Throughout the novels of Naguib Mahfouz' Cairo Trilogy, the most noticeable element is the progression of time. In tracing the lives of three generations of the Abd al-Jawad family, Mahfouz manages to structure a chronicle of Egypt during his lifetime that describes not only the lives of the family but the social, political and philosophical change of the entire nation. While it is dangerous to read only for social analysis in Mahfouz' essentially artistic work, the changes in Egypt during the novel make its characters' relationships to a shifting Egypt clear. The character of Kamal is a very intriguing part of this depiction because of his similarity to Mahfouz and the consequent illustration of the changes which seem to have impacted Mahfouz most personally. Kamal can be seen as an essentially autobiographical character as well as a type representing Egyptian philosophical involvement and change between the two World Wars.
Kamal is certainly an autobiographical character, though to exactly what degree is not clear. The most obvious similarity is his age: Mahfouz was born in 1911, and Kamal would have had to be born near then as well for him to be 36 by the end of Sugar Street (232). The details surrounding his childhood are undeniably similar as well: Mahfouz was haunted by an infatuation with one of his neighbors for many years, he experienced disillusionment with religion when he found the tomb of al-Husayn to be empty, and he then began to study Darwinism and declared a philosophy major in college. Also like Kamal, Mahfouz did not marry until late in life. In 1946 he started writing this trilogy, in almost exactly the situation of Kamal at the end of Sugar Street, and his mental state may have been similar to...
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...an especially valuable character because he offers us a less exaggerated social type than the rest of his family, one who is simultaneously intensely personal to the author and a representative of the whole of Egyptian society. He allows us to see Egypt more clearly by seeing through the eyes of its most notable author.
WORKS CITED
Abu Ahmed, Hamed. "A Nobelist's Inspiration." World Press Review 36.1 (1989): 61.
Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace of Desire. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
-----. Sugar Street. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Massuh, Victor. "Interview with Naguib Mahfouz." UNESCO Courier Dec. 1989: 4-6.
Moosa, Matti. The Early Novels of Naguib Mahfouz. Gainsville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1994. [+] These quotes are taken from an uncited handout given to me by Richard Sutliff that I believe to be from Moosa's book.
[+]+ hereafter SS.
The Chronicle of the French Occupation, 1798 – Napoleon in Egypt, was written by the Egyptian born scholar and jurist, Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti (c. 1753-c.1825) between 1798 and 1801, framing the French occupation of Egypt. Both the Middle East and Europe, during the late 17th century were in a state of redefinition. Although the chronicle had covered only the brief period during first seven months of 36, it serves as a crucial accounting. Clearly illustrated is a paradigmatic shift between a modern culture and an antiquated system with a chronicle of events that swings between something that is merely observational to something written by an emotionally charged spectator. Although the work has been widely accepted, there is still some speculation as to degrees of censorship and possible omissions through various translations.
Applebee, Arthur N. "Farewell to Manzanar." The Language of Literature. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2006. 203-12. Print.
Assmann, Jan. The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs.
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
Mowat. In this report I will give a brief summary of the novel as well as why I
“His people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence-forces that continue to threaten them even today” (Hower). Khaled Hosseini’s novels have brought many of his readers a different perspective of Afghanistan. Many people after reading Hosseini’s books start to notice this place more and have sympathy feelings rather negative views about it. Usually people believe the media’s information that conveys about Afghanistan as a poverty place but does not specify why they live in this conditions and how those states affect their everyday life. In the two novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the author Khaled Hosseini wrote the political events that happen in Afghanistan and show how those events affected Afghans’ lives in order to show his personal values of political events and humanitarianism. Khaled Hosseini uses his and other Afghan’s personal experience to send out his mission statement to his readers. Hosseini said that his message was to get his readers be a part of “the mission of [his] foundation to reach out and help people who are exactly like the characters in [his] books” (Wrenn). Across the globe, people started to give a helping hand when they start to read Hosseini’s novels.
Markham, as a child, and then as a young woman, hunts with the native Murani people. Once while hunting for boar with Arab Maina, Arab Kosky, and her dog, Buller, Markham comes face to face with a dangerous, lone lion. In this section, Beryl is extremely descriptive and recalls the memory in a fashion that allows the reader to see the events unfolding through her eyes at a lifelike pace. “Buller and I crouched behind them, my own spea...
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns features at the most basic level the compelling life story of a two women, Mariam and Laila, and their lives. However, the true heart of this work lies in a much broader issue through all of the characters and the events that took place in Afghanistan around the time of this novels story.Hosseini writes characters into his novel as characters in themselves on the surface, but can be seen as representations of a much larger population of Afghanistan. Hosseini uses individual characters as a window into the larger scene of the entire country of Afghanistan, and the many facets of its people, in order to illustrate the political issue in a new light so as to demonstrate to the audience Hosseini’s hope for the future of Afghanistan.
Characters can be described or defined as the people, animals or divine beings in a story or a plot. Firstly, the character that was defined best was Moses because the character was represented accurately and some changes were made for the purpose of keeping 1 main character. Moreover, a difference between the movie and the bible is that Moses and all of the other characters never seem to age. Throughout the movie he stays the same but I believe this to be the producers making sure that Moses was the main character. Another difference was, Moses was a very bad speaker in the bible. He told God this in the burning bush scene and God said let Aaron speak for you but in the movie purely because it was his movie and keeping him central he was made as a good public speaker and confronted Ramesses alone. The final difference between the bible and the movie is that during the movie Moses grew up with his non-biological brother Ramses who soon became the pharaoh who would deny the freedom of the Hebrews after Moses realised that his non-biological father who was the old pharaoh was throwing babies into the river. In the bible there is no mention of a non-biological brother and the same pharaoh stayed in power throughout the entire book. Therefor the characters are quite accurately portrayed but overall they were average.
In the story the most important character is Lesley. Lesley is a spoiled, pretty, Jewish, fourteen year old living in Canada. As the story progresses we see Lesley change to a caring and mature person by overcoming the differences in her new life. Two other important characters are Nat Shelby and Mustapha. Lesley’s father, Nat Shelby is the person who decided the family needed to live in Israel. Mr. Shelby decides he doesn’t want his daughter growing up as a spoiled uncaring princess. Mustapha, other important character, is an Arab boy who Lesley watches abuse his donkey across the Jordan River. All the Jews are not supposed to hate Arabs, but Lesley however comes in contact with Mustapha by the river and talks to him as a person not as an enemy. Mustapha made Lesley a more understanding person towards different kinds of people. The character I would most admire is Lesley for her ability to adapt to a new home, country and way of life.
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), in his short story “Zaabalawi,” depicts the eponymous sheikh as a spiritual entity. Along his journey to find Zaabalawi, the main character, who remains unnamed throughout, notices many of modern Egyptian society’s flaws. Mahfouz’s main statement is that because religion is no longer held in importance to the point where it is absent in Egypt, such corruptions in the social and political spheres have taken place. The main journey also indicates that, in order to better society and move forward, the people must undergo a similar search for God. Nostalgic views of the past will only affect this progress in a paralytic manner.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
The structure of Egyptian politics and state administration was also redefined during Ali’s rule. As the go...
This persona was the fixed, external order of the universe, both in the cosmos and the ancient Egyptian civilizations. It had existed since the creation of the universe, and without it, the universe would lose its cohesion. Since it was believed that Ma’at was in a constant threat from the forces of disorder, every aspect of society should cooperate to coexist and keep these forces in order thus allowing a more cosmic order of all the forces of nature should continue to function in a steady
Imagine being a shy eight year old girl at a new school desperately wanting to fit in. You go to lunch and sit at the table with the “popular girls” and eagerly pull out the leftovers from last night’s dinner. You start to eat your food when you notice that everyone is staring at the green soup you are enjoying. The girl next to you anxiously asks, “What are you eating?”, so you explain to the group of girls that you are eating Molokhiya, a traditional Egyptian soup made from bush okra leaves. All the girls start to make disgusted faces, and look at you as if you are crazy for eating LEAVES! You slowly stop eating your Molokhiya because you realize it is not what all the other girls at school are eating, and you desperately try to avoid the topic about food. But all the girls keep asking you, “Why would you eat leaves?” and the only answer you can come up with is that Molokhiya is a dish that you grew up eating because it is part your Egyptian culture. Well, that shy eight year old girl was me, and my Egyptian culture has shaped me into the person I am today.