Exploring Affective Justice in Tawfiq al-Hakim’s The Song of Death (Ughniyat al- Mawt)

Abstract

This research is an attempt to explore the formation of the assemblage of justice in Tawfiq al-Hakim’s The Song of Death (Ughniyat al- Mawt) (2008). The play is Al-Hakim’s rendition of a rural tragedy. Alwan, the son returning from the metropolis, remains caught up in a centuries’ long tribal blood feud. Urged on avenging his father’s murder, and failing to do so, Alwan dampens his mother’s thirst for blood with his own. This paper looks at the play with reference to K. M. Clarke’s merging of the affective theory with the fabric of justice. In this way, the portrayal of both tribal and new formations of systemic justice rising in Nasser’s Egypt will be explored within the play. Furthermore, this research investigates the role past traces and remnants of encounters with justice play in the structuring of justice within the rural scape of modern Egypt. The paper explores and dismantles various binaries presented in the text: tribal and modern, justice and vengeance, and shame and honour. It analyzes the ways in which emotional expressions and affects are articulated and institutionalized by the characters. In addition, the possibility of new imaginaries and cartographies of justice will be explored in order to reframe the debate around the binary of tribal and modern judicialization of violence.