Analysis of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Major Characters:

• Mustafa Saeed:  

He is the protagonist of the novel. He dies by drowning into flood.

• The narrator: 

He lives in a small village of Wad Hamid and goes to London to get doctoral education for seven year.

• Jean Morris:

She is first wife of Mustafa. Mustafa kills her.

• Hosna Bint Mahmoud:

she is second wife of Mustafa. She commits suicide after stabbing Wad Rayyes.

• Isabella Seymour: 

An English woman

• Wad Rayyes:

He is 70 years old man and has many wives. He falls in love with Hosna and forces her father to marry her with him. He becomes successful in his plan. After marrying Hosna, she kills him and commits suicide.  

Summary and Analysis:

Tayeb Salih novel is considered one of the masterpieces of contemporary Arab literature. The story offers a reinterpretation of Western Orientalism and its representations of Muslim elsewhere that go through fiction.

The novel, Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih tells the story through unnamed narrator that returned to his family, after a long absence, specifically seven years, during which he was learning in Europe. He learned a lot and missed his village a lot. The important thing is that he returned with a great yearning for his family in this small village at the curve of the Nile for seven years, and he yearns for them and dream about them.

 This novel describes the uncomplicated life in a meager Sudan rural community, the intricate associations among the natives of the township, the boiling weight of ethnicity and the liberty of the being bounded by all these. It tells about his quest; The story of the narrator who studied in Europe for seven years and returned to Sudan, his village on the Nile coast, Mustafa Saeed, whom he met in the village, Hasna, the wife of Saeed.

Shortly after his return to the village, he meets Mustafa Saeed, who draws his attention with his extraordinary delicacy and good looks. He will soon learn that Saeed, who lives a simple life like others in the village, has a very different identity than he seems. However, when he got all the information about him, Saeed is already dead. 

When the narrator, who started working in the capital city of Khartoum, returned to his village, he reads the suicide letter left by Saeed. Saeed, who wrote that he entrusted his children with his wife, opened a new horizon to the narrator. Because Saeed is a man who was brought up with Western culture, surrounded by women in London, held important positions and had a place in Sudan's political history. The narrator and the story open to an identity debate as he begins to retreat and live like an ordinary Sudanese peasant.

The representation of the world of innovation and the life of Mustafa Saeed, who grew up in the colonial period and represented the world of tradition, were growing independently in Sudan. The change in the narrator, recognizing the secrets of Mustafa's life, is a cultural gap expression between intellectuals and the public.

Saeed's suicide, which passed a similar way in the period before him, also affects the life of the narrator. However, the life of the village is simple and realistic. People live in a natural flow in their birth, childhood, marriage, poverty, old age and death.

Now, he desires to prevent Hasna, who he loves so much, from being remarried due to the ceremonies. This time, however, we find ourselves in a cultural conflict. The narrator will remain powerless and passive in combating Sudan's centuries-old traditions, and will not be able to save Hasna from her tragic destiny.

 According to Edward Saeed, "Season of Migration to the North" reflects the resistance between cultures of third world literature. First, the language is no longer English, but Arabic, the second is the journey from Sudan to London, and finally the narrator speaks not from the metropolis but from a village in Sudan.

Tayeb Salih reflects the inner worlds of his novel people with different levels and intensity of psychoanalytic analysis; he emphasized themes such as reality and imagination, cultural difference between the West and the exotic song, harmony and conflict of brotherhood, and responsibility of the individual. These motifs and their context are based on the author's Islamic cultural background and pre-colonial and post-colonial modern African experience. And ultimately, Tayeb Salih emphasizes that the harmonious existence of the individual is only possible in a society built around human values.

The narrator cannot reach the meaning of life in this hard and critical novel loaded with icons. Mustafa Saeed, who committed suicide, symbolizes the failure of a synthesis between the old and the new. Tayeb Salih emphasized that another issue was neglected in the struggle of male heroes around cultural identities, while drawing the limits of a superficial westernization adventure. In the face of the power of the male-dominated society and traditions in Sudan, both Mustafa Saeed and the narrator are incapable.

Theme:

Cultural change and identity:

The Season of Migration to the North is a burning novel that deals with the cultural change and identity issue in individuals with a sense of patriotism created by individuals in a third world country that has undergone colonial experience.

Reality and imagination:

While Tayeb Salih reflects the inner worlds of his novel people with different levels and intensity of psychoanalytic analysis, he emphasized themes such as reality and imagination, cultural difference between the West and the exotic song, harmony and conflict of brotherhood, and responsibility of the individual. These motifs and their context are based on the author's Islamic cultural background and pre-colonial and post-colonial modern African experience. And ultimately, Tayeb Salih emphasizes that the harmonious existence of the individual is only possible in a society built around human values.

Conclusion:

Based on an interweaving of stories, Tayeb Salih retraces the tumultuous journey of Mustafa Saeed, a young and brilliant Sudanese student, exiled to England for his university studies. To explore the complexity of the relationship between East and West in the colonial period, the narrator focuses in particular on the passionate and even murderous relationships that Mustapha Saeed maintains with young English women. The novel can be read, in this sense, as an essay denouncing in a very subtle way English orientalism, imperialism and its ravages, both in Africa and in England.

Novel