Utilizing the Psychology of Fear in Literary Narrative: A Crime Novel on Facebook as a Case Study

Abstract

Since the beginning of human existence, individuals have employed all their sensory faculties to protect themselves from the evils they perceive with their own eyes or those their minds portray, resulting in feelings of anxiety and depression from anticipating something unpleasant or depriving oneself of something beloved, regardless of one's will, a phenomenon termed "fear."

Given that human emotions are the fundamental material of literary creation, poets and writers have utilized them in their literary works, including narrative art, enabling them to incorporate various forms of art. Iraqi literature has consistently reflected this utilization, encompassing the entire spectrum of human emotions, including fear. Exploring the sensation of fear has permeated narrative texts through complex intersections of consciousness, culture, history, and human psyche, with a selection of the novel "Crime on Facebook" by Dr. Alaa Mashzoub serving as a model for this study.