Examining Postmodernism in Günter Grass’s Crabwalk and Naguib Mahfouz’s Miramar

Proceedings of The 2nd International Conference on Research in Humanities

Year: 2019

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.icrh.2019.11.758

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Examining Postmodernism in Günter Grass’s Crabwalk and Naguib Mahfouz’s Miramar

Layla Farouq Abdeen

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

This research paper will attempt to examine the most prominent postmodern features in Günter Grass’s Crabwalk (2002) that are common with the most evident postmodern aspects of Naguib Mahfouz’s Miramar (1967). These two novels in particular have been chosen for examination due to the fact that both Grass and Mahfouz employ historiography to weave a story about one of the prominent characters in relation to a certain event that actually takes place once upon a time. In Crabwalk, Paul tries to comprehend the engulfing circumstances behind the sinking of the German Wilhelm Gustloff in 1936, whereas in Miramar Amer tries to learn about the July Revolution of 1952 and its aftermath. But most importantly, these two novels which seem to be very different in nature and time frame are chosen for examination to illustrate how tenacious is the postmodern structure of fragmentation, heteroglossia, anachronism, and the open ending; in an attempt to define what is postmodernism in aesthetic writings after all.

Keywords: Deconstruction; diversity; fragmentation; heteroglossia; multiplicity.