Deciphering Symbols in Mohammad Afifi Matar's Poems using Register and Categorizing them based on Daniel Chandler’s Literary Theory

The main purpose of this study is to introduce Mohammad Afifi Matar as a poet and an author of several books who has a certain individual way of thinking and inciting poems which are all about using symbols and various rhetoric materials. He is one the poets who no longer use symbols in a literary matter but not only does he appear as a behaviorist but he also tends to introduce himself as a political critic that can find and reveal deep concerning issues and offer proper solutions to solve them. Based on his poems, it seems that Afifi Matar is always trying to purposefully create different layers of meanings by presenting philosophical thoughts with words that are capable of having different meanings. Daniel Chandler, a contemporary literary theorist, is among the many who have set their minds on finding new aspects and reaching fresh understandings based on existing words and sentences or verses a poem in which you can eventually have knowledge that cannot be achieved through the first look. Chandler believes that any symbol can be either a used one in a new form that has no refreshing meaning to offer or it’s a fresh meaning hidden inside an old symbol waiting to be found. As an example, when Afifi Matar uses the symbol of “blood” in his poems, he tries to represent that not as a simple key to sacrifice but as a worthy price that only a few can and want to pay to gain access to freedom or retrieve what once was theirs.