Novelist Hayfāʼ Bayṭār and the Theme of Divorce in Her Novel Yawmiyyāt Muṭalliqa/ Diaries of a Divorcer: A Self-Narrative or Self-Flogging

Abstract

In order to create a biography or personal literature in general, there must be a match between the author, the narrator, and the main character, since the author himself is the one who narrates and is at the same time the main character. The first condition for achieving this conformity is that the narrative should be in the first person pronoun speaker, which transmits both the writer, the narrator, and the character at the same time. Hayfāʼ Bayṭār achieved this match, though her novel: Yawmiyāt Muṭalliqa/ Diaries of a Divorcer (2006) did not contain the word 'autobiography', but its content acknowledges and states that it is purely autobiographical and it narrates real events that the author has lived through in their sweetness and bitterness and presented them in a fictional manner. Women's writings are written in order to reflect women's social customs, traditions, and customs. Writer Hayfāʼ Bayṭār is considered one of the best to address the woman's divorced cause and situation realistically. This study is based on the treatment of the theme of divorce in the literature of the Arab woman writer and on the presence of the Self in Hayfāʼ Bayṭār's novel Yawmiyyāt Muṭalliqa/Diaries of a Divorcer. In my opinion, the writing of this novel is a reaction to male dominance and authority and its attempts to impose itself on the woman.