This study examines the fragmentation of the self and the appropriation of things in contemporary thought and Saudi literature through an interpretive reading of Seham al-Aboudi’s Secret Migration to Things. It argues that external pressures fragment the self while objects act as semantic agents shaping characters’ consciousness and behavior, making narrative a means to explore human interaction with the material world. Using a hermeneutical approach inspired by Paul Ricoeur and combining semantic, stylistic, and phenomenological analysis, the study addresses three axes: narrative hermeneutics and meaning-making, representations of objects and identity disintegration, and the formation of narrative space and consciousness transformations. It concludes that objects in al-Aboudi’s texts function as active symbols that reconstruct identity, organize moral awareness, and guide storytelling, underscoring the value of interpretive approaches for understanding psychological and social dimensions in modern Saudi literature
Asmaa Ahmed Al-Anakrah (Thu,) studied this question.