The Aesthetics of Beginnings and Endings in the Short Story Collection Al-Mar’a Al-Farah by Mohamed Al-Meslati

Abstract

This study examines the aesthetics of the beginning and ending elements in the short story collection Al-Mar’a Al-Farah by the Libyan writer Mohamed Al-Meslati, through an analysis of the narrative techniques he employed in constructing his texts. The research focuses on how these elements influence the formation of the narrative structure and stimulate the reader's engagement with the text. The results reveal that Al-Meslati crafts openings that spark curiosity and build renewed expectations, while his endings rely on openness to interpretation, thereby imparting depth and semantic multiplicity to the texts. The study also highlights his use of narrative techniques such as polyphony, metaspeech, and focalization, which grant the texts a distinctive experimental dimension. This study contributes critically to understanding the developments in contemporary Libyan short story, and expands the horizons of narrative analysis of modern Arabic texts through an applied reading that highlights the functions of beginnings and endings in meaning construction.