Location and its Application in Sahar Khalifa’s Novel “Hobbi Al-Avval”

As the main constituent of a story, location shows the place of events and incidents, giving a complete image of a novel. Occupying a big portion of Palestinian novels, it is also essential in deepening subjects examined by Palestinian writers. A committed Palestinian writer always concerned about her occupied land, Sahar Khalifa has managed to portray some reasons for Palestinian's defeat in a romance using this element in “Hobbi Al-Avval” written in 2010. This research uses an analytical- descriptive method to analyze the role and position of the main locations of the novel, explaining the contrasts among these locations. The secondary locations effective in forming the main locations have also been examined regarding closed-ness and openness, friendliness and unfriendliness. The results show that the main locations in this novel are cities and villages, and the secondary locations are a coffeehouse, an airport, and the Ghahtaan family’s home. Out of the contrast between Nablus and Levant, she clearly illustrates the atmosphere in Palestine at the time, and the coffeehouse as a secondary but open location plays a key role in depicting the reasons for Palestinians' defeat in the story.The main tool the writer uses to display the locations in the story includes giving a detailed description of villages, nature, and villagers, with the equivocal and ornamental function having a larger portion of the novel than other descriptive functions