Introduction:

Almost fifty years have passed since Tayib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North was

released1. During this long period, the novel has continued to generate a massive amount of

critical essays and articles. It has been translated into more than twenty languages and has

received attention of both Western and Eastern critics. It is one of the rare Arab narratives

that tackles the eternal clash between East and West from a sexual perspective. Tayib Salih

identifies this cultural and civilizational conflict with the encounter of the Eastern man and

the Western woman. Many critics consider that Salih’s novel is a writing-back to Joseph

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness2. Salih himself admitted this intertextuality while giving a

lecture in the American University of Beirut in 1980. These readings of the novel as a

counter-narrative to the colonial text represent the general tendency of the post-colonial

literary criticism towards post-colonial narratives.

The current Monograph aims at providing new insights into the psychological makeup of

the characters of Season and their motives. Attention will be paid to the characters’ ethics and

attitudes, and to the drives of these attitudes. Each character’s internal thoughts and external

actions are prompted by particular motives, such as historical incidents, social customs, or

character’s gender. In this paper, I will try to give a detailed study of each character’s motives

and the symbolism behind his/her demeanours. In Season of Migration to the North, Tayib

Salih represses his real thoughts and content behind the obvious content of the novel. These

1
Season of Migration to the North was originally published in Arabic in 1966.
2
One of the critics who posit that Season is a writing-back to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is Peter Nazareth,
who says: “the Conradian echoes are too deliberate on the part of the highly literate author to be missed” (The
Narrator as Artist and the Reader as Critic" Season of Migration to the North. 1985, P.133). Saree Makdisi also
refers to this writing-back by stating: “just as Conrad's novel was bound up with Britain's imperial project,
Salih's participates (in an oppositional way) in the afterlife of the same project today, by 'writing back' to the
colonial power that once ruled the Sudan" (The Empire Renarrated: Season of Migration to the North and the
Reinvention of the Present." Critical Inquiry 18. 1992, P.805)

1
latent thoughts are represented by his characters, particularly by Mustafa Sa’eed and the

unnamed narrator. In order to disjoin Salih’s thoughts and allusions, I will try to give a

detailed study of every character’s psychology and symbolism.

This Monograph will be divided into two main sections. Section one deals with the violent

side of Mustafa Sa’eed’s experience in the West. Attention will be paid to the drives and

symbolism of his demeanours. It is expected that this section gives a detailed study of

Mustafa Sa’eed’s psychology, and also of the impact of his character on the construction of

the other characters of the novel. The second section focuses on the post-colonial identities of

the novel. The Narrator, Hosna Bint Mahmoud, Bint majzoub and Wad Rayyes share the

same territory. However, each one of them is characterized by different features and traits

which distinguish him/her from other characters. In this section, I will try to analyze the

structures of their complicated constructions, showing their historical, institutional, and

personal dimensions.

2
 Mustafa Sa’eed:

Mustafa Sa’eed, the protagonist, is a specimen of the Eastern educated immigrant

person, who could not condone the cruelty and the arrogance of the colonial enterprise in

the East and the South. Consequently, he finds himself compelled to counter to this

barbarity of the West. But, instead of resisting against the same institution which he has

been invaded by, his masculinity and eagerness drive him to reply to this barbarity by the

sexual violation against the English Women. In his journey to the North, he is not driven

just by hatred toward the West, but also by love, the love to possess the civilization of

his colonizers. And this is precisely the tragic side of Mustafa Sa’eed’s experience.

Mustafa Sa’eed was born in Khartoum on 16th August, 1898 - a very significant date

in the history of Sudan. Mustafa Sa’eed was born in the same year when Kitchener, the

British army officer, defeated the Dervishes of Abdullah Al-Taashi , the successor to the

self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad3, and then conquered Sudan. Mustafa

Sa’eed’s birth Symbolizes the early period of the British colonial experience in Sudan.

Tayib Salih, by that, seeks to demonstrate how the colonial invasions affect the

formation of the colonial Identities.

The character of Mustapha Sa’eed is extremely complicated and paradoxical, because

he is driven by both love and hatred. This fact makes him appear either as a rebel against

the colonial administration or as a traitor and a spy of the English authorities. Mustapha

Sa’eed wants to write his “Life Story” (p.150) by himself in order to prove his patriotism

and also to abolish the claims which suggest that he is a traitor. Although he writes no

3
On 2nd September 1989, the British army, led by the general Herbert Kitchener, defeated the Mahdist forces
commanded by Abdullah Al-Taashi at the battle of Omdurman. More than 10000 Mahdist soldiers were killed
by the British army which was equipped with modern materials compared to the Mahdist forces. Through this
battle, Britain made a considerable progress in the occupation of Sudan.

3
 more that the dedication of his biography, his words are very significant. As he writes

“to those who see with one eye, speak with one tongue and see things either black or

white, either Eastern or Western” (SMN/p.150)4. This dedication sums up his life,

indeed. Saree Makdishi ends his essay5 by offering an insight into this dedication by

stating: “While Mustapha Sa’eed’s life story is dedicated to a reader who could not

possibly exist, Season of Migration to the North is dedicated to readers who do not yet

exist; those who can simultaneously see with two eyes, talk with two tongues and see

things both as black and white” (820). Makdisi, in this statement, suggests that Salih’s

work is dedicated to the kind of reader who can understand and accept cultural diversity.

The colonial conquest caused a massive crack not only in the history of Sudan but in

the history of every Southern colony. The same thing happened with Mustapha Sa’eed,

his father died before his birth, and his mother, he states, “it was if she were some

stranger on the road with whom circumstances had chanced to bring me” (SMN/p.19).

And this explains the instability of his character and the crack in his identity and his

feeling of belonging. He says “I used to have [...] a warm feeling of being free, that there

was not a human being, by father or mother, to tie me down as a tent peg to a particular

spot, a particular domain” (SMN/p.19). He has no roots to belong to, he was free like

“something rounded, made of rubber: you throw it in the water and it doesn’t get wet,

you throw it on the ground and it bounces back” (SMN/p.20).

Looking back at the history of education in the Northern countries of Africa, the only

educational institution that existed before the colonial occupation was the M’sid.

4
Salih, Tayeb. Season of Migration to the North. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman, 1969. Subsequent references are
to this edition and are contained in the text.
5
Makdisi, Saree. Empire Re-narrated: Season of Migration to the North and the Reinvention of the Present,
Critical Inquiry. 1992. (P.820)

4
Therefore, schools were considered to be “a great evil that had come to them with the

armies of occupation” (SMN/p.20). However, Mustapha Sa’eed was eager to go to

school and discover the secrets behind the prosperity of the white men. He enters school

and discovers that he is a prodigy. He describes:

On reading a book it would lodge itself solidly in my brain. No sooner had I set my

mind to a problem in arithmetic than its intricacies opened up to me, melted away

in my hands as though they were a piece of salt I had placed in water. I learnt to

write in two weeks, after which I surged forward, nothing stopping me.

(SMN/p.20)

He passes the primary school in two years, then he moves to the middle school where he

discovers some new mysteries. His brain continues “biting and cutting like the teeth of a

plough. Words and sentences formed themselves before me as though they were

mathematical equations; algebra and geometry as though they were verses of poetry”

(SMN/p.22). Mustapha, during this period, was “busy with his wonderful machine”

(p.22) but also “cold as a field of ice” (p.22). That is to say, he was heartless, like a

machine.

Season of Migration to the North is not a story of prodigies, but it is an attempt to

display a specimen. That is to say, Tayib Salih does not want to tell us the story of

Mustapha Sa’eed as an individual, but as a symbol of the educated group of people who

graduated from the colonial schools. These people were fascinated by the civilization of

the colonizer; therefore, it was natural that they strove to westernize themselves.

Indeed, Mustapha Sa’eed imagines that the civilization of the white men can be

swallowed as if it were an aspirin pill, but he misinterprets, or neglects, that it has to be

5
digested too. Consequently, he becomes Schizophrenic and heartless; his emotions are

hardly moved by anything. Professor Maxwell Foster-Keen says in his trial “Mustafa

Sa’eed, gentlemen of the jury; is a noble person whose mind was able to absorb Western

civilization but it broke his heart” (SMN/p.33).

Whereas Egypt also was a colony of Britain, it was natural that Sa’eed’s next station

is the Egyptian metropolis Cairo. He says “While we were in Wadi Halfa I thought about

Cairo, my brain picturing it as another mountain, larger in size, on which I would spend

a night or two, after which I would continue the journey to yet another destination”

(SMN/p.24). It is not a coincidence that Sa’eed allegorizes himself as a nomad, since this

allegory makes him feel confident and protected; it reminds him that he - the disjointed

from history - also has lineage and roots.

Meeting Mrs. Robinson for the first time at the railway station in Cairo, Mustafa

Sa’eed had the first awakenings of his sexual desire. He says:

All of a sudden I felt the woman's arms embracing me and her lips on my cheek.

At that moment, as I stood on the station platform amidst a welter of sounds

and sensations, with the woman's arms round my neck, her mouth on my

cheek, the smell of her body-a strange, European smell-tickling my nose, her

breast touching my chest, I felt-I, a boy of twelve-a vague sexual yearning I had

never previously experienced (SMN/p.25).

This statement reveals Sa’eed’s confession about his first experience of sexual desire.

Although Mrs. Robinson has motherly feelings towards him, Mustafa often feels

attracted to her freshness as a woman. It is obvious that Tayib Salih’s creation of a

substitute mother for Mustafa Sa’eed and his incestuous desire towards her is based on

6
 the Freudian Oedipus complex, which argues that every child, between 3-6 years, has a

sexual desire for his mother. Yosif Tarawneh and Joseph john confirm the connection of

Mustafa Sa’eed’s incestuous desire for Mrs. Robinson and the Freudian Oedipus

complex. As they write:

The creation of a substitute mother figure for Mustafa Sa'eed constitutes Salih's

variation on the well-known Freudian Oedipus complex, a variation that is perhaps

dictated by the political circumstances surrounding the child's birth and growth.

(332)6

Mustafa Sa’eed’s desire for his new mother, Mrs. Robinson, is the same desire he has

for his new culture; the culture of the white men, which he seeks to protest against

through sexual conquest. It is the culture which adopts him in an early age, grants him a

scholarship to carry on his studies in London, and most importantly, teaches him to say

“yes in their language” (SMN/p.95). But he takes this opportunity and learns to say “no”

(p.95), but in their language too. And this is the manifestation of the schizophrenia and

the instability that Sa’eed suffers from.

Mustafa Sa’eed, the nomad, leaves Cairo towards London, another destination which

is bigger than Cairo. When the ship sails away from the shores of Alexandria, he feels

“an overwhelming intimacy with the sea” (SMN/p.26). This feeling of comfort does not

arouse from escaping Cairo but from trending towards the North. It is the same feeling

which many Southerners experience during their journey to the North, because the North

is no longer a side like other sides, but is the center of the entire world.

6
Yosif Tarawneh and Joseph John. Tayeb Salih and Freud: The Impact of Freudian Ideas on "Season of
Migration to the North. Arabica. (Nov1988)

7
 In London, his demeanours confirm his schizophrenic persona. He spends the day as

an intellectual; he says “I would read poetry talk of religion and philosophy, discuss

paintings, and say things about the spirituality of the East. I would do everything

possible to entice a woman to my bed” (SMN/p.30). But by the night, he turns into an

invader and avenger, he recalls “I came as an invader into your very homes”

(SMN/p.95), as if he seeks to avenge for Mahmud Wad Ahmad by the sexual invasion of

the English women. Mustapha Sa’eed is a prey which becomes a hunter, a fighter whose

battlefield is his bedroom, and an intellectual who cares just about bringing cultured

preys into his bed.

By the day, Mustafa seduces his female victims, he states “The women I enticed to

my bed included girls from the Salvation Army, Quaker societies and Fabian gatherings.

When the liberals, the conservatives, cabour, or the communists, held a meeting, I would

saddle my camel and go” (SMN/p.30). All his victims are connected somehow to the

cultural domain. Ann Hammond is a student of Oriental languages at Oxford. And Sheila

greenwood pursues her studies at the Polytechnic, and works by day as a waitress. And

Isabella Seymour was in speakers’ corner at Hyde Park when he first met her. The fact is

that Mustafa seeks not only to possess the culture of the white men but also to destroy it

through the sexual conquest of its women.

Ann Hammond is one of his spectators when gives a lecture on Abu Nuwas’s poetry

and the Abbasid era. His audience is dazzled by his fictitious stories about wine in

Arabic poetry. By the end of the lecture, Ann Hammond comes and hugs him and

whispers in his ears “you are beautiful beyond description, and the love I have for you is

8
beyond description” (SMN/p.143). She is a typical victim, because she is tired of the

Western civilization and has started thinking of converting to Islam or Buddhism, and

Mustafa “was a symbol of all these hankerings of hers” (SMN/p.142). For Mustafa, she

was “an easy prey” (p.142). In his bedroom, he transformed her into a “harlot” (p.30).

He exerts great efforts to create the Eastern ambiences for the deserters from the

Western culture. His bedroom is like a gallery of African culture which is furnished by

his lies “lie upon lie” (p.146). He describes:

the sandalwood and incense; the ostrich feathers and ivory and ebony
figurines; the paintings and drawings of forests of palm trees along the shores
of the Nile, boats with sails like doves’ wings, suns setting over the mountains
of the Red Sea, camel caravans wending their way along sand dunes on the
borders of the Yemen, baobab trees in Kordofan, naked girls from the tribes of
the Zandi, the Nuer and the Shuluk, fields of banana and coffee on the Equator,
old temples in the district of Nubia; Arabic books with decorated covers written
in ornate Kufic script; Persian carpets, pink curtains, large mirrors on the walls,
and coloured lights in the corners (SMN/p.146).

This detailed description of Sa’eed’s bedroom displays the cultural and historical

implications of its components. He furnishes it with an extreme care in order to entice his

white women and provide all what they dream of; South and East, jungle and desert,

traditions and roots, African god and Abbasid lord.

To make his lie more credible, he makes up some fictitious stories about his country,

like the ones he tells Isabella Seymour. He says “I related to her fabricated stories about

deserts of golden sands and jungles where nonexistent animals called out to one another.

I told her that the streets of my country teemed with elephants and lions and that during

siesta time crocodiles crawled through it” (SMN/p.38). Mustafa Sa’eed is a liar who

9
believes his own lies; he likes to light the “incense and sandalwood in the Maghrabi

brass brazier” (SMN/p.146), to wear the Aabaya and stretch out on the bed while Ann

Hammond massages his chest, legs, neck and shoulders. He plays the role of an Abbasid

lord and she plays the role of “Sausan” (p.146) his slave girl, while his bedroom is the

theatre where he plays the scene of revenge.

At that time in Europe, people discarded any kind of relationships with black people,

as Sheila Greenwood used to say “My mother would go mad and my father would kill

me if they knew I was in love with a black man” (SMN/p.139). But Mustafa Sa’eed

breaks the rules and seeks to be the Othello of his time, always in his “twisted manner”

(p.41). He was “the first Sudanese to marry an Englishwoman, in fact he was the first to

marry a European of any kind” (SMN/p.55).

Despite enjoying “those rare moments of ecstasy” (SMN/p.144) which he has spent

with Ann Hammond, Sheila Greenwood, and Isabella Seymour, he still cannot deny that

in those very moments “lies are turned into truths, history becomes a pimp, and the jester

is turned into a sultan” (SMN/p.144). That is to say, he is conscious that the lies are

never turned into truths, and it is the South which yearns for the North, and not vice

versa. He fully understands that the North which yearns for the South is a lie, that his

bedroom has never been a graveyard of the North, and that the defeating of the Western

civilization through the subjugation of Ann Hammond, Sheila Greenwood, and Isabella

Seymour is the biggest lie he has ever believed to be true.

All the women that Mustafa Sa’eed has encountered in his sexual experiences are

dazzled by his ravishing world in which they find answers of their nostalgic feelings,

except his wife Jean Morris, who totally refuses to play the role of a victim. Instead, she

forces him to run after her like a “savage bull” (p.157). With her, he gives up playing the

10
role of the invader in the theatre of revenge and becomes a warrior with “bow and sword

and spear and arrows” (p.34) in the “theatre of war” (p.34).

When he first met Jean Morris he was at a party in Chelsea with two girls. As she

enters, he looks at her arrogantly and says “who’s that female?” (p.29). She seems to be

present in every party he went to, but she never pays attention to him. In fact, she is more

inclined to humiliate him. Whenever he avoids her she tries to entice him, but when he

went after her, she tends to escape from him. He says: “against my will, I fell in love

with her and I was no longer able to control the course of events” (SMN/p.155). Mustafa,

the invader, becomes an easy prey for Jean Morris, in the same way that the other women

were for him. In Tayib Salih’s words, she was the “Phoenix that ravished the ghoul”

(SMN/p.155).

For Mustafa Sa’eed, the time has come to pay for all his lies, and to face the truth

which he has been trying to reverse for many years. He confesses that before meeting

Jean Morris, he was living a “premonition” (p.29). But she comes to put an end to this

premonition, and proves to him that his avenging journey to the north is a lie which he

strives to hold as true. The night when she comes to his house is the night when the truth

is revealed, it is the crucial moment which changes Mustafa Sa’eed from an avenger

against the West to a thirsty for the Western civilization which is embodied by Jean

Morris. In this scene, Tayib Salih subtly constructs some new historical icons and merges

them in the confrontation of Mustafa Sa’eed with Jean Morris, or rather, of the East with

the West.

In his previous encounters with the other Western females, Mustafa Sa’eed was

always more vigorous; but with Jean Morris, their forces are equal, or even she is

superior. He describes the night when she comes to his house:

11
 She stayed on, standing in front of me like some demon, a challenging defiance

in her eyes that stirred remote longings in my heart. Without our exchanging a

word, she stripped off her clothes and stood naked before me. All the fires of

hell blazed within my breast. Those fires had to be extinguished in that

mountain of ice that stood in my path. (SMN/p.156)

In this passage, one can easily read Salih’s codes and arrive at the latent symbolism

behind these codes. We can note a South yearning for a North, with a raging thirst

which must be quenched by “a drink of icy water” (p.156). But Jean Morris refuses to

surrender herself easily. In fact, she may cost Mustafa an extravagant price. He

continues:

She pointed to an expensive Wedgwood vase on the mantelpiece. "Give this to

me and you can have me," she said. [...] I nodded my head in agreement.

Taking up the vase, she smashed it on the ground and began trampling the

pieces underfoot. She pointed to a rare Arabic manuscript on the table. “Give

me this too” she said. [...] I nodded my head in agreement. Taking up the old,

rare manuscript she tore it to bits, filling her mouth with pieces of paper which

she chewed and spat out. [...] She pointed to a silken Isphahan prayer-rug

which I had been given by Mrs Robinson when I left Cairo. It was the most

valuable thing I owned, the thing I treasured most. “Give me this too and then

you can have me," she said. [...] I nodded my head in agreement. Taking up the

prayer-rug, she threw it on to the fire and stood watching gloatingly as it was

consumed. (SMN/p.157)

The Wedgwood vase, the Arabic manuscript, and the Isphahan prayer-rug are used in

this passage to connote the historical, the cultural, and the religious values of the East.

12
 Jean Morris, or the West, insists on getting these values and destroying them before

offering itself to the Eastern Other, as embodied by Mustafa Sa’eed. This passage is

considered as the most emblematic of the whole novel due to its significant

symbolism. Tayib Salih wants to tell the reader that the Western civilization does not

adopt any deserter from the East or the South unless it detaches him from his history,

culture, religion, and most importantly, his identity. However, after adopting him, it

considers him no more than an uncanny and a savage Other. As Professor Maxwell

Foster-Keen says to Mustafa expressing his dislike of him: “After all the efforts we’ve

made to educate you, it’s as if you’d come out of the jungle for the first time”

(SMN/p.93).

After three years of following her, Jean Morris says one day: “I’m tired of your

pursuing me and of my running before you, marry me” (SMN/p.157). In the registry

office, she cries in a very intense way that even the registrar thinks that her crying is

due to her love to Mustafa. But her crying soon turns to a burst of laughter, as she says

“what a farce!” (p.158). Taking into account the last statement of Jean Morris, Tayib

Salih seeks to point out that the marriage of a Non-Western black man with an English

white woman is just a melodramatic scene that has nothing to do with reality. Their

Marriage is just like the one of Othello and Desdemona7. Salih also intends to show

that the coexistence of the Western empire with its ex-colonies is a mere affectation in

order to deceive the public belief and also to maintain the post-colonial exploitation.

Mustafa Sa’eed thinks that marrying Jean Morris would be the answer to all his

hankerings for her, but she stays obstinate and refuses to yield in. He is eager to

7
This is an allusion to Shakespeare’s celebrated play Othello. Othello is the Moroccan Negro protagonist of the
play, and Desdemona is his white Venetian wife. Since the play is representing the European society during the
sixtieth century, the marriage of Othello and Desdemona is just a melodramatic event that could never happen
in real life in that period of time.

13
“possess” her, and when we say “possess”, the word in its literary meaning is loaded

by both love and violence, the same as Mustafa’s attitude towards Jean Morris and her

world. Whenever they are brought together to bed, she would say: “Not now” or “I’m

tired”. He starts to run out of patience with her, and he tries to threaten to kill her, but

none of his threats affects her, as she reacts to his threats by addressing him: “My

sweet, you’re not the kind of man that kills” (SMN/p.159). Mustafa’s bedroom, which

once was a theatre of revenge, turns into a theatre of war, a “murderous war in which

no quarter was given” (SMN/p.160). Mustafa turns out into an “invader who had come

from the South” (SMN/p.160), while Jean Morris is “the icy battlefield from which he

wouldn’t make a safe return” (SMN/p.160).

Mustafa suffers all sorts of irritation and stubbornness with his wife Jean Morris

that he even tries many times to kill her. They always fight, and Mustafa is always

defeated. He describes these fights in details: “When I slapped her, she would slap me

back and dig her nails into my face; a volcano of violence would explode within her

and she would break any crockery that came to hand and tear up books and papers”

(SMN/p.160). What is worse, she likes to flirt with strange guys when they are out,

and out of jealousy, he “gets himself into fights with people, and exchange blows with

her in the middle of the street” (SMN/p.161). For Mustafa, there is one desired object,

which is his wife Jean Morris, and he is willing to die for her. But for Jean Morris, she

has a lot of lovers, like Mustafa Sa’eed. This adultery of Jean Morris is employed by

Tayib Salih to represent the fact that the West is desired by the people of all the other

regions of the world, and also to display the extravagant desire of the graduates from

the colonial schools to possess the civilization of their colonizers.

14
 In a freezing cold night of February, London was completely covered by ice, but

Mustafa had an unusual warmth in his head, and his blood was “boiling”. This weird

feeling of warmth unexpectedly stirs again his desire of taking revenge, and he decides

to make it the night of “reckoning” (p.162). When he came home, he found her

stretching in bed waiting for him, as she says “This night is for you alone. I’ve been

waiting for you a long time” (SMN/p.162). This night is a night of “truth and tragedy”;

a night when two completely different worlds, civilizations and cultures are to collide

for the first time. But, because Mustafa’s desire for Jean Morris and her world is

structured by both love and hatred, the moment of their encounter would be a moment

of possession and destruction. He describes:

Here are my ships, my darling, sailing towards the shores of destruction. I

leant over and kissed her. I put the blade-edge between her breasts and she

twined her legs round my back: Slowly I pressed down. Slowly, she opened her

eyes. What ecstasy there was in those eyes! She seemed more beautiful than

anything in the whole world. (SMN/p.164)

This passage clearly confirms the ambivalence of Mustafa Sa’eed’s desire towards his

wife Jean Morris. Even in such a decisive moment like this, he is still able to

incorporate both love and destruction in the same conduct. In fact, he is still fascinated

by the charms of his desired object while he is murdering it. This paradoxical

behaviour of Mustafa Sa’eed is based mainly, by Tayib Salih, on the Freudian work

Beyond the Pleasure Principle8.

8
Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1989. Beyond the
Pleasure Principle is an 1920 essay by Sigmund Freud. In this essay, Freud develops the theory of the drives of
the human behaviour. He posits that the human behaviour is prompted by two opposite drives, Eros which
produces love, and Thanatos which produces destruction and aggression.

15
 Mustafa Sa’eed realizes that possessing his wife Jean Morris is an unattainable goal

which will only happen through murdering her. But Jean Morris refuses to die alone,

as her last words to him were “Come with me. Come with me. Don’t let me go alone”

(SMN/p.165). For Mustafa Sa’eed, the call of Jean Morris signifies that his task

towards her is still unfinished, even after killing her. Therefore, this call will always

remain in his mind, and the train will always “Carry him to Victoria Station and to the

world of Jean Morris” until he answers it. He states, “Everything which happened

before my meeting her was a premonition; everything I did after I killed her was an

apology; not for killing her, but for the lie that was my life” (SMN/p.29). This

statement of Mustafa Sa’eed clearly indicates that by killing Jean Morris, he discovers

again that his avenging journey is a gross lie, and that he never possessed any of the

English women that he has encountered, but he just played the role of a possessor and

an invader.

Mustafa Sa’eed’s long trial affirms the Western society’s misinterpretation of the

mentality and the drives of the Eastern educated immigrants, as embodied by Mustafa

Sa’eed. He sat for long hours listening to the misled assumptions of the lawyers about

him, “as though they were talking about some person who was no concern of him”

(SMN/p.31). The Public Prosecutor portrays him as an “egoist whose whole life had

been directed to the quest of pleasure” (SMN/p.32), while his teacher, Pr Maxwell

Foster-Keen, sees him as “a genius whom circumstances had driven to killing in a

moment of mad passion” (SMN/p.32) and that the women that he is accused of

murdering were already at the edge of death, whether they met him or not. But

Mustafa Sa’eed is entirely convinced that none of their assumptions are true, for he

was certain that he who killed them. He feels that he should stand up and say to them:

“This is untrue, a fabrication. It was I who killed them. I am the desert of thirst. I am

16
no Othello. I am a lie. Why don’t you sentence me to be hanged and so kill the lie”

(SMN/p.33). He refuses to be compared to Othello, because Othello killed Desdemona

out of jealousy, but he killed Jean Morris as revenge for the aggressive colonial

campaigns of the white men in the East and the South.

Mustafa Sa’eed wishes his ending to be epic as the ending of warriors and invaders,

but everybody in the court cooperate against him as if they intend to deprive him even

of his last wish. He wishes to conclude his avenging journey in the same battlefield in

which he had the war, “in the north, the far north, on a stormy; icy night, under a

starless sky; among people to whom he did not matter” (SMN/p.67). The court ruling

is disappointing to Mustafa Sa’eed and does not fulfil his epic aspirations. He is

sentenced to be jailed for seven years. After spending this period in prison, he leaves

London and wanders from Paris to Copenhagen to Delhi to Bangkok before he decides

to move back to his home country and settles in an “obscure village on the Nile”

(SMN/p.69).

Mustafa Sa’eed returns to his homeland empty-handed, the same as the defeated

knights return to their empires. In his journey to the north, he passes through many

mountains in which he “pitches his tent”, spends a night or two, and then moves to

another destination, till he arrives at London, which he chooses to be the battlefield of

his encounters. Since he represents the first Eastern generation that emigrated to study

in Europe, he is free to express himself in the manner that suits him, so he decides to

“express himself in twisted way”. He is fascinated by the civilization of the colonizers.

However, he never forgets the aggressive colonial campaign of Kitchener, and that

“The ships at first sailed down the Nile carrying guns not bread, and the railways were

originally set up to transport troops” (SMN/p.95). This mixture of sentiments causes

17
an ambivalence in his persona, and leads him to hold both love and destruction in his

journey to the North. In London, he visualizes the civilization of the colonizers as

women, thus, he chooses both to counter to kitchener’s campaigns, and to possess this

civilization by the sexual invasion of these women. But after meeting Jean Morris and

killing her, he realizes that his whole life was pointless and just a piece of fiction, and

that he neither possesses the Western civilization, nor he counters to its aggressive

colonial campaigns.

Mustafa Sa’eed finally decides to return to the mountain from which he has began

his journey, as if he intends to express his gratitude to his country, and especially to

the Nile river without which “there would have been no beginning and no end”

(SMN/p.69) for his journey. His return to Sudan and settling down in a small village

on the banks of the Nile is the ending which gives meaning to all what preceded it. To

renew his Sadanese identity, he buys a parcel of land, marries a native woman, Hosna

Bint Mahmoud, and has two sons from this marriage. He also starts contributing to

cooperative activities of the Agricultural Project Committee. More than that, his

effective contribution earns him a good reputation among the villagers and earns him

their respect. They consider him as “the man who deserves to be a minister in the

government” (SMN/p.101).

Even after Leaving Europe and settling in the village, Mustafa Sa’eed continues

living his life in a paradoxical way. By day, he works in his land and lives as any

native villager would do, but by night, he removes his mask and returns to his Western

life style. He furnishes his room with a complete Western style so that whenever he

enters it, he feels like going back to London and to the world of Jean Morris. In this

room, he keeps records of every moment of his epic adventures in London, as the

18
Narrator states: “Mustafa Sa’eed had not let a moment pass without recording it for

posterity” (SMN/p.139). He also keeps photographs of the women that he has

encountered in London. It is obvious that Mustafa Sa’eed, like many returning

expatriates of his generation, could not overcome his desire for the Western

civilization and chooses to combine both his native identity and the one he acquired in

the West.

Mustafa Sa’eed’s demise is one of the most melodramatic scenes of the entire

novel. In a real scorcher of the middle of the summer, the Nile River flooded in a very

unusual way, and many villagers drowned because of it. Mustafa Sa’eed was one of

the people who drowned. The question here, is whether Mustafa Sa’eed decides to

commit suicide or nature chooses his ending to be that way. If we assume the second

guess to be true, the narrator states, “then Nature had bestowed upon him the very end

which he would have wanted for himself. [...] The darkness has fused all the elements

of nature into one single neutral one. [...] In such manner the end of this hero had to

be” (SMN/p.69). It is very likely that Mustafa Sa’eed has intentionally drowned

himself into the River. He could not disregard the call of Jean Morris that even he

mumbles her name in his dreams, as Husna Bint Mahmoud says: “He kept repeating

words in his sleep, like Jeena Jeeny — I don’t know” (SMN/p.91). Thus, he decides to

answer this call and join his beloved one in the other life.

Since the narrator is created, by Tayib Salih, to embody the second generation of

immigrants toward the North, it is significant that Mustafa Sa’eed makes him in

charge of his wife and two sons. He wishes that his sons have a normal upbringing not

like the one he had as a child, and also to be spared from the “pangs of wanderlust”

(p.65). For his wife, he has “confidence in her judgment” (p.65) and he wants her to be

19
free to do whatever she likes. But, can women be independent in a male-dominated

society where her function is limited to satisfying men’s desires?

20
1- The Narrator:

The Narrator is also one of the most significant characters in Season of Migration to

the North due to his divergence from Mustafa Sa’eed’s understanding of the western

civilization. Both the Narrator and Mustafa Sa’eed belong to the same country, but they

represent two different generations. While Mustafa Sa’eed represents the first generation

of the Eastern immigrants to the West, the Narrator represents the generation that has the

chance to visit the West but has more time to think of the cultural encounter. This seems

to account for the Narrator’s conservative and stable character and for his ability to

digest the Western civilization.

After spending seven years studying in Europe, the Narrator returns to his village

with an intense longing for his family and friends. During this time, he often has a

nostalgic feeling for his motherland and entertains dreams of getting back to his family.

He recalls: “it was not long before I felt as though a piece of ice were melting inside of

me, as though I were some frozen substance on which the sun had shone” (SMN/p.1).

This last statement denotes that he, unlike Mustafa Sa’eed, is strongly attached to his

Eastern identity and roots. He considers Europe as “a land whose fishes die of the cold”

(SMN/p.1) connoting the emotional stillness of its people, While Mustafa Sa’eed is fond

of the icy ambience of the West. The Narrator is convinced that he is like a “palm tree, a

being with a background, with roots, with a purpose” (SMN/p.2).

The first encounter between the Narrator and Mustafa Sa’eed takes place when this

latter joins the villagers to welcome the Narrator back from Europe. The Narrator notices

the distinctness of Mustafa Sa’eed from the other villagers, which stirs his curiosity

about him. He recalls: “Mustafa had said nothing. He had listened in silence, sometimes

21
smiling; a smile which, I now remember, was mysterious, like someone talking to

himself ” (SMN/p.4). He finds Mustapha Sa’eed’s reservation different from the hustle

of the villagers, drawing an implicit similarity between Sa’eed’s calm character and the

type of European people he lived with for a few years.

While Mustafa Sa’eed is fascinated by Western people and seeing them as majestic

aliens, the Narrator considers them as: “just like us they are born and die, and in the

journey from the cradle to the grave they dream dreams some of which come true and

some of which are frustrated; [...] that some are strong and some are weak; [...] but that

the differences are narrowing and most of the weak are no longer weak” (SMN/p.3).

This manifests the ability of the Narrator and his generation to rationally understand the

difference of the Western civilization, and to avoid the culture shock which drives

Mustafa Sa’eed and his generation to crave for Western civilization and to detach

themselves from their identity, culture, and religion. Tayib Salih, through the Narrator’s

voice, displays the standpoint of the post-colonial generation about the Occidental Other,

a view which is completely different from the colonial generation. He also uses the

Narrator’s voice to criticize the widening gap between the social classes in the Eastern

societies in comparison with the Western societies where, according to him, “the

differences are narrowing and most of the weak are no longer weak” (SMN/p.3).

The narrator becomes more curious about Mustafa Sa’eed and wants to know more

about him, as he can easily detect his disguise in the character of a simple rural person.

Although he meets him many times during his first months in the village, he still cannot

overlook his wonderings about Mustafa Sa’eed, “Where was he from? Why had he

settled in this village? What was he about?” (SMN/p.9), but he prefers to wait until

Mustafa willingly decides to answer those questions and reveal his secrets. On his part,

22
Mustafa Sa’eed tries to convince the narrator that he is no more than a villager and has

no secrets to hide. But after the Narrator hears him reciting an English poem while he is

drunk, he decides to tell him his undercover life story. However, he prefers not to tell

him everything and considers that “some details won’t be of great interest to him”

(SMN/p.19).

After the death of Mustafa Sa’eed, the Narrator discovers that Mustafa left him a

letter in which he assigns him the custody of his wife and two sons. This

recommendation symbolizes the shift of the responsibility from the generation of

Mustafa Sa’eed to the generation of the Narrator. While Mustafa Sa’eed is a person of

action, the Narrator is a person of reflection. This is clear in the fact that he hesitates

when it comes to marrying Husna Bint Mahmoud and rescuing her from marrying Wed

Rayyes. The Narrator has the chance to fulfil Mustafa’s recommendation, but he refuses

to take a decision and marry Husna Bint Mahmoud. Instead, he prefers to pay more

attention to Mustafa’s sons, or the coming generation, and considers that protecting the

next generation is one of his duties.

After Husna Bint Mahmud kills Wed Rayyes and commits suicide, feelings of regret

and sorrow haunts the narrator. At this moment, he seems unable to be wise and stable,

and feels “hatred and seeks revenge”. Though, he is still “aware of the irony of the

situation” (SMN/p.134). This fact confirms that he is “not immune from the germ of

contagion that oozes from the body of the universe” (SMN/p.104) which seems to have

affected Mustafa Sa’eed and Wad Rayyes. At this phase, we can note the narrator’s

identification with Mustafa Sa’eed in terms of moral destruction. He himself confirms

this similarity in destiny early in the novel by making questions such “Was it likely that

what had happened to Mustafa Sa’eed could have happened to me? He had said that he

23
was a lie, so was I also a lie? I am from here — is not this reality enough?” (SMN/p.49).

Moreover, he even begins to feel inferior to Mustafa Sa’eed, because, according to him,

“Mustafa at least made a choice, while he has chosen nothing” (SMN/p.134). Thus, he

finds himself compelled to confront his “adversary” Mustafa Sa’eed.

The narrator finally decides to enter Mustafa Sa’eed’s room and discover the secret

details which he refused to give away. He describes:

The light exploded on my eyes and out of the darkness there emerged a frowning

face with pursed lips that I knew but could not place. I moved towards it with hate

in my heart. It was my adversary Mustafa Sa’eed. The face grew a neck, the neck

two shoulders and a chest, then a trunk and two legs, and I found myself standing

face to face with myself This is not Mustafa Sa’eed. (SMN/p.135)

This scene comes to reinforce the narrator’s identification with Mustafa Sa’eed. Once

more, he tends to associate himself with his adversary, and contends that he and Mustafa

Sa’eed are an inseparable self. By entering his room, the Narrator discovers the dreadful

side of Mustafa Sa’eed’s experience in London; he finds all the details which Mustafa

Sa’eed keeps secret. He also discovers how Mustafa Sa’eed continues living his old

Western illusion, even though he pretends to be a native villager. He says “What a fool

he was! Was this the action of a man who wanted to turn over a new leaf?”

(SMN/p.136). Resolving the ambiguous mystery of Mustafa Sa’eed leaves the Narrator

with a mixture of indignation and outrage, and stirs in him feelings of hate and revenge

toward his adversary Mustafa Sa’eed. Discovering the truth of his adversary makes him

meditate on how he spends all his life refusing to choose or decide even in such crucial

moments of his life, unlike Mustafa Sa’eed, who “at least made a choice”.

24
 Many things accumulate in the Narrator’s mind after leaving Mustafa’s room. He

narrates, “I thought of going and standing by her grave. I thought of throwing away the

key where nobody could find it. Then I decided against it. Meaningless acts. Yet I had to

do something” (SMN/p.166). He suddenly feels that, this time, he should make a choice

about his destiny. Thus, he decides to go to the Nile River, not to commit suicide as

Mustafa did, but just to “dispel his rage by swimming”. He wants to cross from the

southern shore to the northern shore of the river, always in his usual stability and

steadiness. He swims until he reaches the middle point of the river where no return is

possible. He says, “I was still holding a thin, frail thread [...] but the thread was so frail it

almost snapped and I reached a point where I felt that the forces lying in the river-bed

were pulling me down to them” (SMN/p.167). Unexpectedly, he finds himself unable to

move, neither forward nor backward. Then “he screams with all his remaining strength,

Help! Help!”. This is the closing scene of Season of Migration to the North, and one of

its most emblematic and significant scenes. While Mustafa Sa’eed and his generation

strive to integrate into the Western society and dispose themselves of their Eastern

identity and convention, The Narrator and his generation refuse to appreciate the

civilization of the colonizers and neglect its superiority. But at the same time, they are

not really attached to their Eastern identity and do nothing to help their communities out

of the darkness of ignorance and retardation. In this scene, the Narrator suddenly starts

realizing his uselessness and incapability. Thus, he decides this time to make a decision,

and he “chooses life”, because he remembers that “there are a few people he wants to

stay with for the longest possible time and because he has duties to discharge”

(SMN/p.168). But, will be there any saviour? Or the train of life does not wait for the

belated people like the Narrator?

25
 To conclude, Tayib Salih portrays the Narrator as more stable and confident than his

predecessor Mustafa Sa’eed. Taking into consideration their upbringings, Mustafa

Sa’eed witnesses the cruel colonial era, he could not forget the oppression of the colonial

institution, and this is what directly affects the formation of his mindset and his attitude

towards the West. On the other hand, the Narrator belongs to the independence period.

Thus, he is more confident and optimistic about the future, and he is assured that

“Sooner or later they will leave their country just as many people throughout history left

many countries. The railways, ships, hospitals, factories and schools will be theirs and

they will speak their language without either a sense of guilt or a sense of gratitude”

(SMN/p.49). Mustafa Sa’eed needs to conquer and kill in order to prove his identity,

while the Narrator is fully assured that he is like a “palm tree, a being with a

background, with roots, with a purpose”.

26
 2- Hosna Bint Mahmoud:

Hosna Bint Mahmoud is an example of the Arab woman who has been marginalized,

dehumanized, and discriminated against in a complete male-dominated society over a long

period of time. Hosna represents the Arab woman whose fate is determined by her male

guardians, father or brothers, before even her birth, and who is compelled to carry out her

husband’s orders with complete obedience and submission. Hosna got married to Mustafa

Sa’eed whose Western liberal ideas had impact on her personality. This allows her to rebel

against the oppressive conventions of her community. She kills Wad Rayyes and then

commits suicide, hence refusing to be a victim of social conventions.

Before marrying Mustafa Sa’eed, Hosna has lived in the village like every village girl

would do. But after marrying him, she changes into a new woman, with a different

mindset and demeanours. Mahjoub describes her change in the following words, “All

women change after marriage, but she particular underwent an indescribable change. It

was as though she were another person [...] like a city woman” (SMN/p.101). Tayib

Salih intends, through Hosna Bint Mahmoud, to represent the radical change that some

Arab women have undergone thanks to the influence of the colonial encounter beween

East and West. He also alludes to the group of people who has been affected by the

Western culture brought by the first returning students from Europe, as embodied by

Mustafa Sa’eed.

After the demise of Mustafa Sa’eed, Hosna is left alone with her two sons. The

Narrator comes to speak to her on Wad Rayyes’s behalf, but she replies with an explicit

seriousness, “I shall go to no man [...] If they force me to marry, I’ll kill him and kill

myself” (SMN/p.96). This statement clearly indicates her disapproval of the oppressive

social convention towards woman, and also her insistence to stick to her decision. Wad

27
Rayyes, on his part, becomes more resolved to marry her. He says, “I shall marry no one

but her, she’ll accept me whether she likes it or not. Does she imagine she is some queen

or princess? Widows in this village are more common than empty bellies. She should

thank God she has found a husband like me” (SMN/p.96). Those ruthless words clearly

highlight the degradation and dehumanization that women suffer from in the traditional

Arab communities.

All the villagers agree that Hosna Bint Mahmoud’s revolt is not against Wad Rayyes

alone, but against all their traditions and customs. Consequently, they unanimously

condemn her act. Mahjoub says, “Women belong to men, and a man is a man even if he

is decrepit” (SMN/p.99), while the Narrator’s mother comment is: “What an impudent

hussy! That is modern women for you!” (SMN/p.123). If she has not been married to

Mustafa Sa’eed and affected by the Western culture which he had brought from Europe,

she would most likely accept to marry Wad Rayyes. Tayib Salih constructs this

rebellious female character to allude to the minority group who has been affected and

enlightened by the first returning generation from Europe. Hosna represents those who

have decided to revolt against the irrational traditions and customs, but have been

confronted by an extreme objection and disapproval from all the social institutions.

Having been beaten by her father and brothers, Hosna finds herself compelled to yield

and accept to marry Wad Rayyes. However, she sticks to her decision not to give herself

to any man. This nominal marriage of Hosna and Wad Rayyes is quite similar to the one

of Mustafa Sa’eed and Jean Morris. Both Hosna Bint Mahmoud and Jean Morris refuse

to give themselves to Wad Rayyes and Mustafa Sa’eed. Hosna keeps evading Wad

Rayyes for two weeks. But in the fifteenth day, he decides to capture her forcibly. Bint

Majzoub describes every single detail of what happens next:

28
 We found the two of them in Wad Rayyes's low-ceilinged room ... The lamp was
alight. Wad Rayyes was as naked as the day he was born; Bint Mahmoud too
was naked apart from her torn underclothes. The red straw mat was swimming
in blood. I raised the lamp and saw that every inch of Bint Mahmoud's body was
covered in bites and scratches-her stomach, thighs and neck. The nipple of one
breast had been bitten through and blood poured down from her lower lip. There
is no strength and no power save in God. Wad Rayyes had been stabbed more
than ten times-in his stomach, chest, face and between his thighs. (SMN/p.126)

Since she was connected to Mustafa Sa’eed and has been influenced by his character, it

is natural that Hosna Bint Mahmoud replies to the violence and the oppression of Wad

Rayyes with a more violent conduct. She behaves as violently as Mustafa S’aeed when

he has replied to the colonial oppression with assaulting English women, and then killing

Jean Morris. The Lebanese critic Mona Takieddine-Amyuni offers an insight into this

parallelism by stating:

Ironically, both Sa'eed and Hosna are totally dehumanized as they are turned
into sex objects in East and West. The two ultimate scenes in their sexual lives
are constructed in parallel form to underscore their highly symbolic meanings9.

This comment demonstrates how Tayib Salih constructs a similarity between Hosna and

Sa’eed’s final conducts in East and West. They both have been devalued and degraded,

Sa’eed by the outside colonial force, and Hosna by the inside old-time institutions.

Hence, they react to their adversary in the same manner, Sa’eed kills Jean Morris, and

Hosna kills Wad Rayyes.

This tragedy creates feelings of disgrace and shame among all the villagers. They all

agree that Hosna’s conduct is a scandal that distorts the reputation of their village. No

one feels pity for Hosna or admits that Wad Rayyes has played a major role in this

9 Mona Takieddine-Amyuni, “Images of Arab Women in Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, and Season of
Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih”, from International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1
(Feb., 1985) p.34.

29
 tragedy. They all blame Hosna Bint Mahmoud, except Wad Rayyes’s wife, Mabrouka,

who makes an unexpected statement about this tragedy. She says, “Wad Rayyes dug his

grave with his own hands, and Bint Mahmoud, God's blessings upon her, paid him in

full” (SMN/p.128). This brave announcement of Mabrouka seems to represent the

reader’s opinion on Hosna’s conduct. The Sudanese critic Ali Abdalla Abbas offers a

thoughtful reading of Mabrouka’s denunciation:

Now, this is very significant indeed. It is significant first because Mabruka is

speaking here not only for herself or for members of her sex but for us-the
readers too. We agree entirely when she says that Wad Rayyes "dug his grave
with his own hands." This is certainly the most appropriate epitaph for Wad
Rayyes. Secondly, Mabruka's condemnation of Wad Rayyes transcends race,
national boundaries and creed. Her scream of hatred is a universal scream
against the exploitation of women everywhere.... Thirdly, the myth about the
docile and humble Sudanese wife who accepts her lot without complaint is
given the lie. (p.51)10

10
Ali Abdalla Abbas, "Notes on Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North," in Sudan Notes and Records
IV (1974), (p. 46-54).

30
3- Bint Majzoub and Wad Rayyes:

While Hosna Bint Mahmoud represents the new generation who decides to revolt

against the reactionary social convention, Bint Majzoub and Wad rayyes embody the

traditional attitude. They stand for those who refuse to break away from the orthodox

way of life. Bint Majzoub is an aged woman from a Sudanese village, totally

unrestrained, and shamelessly talks about her sexual experiences with her male friends

from the village. On the other hand, Wad Rayyes is a specimen of old village males. He

likes to “change women as he changes donkeys” (SMN/p.96), and despite his old age, he

notes that woman “should thank God she’s found a husband like him” (SMN/p.97).

Bint Majzoub is an exceptional representation of the Arab woman in Season of

Migration to the North. She mixes freely with her male friends, and even drinks and

smokes. What is more, she does not hesitate when it comes to discussing some

controversial subjects with her friends, as she often recounts her sexual experiences with

her ex-husbands. She, unlike Hosna Bint Mahmoud, considers that woman’s duty is

fulfilling her husband’s desires with a total submission. Moreover, she seems to be

satisfied with her degraded position in society. After Hosna kills Wad Rayyes, Bint

Majzoub appears to be the only one who has the courage to tell the Narrator what has

happened between Hosna and Wad Rayyes. However, she is also unable to understand

Hosna’s conduct. As she says, “she accepted the stranger, why didn’t she accept Wad

Rayyes” (SMN/p.129).

On the other hand, Wad Rayyes is the male example of the old generation. He, like

Bint Majzoub, totally refuses to break away from the traditional social conventions. His

old age does not prevent him from over-changing his wives, and his life’s main principle

is that “Women belong to men, and a man is a man even if he is decrepit” (SMN/p.99).

31
After Mustafa’s demise, Wad Rayyes pursues Hosna for two years, not because he loves

her, but because of Hosna’s new character. Mahjoub accounts: “Wad Rayyes is like one

of those people who are crazy about owning donkeys — he only admires a donkey when

he sees some other man riding it”. Those words of Mahjoub reveal the real reason why

Wad Rayyes strives to marry Hosna Bint Mahmoud. Wad Rayyes is constructed by

Tayib Salih as a symbol of the old conservative generation who refuse to convoy the new

style of life. Instead, they attack the evolution of the new generation with an extreme

narrow-mindedness and denouncement.

One can easily notice the similarity of Wad Rayyes’s desire to possess Hosna Bint

Mahmoud with Mustafa Sa’eed’s yearning for Jean Morris. Both Mustafa Sa’eed and

Wad Rayyes are confronted by the insubordination of Jean Morris and Hosna Bint

Mahmoud. Even after marrying Hosna Bint Mahmoud, Wad Rayyes finds himself

unable, for the first time, to play his dominant role as a man. In fact, he is confronted by

Hosna’s objection to give herself away. When he decides to possess her violently, she

replies with a more violent way. She stabs him more than ten times, and then commits

suicide.

To conclude, Bint Majzoub and Wad Rayyes are constructed by Tayib Salih as

symbols of the old conservative part of the population who totally refuse to convoy the

radical evolution of the new generation. While Hosna Bint Mahmoud and the Narrator

are influenced by the Western liberality and rationality, Bint Majzoub and Wad Rayyes

insist on living in accordance with the irrational and conventional social customs,

rejecting any attempt to detach themselves from their customs.

32
Conclusion:

The purpose of this monograph is to describe the symbolic implications of character

construction in Tayeb Saleh’s Season of Migration to the North. In his novel, Tayib Salih

subtly represses his thoughts within the construction of his characters. Each character is

created to illustrate a particular theme in the novel, and stands as a distinct symbol. In order

to give an account of how characters are constructed in the novel, and of their latent

symbolism, this research tries to unveil the psychological makeup and the motives of every

character.

Mustafa Sa’eed is the main and most emblematic character in Season. He is created to

represent the first generation of the Eastern immigrants to the West. His aggressive behaviour

towards Western women comes as a counter reaction against the coercive colonial experience

in the South and the East. Mustafa Sa’eed decides to oppose to the brutality of the West

through a more brutal way, which has developed to a desire to possess Western civilization,

though in a symbolic way. This is manifested in his aggressive conduct towards his wife Jean

Morris, or towards the West.

The other characters of Season of Migration to the North are also equally emblematic with

Mustafa Sa’eed. The Narrator, Hosna Bint Mahmoud, Wad Rayyes and Bint Majzoub are

created by Tayib Salih to portray the postcolonial identities belonging to the East. The

Narrator represents of the second generation of the Eastern immigrants to the West. He seems

to be more conservative and stable than Mustafa Sa’eed, the fact which makes him able to

think rationally of the cultural encounter of East and West. Hosna Bint Mahmoud is an

example of the tyrannized and maltreated Arab women in a complete male-dominated

society. Her marriage to Mustafa Sa’eed, who had chance to experience the Western

liberality, helps her to resist the rigid social customs by killing Wad Rayyes. Finally, Bint

33
Majzoub and Wad Rayyes embody the old-fashioned generation who completely refuse to

change their traditional mindset. More importantly, they refuse to convoy the radical

transition of the nation after the colonial period.

Like every research, this monograph has certain limitations and shortcomings. First of all,

not all characters receive the same amount of analysis. It is obvious that the character of

Mustafa Sa’eed is given more attention than the other characters. This emphasis can be

explained by the importance of this character as the most symbolic one in the novel, and is

also attributed to the importance of understanding the theme which this character is sought to

serve. Secondly, some other characters in the novel are not analysed in this research. The

Western characters which Mustafa Sa’eed encounters in Season are excluded from this

Monograph mainly because they are Westerners. This monograph aims exclusively at

analyzing the constructions and derives of the Eastern people, in their internal and external

encounters.

34
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