The ‘Not-Said’ Versus the ‘Wish-Fulfillment’: A Study of Mahmoud Diab’s Al-Halafit

The present paper represents a Marxist reading of Mahmoud Diab (1932-1983), a prominent Egyptian playwright and short-story writer. It attempts to examine Diab’s al-Halafit (1970 [The Downtrodden]) in the light of Terry Eagleton’s concepts of “the not-said” and Frederic Jameson “wish-fulfilment.” While “the not-said” is the eloquent silence, the painful material which results mainly from the power struggle between the oppressors and oppressed, “wish-fulfilment” is but a psychogenic device in terms of which the exploited may express indirectly their ideology of desire for social justice. A close reading to al-Halfit drives one to make four points regarding the dramatic achievement of Diab. Firstly, although such two concepts were not in the mainstream of criticism during the time of Diab, he seems to be a professional therapist dramatist in a school established by Eagleton and Jameson. Secondly, he creates a dramatic vision via which he holds firmly his pen to draw a physic portrait of the not-said/wish-fulfilment in order to shed light on the social perplexities. Thirdly, to theatricalize the not-said/wish-fulfilment, Diab adopts Masrah al-Samir as a theatre technique. Finally, Diab represents the not-said/wish-fulfilment through an ideological clash between an elite group and subservient team. To motivate the latter speaks for the socio-psychic deviations that befall them, he produces a theatrical space resonant with commissive, imperative, assertive, and interrogative speech acts.