Frame story and Embedded Stories:A Reading of the Novel “The Handsome Jew” by Ali al-Muqri

Abstract

 The study aims to clarify the relationship between the frame story and the stories included in the fictional text, and how they contribute to the cohesion and harmony of the text, or to the disintegration and fragmentation of its structure?  To demonstrate this, the study uses the structural approach to explore the depths of the text, and to know its textual and narrative characteristics that control its formation and production, how it is constructed, and the logic of its plot.  Is there a story in the text that has a beginning, paths of transformation, and an end?

 The study concludes that the structure of the text is almost coherent and harmonious, and that the included stories have contributed in one way or another to that harmony.  The deep structure in the text is what generated the embedded stories.  Therefore, it is drawn to its origin, the frame story.