‟ayyu sabab.
He sat down and said: “your paper will get to you with whatever the law
provides.”
---Why?
---I don‟t have any reason. (p. 9)
The impact on Zahra of the utterance sataSiluki warqatuk… “your paper will get to you…” repeated several
times throughout the novel, is devastating, as she herself describes:
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‟in kuntu qad ghibtu fa ‟anaa laa ‟adrii wa laakinni ‟a„lamu ‟annanii wajadtunii muqawwasa wa ra‟sii
maa‟ilatun ‟ilaa alyasaar wa yadaaya mabsuuTataani ka‟annanii juththa.
I don‟t know whether I fainted; but I know that I found myself arched with my head tilted to the left
and my hands stretched out as if I were a corpse.” (p. 9)
In order to understand fully why this simple utterance is so devastating and appreciate the shock it has
brought about, it is helpful to characterize the divorce script available to members of the Moroccan
community at the time period considered 3 . A plausible script for divorce in western societies may include a
sequence of events such as filing for divorce, attempts at reconciliation, appearance by the parties before a
family court judge, and finally the court‟s decision and notification of the parties (see above discussion of
Schema Theory). In the Moroccan context, however, the divorce script does not include a similarly
elaborate procedure: the husband has the right simply to inform the court of his desire to repudiate his wife,
and the court sends a repudiation letter to the wife. Awareness of such an abrupt, unfair, and final
procedure is necessary to appreciate the impact of divorce on Moroccan women. For Zahra the shock
created by her repudiation is so overwhelming that even quite some time later when the repudiation papers
arrive, she finds herself again in the grip of intense fear, which compels her to seek comfort in the shrine of
an old religious man in her native town. There, her fear and anxiety are somewhat eased by verses of the
Quran being recited and by the holy man‟s soothing calmness and wisdom:
qaala fii huduu‟hi wa huwa yuxaTTiTu bi riishatin min qaSab:
---almu‟mimnu laa ya„rifu alxawfa wa alqalaqa qalbuh.
He calmly said, while scribbling with a reed pen:
---The believer‟s heart doesn‟t know fear or anxiety. (p. 32)
Such spiritual comfort, though, does not seem sufficient to assuage the harsh reality she faces and dispel
her worries; she simply replies:
---na„am, na„am, wa laakin sa‟amuutu juu„a.
---Yes, yes, but I will starve to death.
The fear of starvation is hardly an exaggeration given the fact that she has no source of income as a
divorcee. In brief, an accurate assessment of the intensity of fear and anxiety that Zahra experiences and a
full understanding of her subsequent reactions are to a large extent dependent on the reader‟s prior
knowledge concerning the vulnerability of Moroccan women in marital relationships and the gender-based
socio-economic inequality prevalent in society in general. The script of divorce in that speech community
includes the passive role of the wife, who simply waits for the divorce papers and resorts to traditional
modes of coping such as the common customs of visiting holy shrines. Readers who are unfamiliar with this
socio-cultural context will have to rely on bits of information scattered throughout the narrative in order for
them to eventually reach a more complete understanding of the text. In fact the author sometimes alludes to
gender inequalities and the absence of a reliable support system for divorced women. This unfortunate
state of affairs is captured somewhat crudely but effectively in the narrator‟s following brutal declaration: “In
our society, divorce is a real catastrophe (p. 13).”
While prior knowledge about bad relationships and divorce or the brutal occupation of powerless people
triggers expectations of an atmosphere filled with helplessness, shock, and fear as has been demonstrated,
these expectations are contradicted by information concerning the defiant language and behavior exhibited
by the victims. As mentioned earlier, Schema Theory allows for the possibility of schema adjustments
through which the reader may resort to a different script in order to accommodate new information provided
in the text, resolve apparent contradictions, and interpret the text in a coherent manner. In order to
understand the defiance of the protagonists in the midst of dangerous circumstances, the reader is forced to
activate another more general script whereby conflicts between unequal protagonists may lead to defiance
and resistance.
5

Defiance and resistance both in the public domain of the occupation and the private domain of marital
relations are triggered by a deep sense of injustice and humiliation. The brutality of the French occupation
is so unjust and degrading that Zahra feels compelled to proclaim:
---rabbi, hal nansaa maa taSna„uhu binaa faransaa?
---My God, how can we forget what the French are doing to us? (p. 54)
Similarly, Zahra‟s mistreatment at the hand of her husband, who does not even bother to provide the
slightest reason for repudiating her, is clearly unfair and demeaning.
Because of their feeling of injustice and despite the danger surrounding them, the disadvantaged
protagonists often manage to exhibit a lot of self-control and defiance. For example, when his neighborhood
is invaded by soldiers looking for a resistance fighter, Zahra‟s husband answers the door and manages
under tremendous pressure to outwit the persistent soldiers and send them on the wrong track, hence
protecting his wife and Faqih, who are inside the house. Zahra thinks that this has been “a miracle” (p. 36).
Similarly, in the midst of great danger, Faqih eludes the French for a long time, and Zahra is able to
accomplish several life-threatening missions in support of the resistance movement. Regarding the struggle
within the couple, Zahra remains defiant in spite of the many dangerous situations in which she finds herself.
In the scene where her husband slaps her, she manages to muster up enough courage to stand up to him
and accuse him of being worse than the occupiers, a very serious accusation against a militant. Resistance
and defiance eventually lead to positive outcomes in both struggles: The Moroccan resistance movement
gets rid of the French, and Zahra survives her divorce, and later gains economic independence thanks to a
steady job at the French cultural center, a somewhat ironic outcome. Given the danger that constantly
surrounds the protagonists and the shock and fear they have experienced, these rather positive
developments could be comprehended only through schema adjustments.
The shift from fear-evoking scripts to scripts about the causal relation between injustice and rebellion is
skillfully facilitated by the author, who often introduces subtle hints of defiance as the narrative proceeds.
For example, when the curfew sirens send a wave of fear in the neighborhood, Zahra feels that, in order to
be safe, she has to switch off the lights in the house. However, such apparent surrender is symbolically
mitigated by her decision to light a candle (p. 33). In another instance, when Zahra and Faqih are traveling
to Northern Morocco, their bus has to stop to allow the passage of a French military convoy. The narrator
describes the tension surrounding this dangerous encounter, but also notes the defiant stance of a fellow
traveler, who cursed at the heavily armed soldiers, albeit behind the protection of the bus‟s “window pane.”
This dichotomy between fear and helplessness on the one hand, and defiance and resistance on the other,
is also alluded to in the couple‟s struggle. This is illustrated in the violent scene mentioned earlier where
Zahra‟s husband slaps her.
kunnaa qad waSalnaa ‟ilaa alghurfa fastadaara wa Safa„anii wa waDa„tu yadii „alaa makaani
aSSaf„ati wa ‟ashartu ‟ilayhi bi alyadi al‟uxraa wa Saraxtu bikulli quwwa ka‟annanii ‟uxaaTibu
jumhuuran wahmiyyan:
---haa‟ulaa‟i man nantaDhiru al‟iSlaaHa min waraa‟ihim. ‟antum ‟asharru
xaTaran min al‟isti„maar.
We had entered the room when he turned around and slapped me. And I put one hand on the spot
where he slapped me, and I pointed to him with the other hand and shouted with all my force as if I
were addressing an imaginary crowd:
---These are the ones we expect reform from! You are a worse danger than colonialism!
In this scene Zahra tries to protect her face from such violent aggression, but at the same time she dares to
raise her other hand and point to the aggressor, accusing him and other militants like him of posing more
danger to the community than the foreign occupiers. These instances of defiance amidst fear-provoking
scenes create a subtext that gains importance as it facilitates the reader‟s task of reconciling different scripts
in order to make sense out of the narrative‟s ultimate outcomes: The triumph of the victims, Zahra and the
Moroccan people, over their respective oppressors.
6

Conclusion
The study demonstrates how the information provided in the text and readers‟ prior knowledge contribute
jointly to the interpretation of the narrative events evoking fear and shock. In order to assess the
significance of this analysis, two main points need to be addressed. First, the interpretations suggested by
the present application of Schema Theory are not to be considered “discoveries of hidden meanings” to use
Freundlieb‟s (1982) terms; nor should they be assigned the privileged status of being the only “correct” ones.
Allowing for multiple interpretations of the same text is indeed a very valid and commonly held position as
Paltridge (1997:59) aptly points out. The contribution of this application of Schema Theory lies essentially in
providing explicit accounts of how particular interpretations may be reached. Second, since the analysis
demonstrates the importance of culture-specific knowledge in the interpretation of literary texts, it raises the
question of the accessibility of the narratives of other cultures and the potential problems posed by their
interpretation (Trimmer and Warnock 1992). Matalene (1992) addresses this issue in a discussion of his
experience as a teacher of American fiction in China. In particular, he disagrees with White‟s assertion that
“we may not be able fully to comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively
less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that culture may appear to
us (White 1980:1).” The basis of Matalene‟s disagreement is his awareness of the difficulties that Chinese
students encounter when they attempt to figure out aspects of American fiction because they lack specific
cultural knowledge.
While Matalene‟s position is legitimate, especially given the practical challenges he has had to face as a
teacher, the universality of narratives suggested by the White quote cannot be dismissed totally. In the
context of the present study, it may be the case, for example, that an American student will not realize the
intensity of the fear that the mention of the word Maarif (especially with a French pronunciation) may arouse
in a Moroccan resistance fighter in the 1950s. However, it would not be far-fetched to think that an African-
American youth who has been mistreated in a police precinct in New York City, for example, may be able to
conjure up some of the abuse to which Moroccan detainees have been subjected at the hand of French
officers in a Casablanca police station. It is also plausible that an American woman who has been in an
abusive relationship will have little difficulty appreciating Zahra‟s plight. It is possibilities such as these that
White (1980:2) seems to have in mind when he writes that “… narrative is a metacode, a human universal
on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted.” In
sum, accurate assessment of the accessibility of cross-cultural narratives requires consideration of both
universal knowledge gained through common human experience and culture-specific knowledge available
mostly to members of a particular community, as illustrated in the present study.
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Notes
1. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 21 st Annual International Conference on Literature
and the Visual Arts held in Atlanta, GA, in November 2006.
2. Unless otherwise indicated, the page numbers used throughout the article are those of the Arabic
original (Abouzeid 1983). For the translation of the excerpts from the novel, I have consulted
Barbara Parmenter‟s excellent translation (Abouzeid 1989), but I have attempted to keep the
English version as close to the Arabic one as possible, avoiding stylistic embellishments that may
obscure how relevant propositions are expressed in the original text. I am a native speaker of
Arabic with native-like proficiency in English and French.
3. Since 2004 the rights of Moroccan women in divorce proceedings have been improved
substantially thanks to changes in the Moudawana, the Moroccan family code.
8

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