Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz, is a narrative told from the third person omniscient point of view. Normally, this means that the reader gets to view the happenings of each of the character’s lives from the same vantage point as God. No one in particular is telling the story, and the reader sees the story from the view of an invisible person always present at the scene. Midaq Alley is decidedly different. Mahfouz creates an impartial character that is able to observe everything that happens in the novel. No, this character is not God, or even an invisible person; in Midaq Alley, this character is the alley itself.
From the beginning the reader is introduced to Midaq Alley. Immediately the reader learns that the alley “is one of the gems of times gone by and that it once shone forth like a flashing star in the history of Cairo” (Mahfouz 1). Also, the reader learns that “Midaq Alley lives in almost complete isolation from all surrounding activity…” (Mahfouz 1). Clearly the alley once used to be a bustling and important place but now is an isolated place stuck in times that have long passed. Through these descriptions, Mahfouz is introducing to the reader the main character of the novel, the alley. This detached and ancient alley will serve as the setting for almost the entire novel. All of the events described in the novel are from the vantage point of the alley.
Next Mahfouz introduces the physical aspects of the alley. “One of its sides consisted of a shop, a café, and a bakery, the other of another shop and an office. It ends abruptly, just as its ancient glory did, with two adjoining houses, each of three stories” (Mahfouz 1). Just as all authors do with any character, Mahfouz wants his reader to visualize Midaq...
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... different from a person, the alley attracts a certain group of people, like Uncle Kamil and Radwan Hussainy, while repulsing others, such as Kirsha and Hamida. Just as relationships between people grow and develop over time, the relationship between Abbas and the alley changed during the novel; he was content and at peace with his life in the alley, until his love for Hamida and some prodding from his friend Hussain showed him that there was more in the world than the Alley. Midaq Alley contributed a great deal to the development of Abbas and thrust him into a new life. Mahfouz brilliantly uses Midaq Alley as a catalyst in the lives of its inhabitants, making it a real and viable character that exerts influence and affects interactions among other characters throughout the novel.
Works Cited
Mahfouz, Naguib. Midaq Alley. New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1966.
An entire chapter is dedicated to Rahim Khan’s perspective, yet there is no need for one dedicated to his influences. He resonates qualities we would identify in Amir’s mother, even though we never gained more than a few paragraphs on her characteristics. Rahim Khan becomes an ambassador for her, providing a structural support that would have lost in the novel without him. He becomes a champion for free-thinking, humility and patience, qualities tarnished by the Taliban regimen. Rahim Khan
Norris, Margot. "Blind Streets And Seeing Houses: Araby's Dim Glass Revisited." Studies In Short Fiction 32.3 (1995): 309. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
The story is set in Afghanistan and America, lasting about 30 years from the fall of Afghanistan monarchy to the collapse of the tyranny of the Taliban regime. In the form of the first person, the novel tells us the story about the protagonist Amir’s growth from immature to mature. Amir is born a rich family in Kabul, and he has a happy childhood with his servant, Hassan, who is loyalty and selfless to Amir from the begin to the end. While after a kite fighting competition, Amir betrays Hassan and their friendship because of his selfishness and cowardice. When he grows up, he gets an opportunity to” be good again”. Then he goes back to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s child. Finally, he finishes his redemption. At meantime, the novel describes
During the commencing chapters of the novel, Amir's life is fortunate. He lives in an extravagant home, has servants and does not lack prerequisites. However, it becomes apparent that these luxuries do not make his life easier, but only function to make the early years of his life more complex. Amir’s mother deceases of a maternal death, and he appears to have the characteristics of his mother than his father. His father is dismissive and ashamed of Amir. Amir develops a series of relationships with a young servant Hazara named Hassan, Hassan's father Ali and his father's business partner Rahim Khan to make up for his lack of connection to his parent. Nonetheless these interactions fill the void in his life. He becomes somewhat acrimonious and trials his most significant relationship, that with Hassan, often.
Hassan is Amir’s friend and is one of the only characters to not betray another. While Hassan showed loyalty, Amir did not. Amir betrayed Hassan when he needed him most. Amir was forced to choose between his relationship with his father and his The Author, Khaled Hosseini uses betrayal and motivation to help with the novels plot and to help explain the actions of his characters. Behind every betrayal in the novel was a motivation.
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.
It is this last line of the short story that symbolizes the narrator coming to terms with his prior disillusionment. On the way to bazaar, he had envisioned himself as a knight in shining armor, embarking on a noble quest to secure a beautiful present for his beloved. However, his experiences after that destroy his dreams. As he takes his first baby steps towards adulthood, he finally takes the world at face value. Ironically, he pays a heavy price for this realization: his vibrant imagination. He can no longer tease magic from the mundane actions of others, or his boring neighborhood houses. All the magic that he had created as a little boy disappeared in an instant. In a sense, being one step closer to adulthood actually prevents him from growing in many other ways. In “Blind streets and seeing houses: Araby’s dim glass revisited” by Margot Norris, she mentions how, “North Richmond Street is introduced as blind, mute, with emptiness inside – a proleptic figure of the boy at the end of the story” (Norris 1). She ties the story back full-circle by comparing all the
The plot of the novel is founded on Amir’s guilt and need for redemption. The guilt is introduced in the beginning and is the antagonist of the novel. Amir lives in the past every day. No matter what he does he can’t let go of that night in the alley where he let Hassan down. He spends many sleepless nights as a result of the insomnia he developed from his guilt. Even after twenty years have passed, Amir cannot let go of his guilt. This guilt is what causes him to go back to the Middle East after so many years. The possibility of finally letting go
Within the start of the story, the alley scene sets up the protagonist’s main conflict, this being Amir's greatest life regret. The novel then ends with forgiveness; Amir now has the ability to forgive himself and give back to the Hassan, who cared so much for Amir. In the final scene, Amir and Sohrab fight the green kite together and, in the very same scene, Amir is taken back to the moment before his life changed, when he had not betrayed his friend, his brother, and he and Hassan were just children playing again.
The main character described in the novel is Amir. Amir is the narrator and the protagonist in the story. Although an impressionable and intelligent son of a well-to-do businessman, he grows up with a sense of entitlement. Hassan is Amir’s half-brother, best friend, and a servant of Baba’s. Although considered an inferior in Afghan society, Hassan repeatedly proves himself to be a loyal friend to Amir. Baba is the wealthy, well- respected father of Amir and Hassan. He is willing to risk his life for what he believes in, but is ashamed of having a child with a Hazara woman, leading him to hide the fact that Hassan is his son. Ali is another modest man, who is a fatherly figure to Hassan and a servant to Baba.
The author’s 19th century Gulf region is a rich, cruel and bewildering place. From the luxurious and extravagant palaces of the Sultan of Oman to the infertile and blood spilt plains, where Ibrahim Pasha indicts...
In the story of, "Araby" James Joyce concentrated on three main themes that will explain the purpose of the narrative. The story unfolded on North Richmond Street, which is a street composed of two rows of houses, in a desolated neighborhood. Despite the dreary surroundings of "dark muddy lanes" and "ash pits" the boy tried to find evidence of love and beauty in his surroundings. Throughout the story, the boy went through a variety of changes that will pose as different themes of the story including alienation, transformation, and the meaning of religion (Borey).
Assef, Amir’s childhood nemesis, is the Taliban official in the end. Amir had to rescue Sohrab from Assef as redemption for not helping Hassan in the alleyway when they were children, this “lends an allegorical and mythical dimension to the battle between the two men. As a young boy, Assef is already described as ‘a sociopath;’ an admirer of Hitler, Assef displays fascist tendencies and openly advocates removing the Hazara population from Afghanistan” (Maria Elena Caballero-Robb "The Kite Runner"). Again, Assef is representative of the Taliban and extremists causing pain to Afghanistan, or Sohrab. He is a part of the group, the Taliban, that wants to get rid of all of the Hazaras. Amir is also still representative of his previous role, a bystander and at the end of the novel Amir is faced with another decision; to put himself at risk to save Sohrab, or to remain a bystander and watch the innocent be brutalized. Maria Elena Caballero-Robb analyzed the situation and says that “If the grown Assef appears to be a nearly cartoonish embodiment of sadism and the desire for absolute power, Amir's struggle to defeat him and save the young Sohrab appears to be an allegory for a broader struggle for Afghanistan” (Maria Elena Caballero-Robb "The Kite Runner"). The struggle is over the safety of Afghanistan. Amir wants to take Sohrab with him to America to keep him safe, just as other countries got involved with the
...Much of Khaled’s own experience was incorporated in his first novel in order to share his perspective of Afghanistan and the hardship that an Afghan family like his had to undergo.