Semiotics of Narrative in the Paratextual Architecture in Muhammad Mas'adAl-'Awdi's Novel Al-Bi'r (The Well)

Abstract

 This study aims to investigate the semiotics of paratextual architecture in Muhammad Al-'Awdi's novel Al-Bi'r (The Well), in order to uncover the semantic and aesthetic functions that paratexts perform in textual interpretation while clarifying the relationship between paratexts and the novel's narrative structure. The study adopted a semiotic approach to analyzing textual signs and revealing their semantic functions. It includes four sections, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. The preliminary section defines the paratext linguistically and terminologically, and discusses the importance and concept of paratextual architecture in literary criticism. The first section examines the narrativity of paratextual architecture as manifested on the novel's front cover, presenting a binary reading between structure and meaning. The second section addresses the architecture of two paratexts: the epigraph (taṣdīr) and the introduction, exploring their structural and semantic dimensions. The third section analyzes the structure of internal chapter titles and their narrative functionality. The fourth section is dedicated to the paratext of the back cover architecture. The study demonstrates how visual and textual discourses intertwine in the production of meaning. It concludes that the narration embedded within the paratextual architecture of Al-Bi'r successfully shapes the novel's external form while engaging intertextually with the architecture of internal titles in an interconnected and coherent manner.