Psychological and Cultural Borderlands in Tayyib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North

Abstract

This paper explores the conflicting points of view of the narrator and Saeed in Tayyib Salih’s novel. Their conflict emanates from psychological and ideological sources and foreshadows their relations with the western civilization and women. While some scenes and events of the novel introduce Saeed as an alter ego or double of the narrator for their identical social, cultural and educational backgrounds, others represent him as an id that needs to be regulated and controlled by the narrator who plays the role of the ego. The paper further contends that Saeed is neither a nationalist nor assimilationist; rather, he is a culturally hybrid character who equally identifies with the occidental culture of England and the oriental culture of Sudan. His latent hatred, mistrust and enmity towards the occident can be considered ironic or parodic on the ground that he vigorously seeks to import the western values of modernism, urbanization, egalitarianism and enlightenment to Sudan.

Keywords: Double, consciousness, unconsciousness, hybridity, mimicry, narcissism