The Displaced Arab and the Question of Authenticity in Robin Yassin Kassab’s The Road from Damascus (2008) and Rawi Hage’s Cockroach (2008)

Abstract

This thesis explores the different interpretations of authenticity and identity in Rawi Hage’s Cockroach (2008) and Robin Yassin-Kassab’s The Road from Damascus (2008) through an existential lens. Drawing on the philosophies of Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard, the study examines the identity crisis and struggles of Arab immigrants in Canada and the United Kingdom. Sartre’s concept of existence preceding essence, bad faith, and alienation, along with Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety, provide a suitable framework to analyze the characters’ search for their authentic selves. Through a close analysis of the novels, this study shows how the characters’ experiences of displacement and marginalization result in contrasting renditions of identity crisis and obstruction of authenticity. Additionally, it offers insights into the challenges Arab immigrants face in the Western Milieu, in addition to how their struggles relate to larger existential questions about the nature of human identity and existence.