الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 290 |  |  |
| | | from | 290 | | |
Abstract
The satirical literature remains an inexhaustible source that arouses curiosity among researchers. Writers do not stop sarcastically criticizing the circumstances of their societies, social or political, they aim to shed light on the disadvantages of any political system or social behavior to contribute to the reform of their societies. They are the voice of the voiceless or as Ghassan Kanafani stated that the irony is not a naive joke, but a deep analysis of what actually happens. We laugh while reading their work and do not know whether we laugh just for laughter or pity our situation? Criticism may be harsh in most cases to shock the reader and make him wake up from his slumber to scrutinize things and examine them with a different view, not only in our Arab societies but also in Western societies such as the French society which are the subject of the current study.
In the current study, the researcher seeks to compare the satirical discourse across two different cultures. To achieve this purpose, the researcher chose the analytical comparative methodology to critically compare four literary works that belong to Arabic Egyptian, and French literature.
The researcher started her study by comparing the French novel Casimir mène la grande vie and the Arabic book Egypt in the Hands of a Demon (Masr ala Kaf Afreet) by Galal Amer.
The research illustrated the satirical work of the famous writer and politician Jean D’Ormesson (Casimir mène la grande vie), which is a novel about the orphan Casimir who was raised by his aristocratic grandfather. Following the model of Robin Hood, they decide to fight injustice and spread justice in French society. With the help of Casimir’s friends and a friend of his grandfather, a professor at the French Academy, they created a group and called themselves ”Le Groupe ”. With time, their fame spread, and their activities spread to all countries of the world.
The second book is written by the satirical writer Galal Amer, who left the military life and devote himself to the profession of journalism. The book is a series of press articles that document life in Egyptian society before 2011 under the rule of the National Democratic Party. He used a mix between classical Arabic and Egyptian colloquial language.
In addition, the researcher analyzed two theatrical works, that belong to two different literary streams. The first is the “Rhinoceros” play by Unessco, which belongs to the absurd theater stream. The play fascinated the transformation of all characters into rhinos, except for Berenger who managed to keep his humanity. The writer reveals the willingness of these characters to abandon their humanity in order to go along with the herd.
While the play The Tale of Juha and the Little Ola is inspired by the play of the Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht. After the defeat of Egypt in 1967, Elgendy translated the play to the Tale of Juha in a manner appropriate to the Egyptian context. The Tale of Juha and the Litle Ola is taken from the story of Prophet Solomon, peace be upon him, when two women were brought before him in their dispute over the motherhood of a child.
The thesis is divided into an introductory chapter and two major sections, each section includes two chapters.
The introductory chapter presents the definition of the discourse and terminology related to satire and the development of satirical discourse in French and Arabic literature over the ages.
The first section: includes two chapters
The first discusses the satirical discourse and the characters in the novels, while the second chapter describes the Spatio-temporal framework of the two books.
Through comparative critical analysis of the aforementioned works, the researcher found that there are similarities and some differences that should be enlightened in the current and future comparative critical research.
Concerning the novels, the two writers agreed to fight corruption in their societies by using the same literal methods such as wordplay, exaggeration, resorting to puns, metonymy, and situational comedy. However, there are some differences such as in the Arabic novel, Galal Amer used colloquial Arabic on many occasions and explicitly mentioned the name of officials in leadership positions, and did not even hesitate to declare and direct criticism of heads of state such as Gamal Abdel Nasser and Mohamed Hosni Mubarak. In addition, Amer used the current situation of Egyptian society to address his critics in the articles. While in the French novel D’ormesson used periphrasis when talking about politics and presented his critical work in the form of a fictional story.
About theatrical works, situational comedy and wordplay are the two common factors between the two plays, while the differences appear in employing the ironic method to contribute to spreading justice through the use of a popular figure close to the Arab audience, namely Juha. Whereas Unessco did not use popular fiction and instead he employed absurd thought and his creative imagination to illustrate his concern of humanity distortion because of corruptive ideologists.