The story-teller and the story
L'Enfant de Sable incorporates traditional Arabic and oral story-telling strategies to form a frame-story. The character who tells the story of Ahmed is an eccentric character, who is often doubted by his marketplace audiences. This approach to story-telling may be indicative of the author's own love for Arabic cultural traditions and appreciation of the story as the most important cultural dimension. The surreal characteristics of the story-teller character also plays a major role in other thematic categories (most importantly those of deceit and surrealism). The scenes in which the story-teller is doubted are moments in which the reader may realize the credibility of the narrator; the scenes in which the story-teller uses abstract images and language suggest the intrinsic nature of the story as the reader understands it.
Deceits, mysteries, and partitions
There are many cases in the novel when characters attempt to hide parts of themselves or others; the story is inherently embedded in a sort of mystery. The first chapter describes Ahmed as isolating himself, between Ahmed's father and his daughters "was a wall",[1] and festivities are held in the name of lies.
The novel on the whole is about this mystery—this deceit. Ahmed's father hides the truth about his "son", Ahmed's mother binds his chest as to avoid breast growth, and so on.
Bodily harm
Often in this novel a character will cause harm to a body, whether it be to themselves or to others. Before Ahmed is born, much harm is caused to the body of the mother in order to prevent another daughter. When Ahmed is to be circumcised, his father spills his own blood to hide the truth. There is an instant in the book when Ahmed's mother is said to be growing tired of her own daughters and strikes "her belly to punish herself."[2]
Surrealism and abstraction
The Sand Child can be read as a work of surrealism or of magical realism. Blogger Amy Owen describe the "dream-like states, hallucinations, and allusions to Andre Breton and the exquisite corpse [as giving] Ben Jelloun’s work a magical intoxicated quality."[3] The narrator and even Ahmed himself often use surrealistic imagery and abstract language as forms of expression.
Gender ambiguity
The questions of gender ambiguity is perhaps the most essential. Ahmed's male gender is a reflection of his parents' desire for a male child. As Ahmed matures, he begins to identify as a woman named Zahra. The different endings of the story differ as to the character's end gender. These depictions of gender serve as Ben Jelloun's literary investigation into views of gender, and especially a certain prioritization of the male, in early 20th century Morocco.
