Urban rhythmanalysis in Mahsa Mohebali's In Case of Emergency

Abstract

In this essay, the focus is on Mahsa Mohebali's novel In Case of Emergency, which provides a powerful portrayal of the lives of women and the youth in Tehran, under a regime that represses its citizens. Through the lens of Henri Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis, this essay examines how Mohebali portrays the unpredictable, deviant, and playful nature of city spaces. The protagonist, Shadi, disrupts the controlled, surveilled, and oppressed city by producing her own arrhythmic patterns. Mohebali's depiction of Tehran as a character itself highlights its polyrhythmic nature, which encompasses eurhythmic, isorhythmic, and arrhythmic spaces all at once. This portrayal challenges the authority's grip over the lives and experiences of its citizens, and reveals a more nuanced and complex city. Despite the regime's attempts to suppress individuality and restrict citizens' lives, the novel presents a world where the unpredictable and deviant still exist, albeit in the hidden corners of the city. In portraying a trembling and earthquake-hit Tehran as another protagonist, Mohebali succeeds in offering a glimpse of a more multifaceted Tehran that is crisscrossed by and composed of a multitude of rhythms.