Browsing by Author "Medjdoub Amina"

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    Tragedy of Leadership: A Comparative Study between Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones” (1921) and Yasmina Khadra’s “La dernière nuit du Rais” (2015).
    (Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou, 2025) Medjdoub Amina
    The present paper carries out a comparative study between American literature and African literature during the post-colonial era. I opt for E. O‟Neill‟s “The Emperor Jones” (1921) and Y. Khadra‟s “La dernière nuit du Rais” (2015) to explore the implication of the issue of “modern tragedy” in the protagonists “Jones” and “Gaddafi”. I endeavour to underscore aspects of the “Dionysian” character and culture as they are introduced by the German philosopher F. Nietzsche in his theory “The Birth of Tragedy” (2006). The study is conducted respecting Aristotle‟s structure of “tragedy” introduced in his book “Poetics” (1956). My raised assumptions are delimited to showing “In which context the protagonists can be handled as Nietzsche‟s modern tragic heroes of political treachery?” What can their replication of the European system of repression, as well as the uprising of the citizens reveal about the collapse of their constructed democracies? The outcome of the analysis is three main chapters that constitute the discussion chapter of this research activity. The first and second chapters introduce the disparity between the leaders‟ greed for authority, and the natives‟ rise of consciousness to fight the practised injustices. The last chapter deals with the regression and tragic fate of the tyrants. The aftermath is that both literary masterpieces answer to Nietzsche‟s and Aristotle‟s components of tragedy at the level of form and content. The suggested solution is avoiding revolution to fight the oppressive regime engendered by modern dictators, unless in case of necessity. The main way to answer back is through a literature that speaks its own time and space.