Book Description

You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing? Literature proves to be the symbolic and sound device from which quieted ideologies transcend the forever politically correct or culturally restricted societies of past and present. In Who Shall Command the Skylark Not to Sing? Dr. Adel Al-Atawneh sheds light on the oeuvres of two honorable writers, Adrienne Kennedy and Ghassan Kanafani, who depict and portray social diseases through celebrated works of literature of underdogs fighting for their place. While focusing on the struggles associated with the construction of an audacious personal identity, this comparative study of East and West is the great search for self. Al-Atawneh examines the politics of hatred, inequality, and denial that run parallel between two worlds different only in time and space. By formulating a connection between the quests for identity and self while looking for a place, he demonstrates the inseparability between the three social characteristics. Along the way, he abridges the widening gap between relations in the East and West. With intention of using the past to open understanding for the future, Dr. Al-Atawneh extends an invitation of hope for the national struggle so the question will never again have to be asked: Who Shall Command the Skylark Not to Sing?