Reality through the Mythical Glass: the Myth of Now and the Nowness of Myth in Muḥammad Rabi'̄’s 'Uṭārid

Abstract

The real challenge of understanding myths arises when we attempt to inspect their representational role within a certain literary work, and we find ourselves at an inevitable crossroads: the desire to explore the euhemeristic qualities of the mythological elements in the narrative, and the need to investigate the symbolic significance of the narrative’s mythical elements. In his 2014 dystopian novel 'Uṭārid, Muḥammad Rabī ' traverses the fine line between mythology and mythopoeia by employing mythical archetypal structures to create a mythologically infernal world rooted in the abject reality of the post-2011 Revolution Egypt. This paper examines how Rabī ' addresses a pivotal point in history through myth, and how his narrative tries to bridge the gap between the mythological and the mythical in order to reach a better understanding of the role myth plays in processing and reshaping reality.