The very short story: condensation mechanisms in Muhammad Muhaqqiq’s Tangled Threads

Speed has influenced and overshadowed numerous aspects of human life, including literature which provides a comprehensive picture of human society. The emergence of the very short story was not just a sudden appearance, but motivated by the requirements of contemporary life that tends to accomplish things very quickly. Accordingly, the very short story genre emerged with condensed and broad ideas on essential and indispensable oundations.Condensation is one of the characteristics for writing contemporary, short and condensed stories. In order to achieve condensation, the author utilizes several mechanisms whereby readers are attracted. The reliance on the structuralist approach in studying very short stories has led to the realization that condensation is not limited to reducing the number of words, but includes the idea and character as well as linguistic, pictorial, and eventual condensation. Mohammed Mohaqiq has written condensed texts by using the mechanisms of paradox and the verbality of sentences. Moreover, textualization and symbolism also register their presence as two mechanisms through which the storyteller was able to write intensive story texts, but in a lesser proportion than irony and verbality.