Abstract
There are multiple cognitive theories that aim to uncover the surrounding details of a text, including Genette's theory of paratextuality. In parallel texts, the recipient can analyze the text of the story and its contents, and through which he can produce a vision with semantic dimensions that clearly show the content of the discourse. Gérard Genette's theory of paratextuality provides a framework for examining the surrounding elements of a text including the title, the author's name, the cover, and the internal paratexts in order to elucidate the relationship between these materials and the main text. The present study uses a descriptive-analytical methodology to investigate the relationship between the paratextual components and the main narrative in Saoud al-Sanaousi's novel Sajin al-Maraya. Al-Sanaousi is a prominent Kuwaiti novelist, known for his acclaimed work Saaq al-Bambuu. His work Sajin al-Maraya is a psychologically-driven romantic novel that explores the human psyche's struggle to break free from the harsh reflections of life. The protagonist, Abdulaziz, who is profoundly affected by the traumatic events of the Kuwait-Iraq war and the loss of his loved ones, is suffering from a pervasive sense of fear.
Saud Al-Sanaousi has not been negligent to the paratexts and has carefully selected the paratextual elements, including the cover illustration, title, author's name, epigraph, and chapter headings, to align with and augment the central themes of the novel, either in a linguistic or photographic form, captivating the reader of the novel. The first existing paratext is the cover design, which depicts a child and a house with two doves that are in love with each other. This illustration represents the love and affection that the protagonist of the story has lost. The cover of the novel is in light blue, which signifies freedom, and the purple color of the title signifies glory and grandeur, all very attractive to the reader. These images on the cover are pl