Narrative Techniques in the Arabic Short Story: “Gardens of Faces” by Mohammad Khudair

Narration involves the selection and connection of events while organizing them in a coherent sequence. The modern nonfiction form of the short story is an essential medium that employs specific techniques for various functions, exemplified by Mohammad Khudair's work "Gardens of Faces (Masks and Stories)," an Iraqi writer. This study, using a descriptive and analytical approach, investigates the main narrative techniques in the short story collection “Gardens of Faces” by Mohammad Khudair. This collection exemplifies the use of specific techniques for different purposes in nonfiction storytelling. One of the techniques examined is the stream of consciousness, which provides a subtle psychological analysis of characters and situations by penetrating the human mind. The narrative skillfully depicts individual and collective emotions through direct and indirect internal dialogue. Moreover, it explores temporal paradoxes in the narrative, such as retrieval and anticipation. These techniques are vividly demonstrated in Mohammad Khudair’s story “Gardens of Faces”, making it a distinctive and complex narrative that tells an intriguing story. A major finding of this study is the central role of the stream of consciousness technique in shaping the characters and revealing their psychological depths in the narrative. Furthermore, the use of retrieval and anticipation techniques by the writer significantly disrupts the narrative structure, adding dynamism and vitality to both events and characters.