Mapping Imagined Realities: Navigating Thirdspaces in '1982' and 'A Girl Made of Dust'

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the spatial aspects and imagined realities of different cultural productions highlight their characters’ developments. The primary sources analyzed are Oualid Mouaness’s film 1982 (2019) and Nathalie Abi-Ezzi’s novel A Girl Made of Dust (2008). The narrated events in both works take place during the Lebanese Civil War, especially in 1982, and they tell the story of Wissam and Ruba respectively who are child protagonists navigating their complex environments which are their fictional spaces. The theoretical frameworks I use are Edward Soja’s theory of Thirdspace and a combined theory of magical thinking based on different psychological theorists such as Jean Piaget, Jacqueline Woolley, and others. The thesis also conducts a spatial reading of both mediums that creates spatial maps that demonstrate how space is depicted. The Thirdspaces discussed in the thesis are a combination of the tangible and material elements, the Firstspaces, with the mental and emotional aspects, the Secondspaces. Hence, the Thirdspaces become a lived-in space that reflects Wissam’s and Ruba’s developments. Moreover, magical thinking is a psychological coping mechanism that the child protagonists use to protect themselves and comprehend the brutality of the war around them. This thesis explores how magical thinking remains persistent in Wissam’s Thirdspaces showing that he remained the same throughout the film. However, Ruba gradually loses her magical thinking in her Thirdspaces as she becomes more aware of her reality which leads one to infer that she evolved in the novel. I argue that the Thirdspaces in 1982 and A Girl Made of Dust highlight the child protagonists’ characters’ developments respectively marked by Wissam’s retention and Ruba’s loss of magical thinking. The spatial maps present further insights into both mediums and into the characters’ developments. They illustrate how Wissam and Ruba navigate their Thirdspaces and move in different directions from one another. Wissam’s linear movement shows a zoomout effect that suggests that the story is not focused on his development, while Ruba’s shows a zoom-in effect that suggests a reflection towards her inwards state. Therefore, this comparative study between the novel and film uncovers parallels and divergences between their characters’ developments in correlation to the established Thirdspaces and the presence as well as the absence of magical thinking elements.