Metaphor in Children’s Literature: A Case Study of Aḥmad Ṣalāḥ Kāmil’s Play Ghābah bilā Anyāb (A Forest Without Fangs)

Abstract

Children’s understanding of metaphorical relations deserves careful scholarly attention, as children process metaphor differently from adults. Through imaginative immersion and performative engagement, they often experience metaphor as a form of reality and respond to it accordingly. This study examines the human meanings generated by metaphorical expressions in children’s drama, reconsidering how literary texts are written for children. It takes Aḥmad Ṣalāḥ Kāmil’s play Ghābah bilā Anyāb (A Forest Without Fangs) as a case study of metaphor and children’s reception of it. Using a descriptive-analytical approach, the study shows how metaphor enriches children’s literature by helping children connect animals with analogous human situations, and by activating voice, body, and movement in representing dramatic experience. It also shows how metaphorical language moves children’s drama beyond everyday communication toward the expression of inner emotional and psychological states. Finally, the study highlights the link between the theatrical role and the functional role of performance, whereby the actor transcends the personal self and embodies the character through psychological and social determinants essential to the dramatic idea.