Metanarrative as a Strategy for Deconstructing the Author's Authority in the Modern Iraqi Novel: A Critical Approach to the Novel "The Trial of NadiaAl- Abro"

Abstract

Objectives: This research aims to reveal the effectiveness of metanarrative as a deconstructive mechanism that gives the reader the illusion of deconstructing and diminishing the author's dominance in the modern Iraqi novel. This is achieved by granting characters the freedom to protest their written fate and question the author about the narrative choices imposed upon them. The novel "The Trial of Nadia Al-Abro" was chosen as a model for this critical approach because it represents a self-aware narrative style. It is based on a complex metanarrative structure that seeks to deconstruct traditional patterns through the interweaving of narrative voices, breaking the narrative illusion, and invoking the act of writing within the text.

Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive-analytical approach, utilizing some tools of contextual and cultural analysis without relying on them as an independent methodological framework.

 Results: The study concluded that metanarrative does not lead to the abolition of the author’s authority as much as it reshapes it into a more complex and self-aware form, as it moves from revealing the mechanisms of writing and judging the author to an intellectual and aesthetic strategy that contributes to liberating the text from traditional patterns, and seeks to establish a narrative discourse that makes the reader a partner in questioning its structure without the reins of narrative authority slipping from the author’s hands.