Men In The Sun Character Analysis

Men in the Sun

By Ghassan Kanafani “My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an indivisible case and I can categorically state that I became politically committed because I am a novelist, not the opposite” - Ghassan Kanafani.

Ghassan Kanafani was born on the 9th of April, 1936 in Acre on the northern coast of Palestine. He belonged to a middle class family. In 1948, the Deir Yassin massacre occurred, and Ghassan’s family was forced to flee to a Syrian mountain, then move to the refugee camps located in Damascus. He lived through the pain, dislocation, bitterness and desperation that he described and discussed in most of his work. He later became well known for coining

One of the features of “Resistance Literature” is the historical knowledge that allows the author to portray the events accurately. In the case of Ghassan Kanafani; he is Palestinian and he lived through dislocation which makes him able to portray the events of “Men in the Sun” accurately, and makes the emotions he captures more realistic and honest. Another feature of the genre is Language which Kanafani employs in the novel as he uses his language to emphasize the emotions of the characters, and the suffering they had to endure after being forced out of their country. The novel also addresses all Palestinians who suffer under the Israeli occupation, and urges them that it is time to start fighting against the occupation, to not let their enemies erase their identities and take their land, freedom and lives from them.

The novel was named “Men in the Sun” to foreshadow the events of the novel where in the end, the men die inside the water tank from the scorching heat of the sun. “Men in the Sun” is set in Iraq and on the desert road from Iraq to Kuwait. The setting allowed for the novel to explore the lives of three generations that are represented by each character: Abu Qais was an old man, Assad was a young man, and Marwan was a young boy. The setting also reflects the state in which Palestinians find themselves in when dislocated; they are left lost, broken,

One theme is the theme of dislocation that all Palestinians got to feel at one point or another under the Israeli occupation. This theme is also very clear in the novel and embodied in the lives of the three main characters. They all were driven out of their country by the Israeli occupation as they were forced to flee for their lives from a land that was once their own. All three characters had to leave their country and live in refugee camps in Iraq with their families or in the case of Asaad on his