The Hierarchy of Dogs and Men: Satire in Mamdouh ʿUdwan’s Drama

Abstract

This paper will study the satirical representation of the human condition under poverty and political oppression in Syria. People are sardonically presented as inferior to animals in four plays by the Syrian dramatist Mamdouh ʿUdwan: The Feudal Lord’s Dog, The Bitten Bitch, and The Ambassador’s Dog. With the knowledge of the pejorative connotations the Arabic language associates with the term “dog”, these plays can be considered as a poignant mockery of the situation in ʿUdwan’s world 1941-2004 and a prophetic extrapolation of the present abyss. Through textual analysis, this study will delineate people’s servility and the loss of integrity under local political oppression as communicated in the ironical mix-up between the death of the dog and that of the lord in The Feudal Lord’s Dog The sarcastic presentation of a pampered female dog publishing a newspaper column complaining of lack of emotional and sexual fulfillment contrasts wittily with the inadequacy of basic human rights afforded to the journalist, in The Bitten Bitch. Lastly, The Ambassador’s Dog cynically reverses the human-animal hierarchy, as it celebrates the superior quality of life enjoyed by dogs in an unnamed superpower country. The value of human life in Syria has plummeted to the extent that the dog sitter is happy to sacrifice his life to save a dog. This article will evaluate ʿUdwan’s satire of the status quo in his country and investigate whether it is a genuine means of communication to circumvent censorship, or alternatively, it is only a form of licensed criticism used as a valve of pseudo-freedom approved by an authoritarian government.