The Transformation of Being in Mahmoud Darwish’s The Dice Player: A Heideggerian Perspective

Abstract

This research paper aimed to study the transformation of Being in Mahmoud Darwish’s last poem The Dice Player through a Heideggerian framework analysis. It took Heidegger’s famous quote “The poets are in the vanguard of a changed conception of Being” as a point of departure in investigating and unveiling the assumed transformation in the Darwishian Being in the poem. By employing a descriptive-interpretative qualitative research method, the paper argued that The Dice Player depicted Darwish’s implicit and explicit changed conception of his own Being which Heidegger called ‘minemess’ particularly in relation to his amour propre, his perception of Death and the ‘Other’. The findings reveal that the Darwishian changed conception of Being, which was driven by his anxiety and submission to death, gave rise to a new Darwishian Being. The new Darwishian Being developed a different perception of himself (amour propre), death and others in The Dice Player when compared to his previous poems. Therefore, the paper concluded that Darwish seemingly joined “the vanguard of a changed conception of Being” by showing a transformation in his Being at three different levels.