Changing in Character and Place in the Novel "A Space for Madness"by Saad Muhammad Rahim

The Iraqi novelist, Saad Muhammad Rahim, presented his novel "Foshat’on leljonoun" the form of a tragicomedic text to address the transformation process of the main character and the place of the story. Thus, in this work, he highlighted the two elements of character and place, and set a unison relationship between them, so that his novel would be able to portray a part of human suffering and the place resulting from the rule of government during the war.The present study uses a descriptive-analytic approach to focus on the main character of this novel to uncover the artistic delicacies used to link it to some kind of place, using the theory of Y. Lotman. Since the hero in terms of psychological dimension changes from a healthy person into a mad man, it is called a transformation. The place was also called a variable because the current conditions have affected it and have changed its appearance. The study shows that Amer, the main and full-dimensional character of the novel becomes mad or pretends to be mad after being tormented. Therefore, he eludes to an unfamiliar region, changes his name to Hekmat or Hakku, so that he can indirectly express his protest against the disorders of the status quo, especially the abominable behavior of the government. So, he attends variable places, especially the open-closed ones, and makes a relationship with them in an evolving way. The places also change themselves with the change of character’s portrait.