The book Midaq Alley was written by the author Naguib Mahfouz and then translated into English from Arabic by Trevor Le Gassick. The book was first published in 1966. The themes of Midaq Alley slice through the heart of the Arabic culture. Mainly it shows how a group of people living in a slum neighborhood in Egypt respond to change, a change that is both a promise and a threat of western influenced modernization.
Although the book is set in the nineteen forties, the reader gets a sense of eternity as he/she watches how each and every character struggles through the changes in tradition, ethics and morality in their own painful yet curtail manner. This is all expressed through the everlasting alley, which is seen with total indifference. Several residents of the alley attempt to escape and climb the social ladder with hopes of never returning to the alley and achieving wealth, but sadly their dreams are never fulfilled and all they’re left with is a broken heart. The initial sentences of Midaq Alley exposes a world evaded by its history: "Many things combine to show that Midaq 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. Which Cairo do I mean? That of the Fatimids, the Mamlukes or the Sultans?" (Mahfouz 1). Midaq alley doesn’t describe Cairo, nor does it attempt to, but it gives you a glimpse into its culture, and into the overpowering changes that happened in the first half of the 20th century.
Mahfouz first presents his theme of change by relating the events in Midaq Alley with the political world outside Egypt. This is demonstrated by the Jewish working girls, which ignited the flame of change and modernization. The theme is best presented in Hamida, wh...
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...alley, at the end of the book is left with nothing but a fear in her heart; when Abbas finally overcomes his hesitance he overreacts and ends up dead for the love of his life- Hamida. That is what made Midaq so appealing, especially today; it deals with themes that are not only timeless but also universal. We see an old poet’s insignificance grow hand in hand with the growth of technology. We see a beautiful, ambitious young woman, Hamida; desperately try to break the stereotypical role that society expects het to occupy. We even see young men following their desirers of wealth and marrying beautiful women. After reading Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley many times, I can conclude that his intentions where to focus on how they survive especially through inevitable change, and how they continue to pursue their ambitions and dreams, even when they collapse right in front of them.
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.
First, political Islam has rogue Egypt and held it down, suffocating the country, not allowing it to stand a chance. President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and people thought that Egypt was getting better. It has not been the case. While Zaki lives in faded luxury and chases women, Bothayna endures sexual harassment while working as a shop assistant to provide for her poor family after the death of her father. Meanwhile her boyfriend, Taha, son of the building's janitor, is rejected by the police and decides to join a radical Islamic group. Egypt is heading towards a bottomless abyss. Everything is controlled by the elite. Jobs are no more; it is preserved for the top. This increases the plight of the people and leads them into committing some of the acts seen in Islam as bad or as a taboo. The political elite are crashing its opponents and ensuring that whoever com...
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.
...ry religious, it would seem, because he owns a huge copy of the Qur'an which he keeps safe in a fancy box covered in velvet. Atiq doesn't like his job, he doesn't feel that it is respectable, and the more he thinks about it the angrier he gets. He also feels that the war will never end. Atiq is losing health, sleep, and weight in this desolate environment. Kabul is even more depressing while he watches a young poor practice for his future by killing animals in the street. Atiq doesn't want to go home to face his sick wife and messy home. Atiq prays for his wife's death while looking for a remedy for her disease of the blood. He meets with Mirza Shah who tells him to divorce her. Atiq refuses, he speaks of her loss of family and the fact that she saved his life, but maybe he just loves her. Mirza has a bleak outlook on women, they are suspicious propery and slaves.
“Araby” tells the story of a young boy who romanticizes over his friend’s older sister. He spends a lot of time admiring the girl from a distance. When the girl finally talks to him, she reveals she cannot go to the bazaar taking place that weekend, he sees it as a chance to impress her. He tells her that he is going and will buy her something. The boy becomes overwhelmed by the opportunity to perform this chivalrous act for her, surely allowing him to win the affections of the girl. The night of the bazaar, he is forced to wait for his drunken uncle to return home to give him money to go. Unfortunately, this causes the boy to arrive at the bazaar as it is closing. Of the stalls that remained open, he visited one where the owner, and English woman, “seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty” (Joyce 89) and he knows he will not be able to buy anything for her. He decides to just go home, realizing he is “a creature driven and derided with vanity” (Joyce 90). He is angry with himself and embarrassed as he...
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
The two main characters, Ali and Zeynep, had a very hard life in Anatolia before arriving in Canada. Here, they made very little money, which would show students the reason to why so many immigrants come to Canada. In addition to that, the plot reveals how even when arriving in the new country it was still hard for immigrants. Ali came to Canada expecting to make a living, consequently he was forced to work and was paid very little. This part of the story would inform the students on how hard it was for immigrants during major wars around the world and communicate to them how even once arriving in Canada, it was still terribly difficult to maintain a wealthy life. Moreover, the book gives many points of views on how the conflict affected everyone around them. Evidence of this was shown as the Ali made allies with some of the people who worked for the leaders. It revealed their views on the conflict and what they honestly believed
The short story “Araby” by James Joyce is told by what seems to be the first person point of view of a boy who lives just north of Dublin. As events unfold the boy struggles with dreams versus reality. From the descriptions of his street and neighbors who live close by, the reader gets an image of what the boy’s life is like. His love interest also plays an important role in his quest from boyhood to manhood. The final trip to the bazaar is what pushes him over the edge into a foreshadowed realization. The reader gets the impression that the narrator is the boy looking back on his epiphany as a matured man. The narrator of “Araby” looses his innocence because of the place he lives, his love interest, and his trip to the bazaar.
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).
Although “Araby” is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce’s uses the boy in “Araby” to expose a story of isolation and lack of control. These themes of alienation and control are ultimately linked because it will be seen that the source of the boy's emotional distance is his lack of control over his life.
Perhaps the main reason I liked this book was the unfaltering courage of the author in the face of such torture as hurts one even to read, let alone have to experience first-hand. Where men give in, this woman perseveres, and, eventually, emerges a stronger person, if that is even possible. The book’s main appeal is emotional, although sound logical arguments are also used. This book is also interesting as it shows us another face of Nasir – the so-called “champion of Arab nationalism” – who is also the enemy of pan-Islamism. The book is also proof of history repeating itself in modern-day Egypt.
Throughout “Araby”, the main character experiences a dynamic character shift as he recognizes that his idealized vision of his love, as well as the bazaar Araby, is not as grandiose as he once thought. The main character is infatuated with the sister of his friend Mangan; as “every morning [he] lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door…when she came on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (Joyce 108). Although the main character had never spoken to her before, “her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” (Joyce 108). In a sense, the image of Mangan’s sister was the light to his fantasy. She seemed to serve as a person who would lift him up out of the darkness of the life that he lived. This infatuation knew no bounds as “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance…her name sprang to [his] lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand” (Joyce 109). The first encounter the narrator ex...
The narrator in “Araby” is a young man who lives in an uninteresting area and dreary house in Dublin. The only seemingly exciting thing about the boy’s existence is the sister of his friend Mangum that he is hopelessly in love with; “…her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.” (Joyce 2279) In an attempt to impress her and bring some color into his own gray life, he impulsively lies to her that he is planning on attending a bazaar called Arab. He also promises the gi...
I believe Araby employs many themes; the two most apparent to me are escape and fantasy though I see signs of religion and a boy's first love. Araby is an attempt by the boy to escape the bleak darkness of North Richmond Street. Joyce orchestrates an attempt to escape the "short days of winter", "where night falls early" and streetlights are but "feeble lanterns" failing miserably to light the somberness of the "dark muddy lanes"(Joyce 38). Metaphorically, Joyce calls the street blind, a dead end; much like Dublin itself in the mid 1890s when Joyce lived on North Richmond Street as a young boy. A recurrent theme of darkness weaves itself through the story; the boy hides in shadows from his uncle or to coyly catch a glimpse of his friend Mangan's sister who obliviously is his first love.
Although he had endured trials and tribulations to attend the bazaar, he soon finds that, exotic name withstanding, he is still in Dublin, is still impoverished, and his dreams of Araby were merely that, dreams. Our narrator remains a prisoner of his environment, his economic situation, and painful reality. North Richmond Street, the dead-end street described in the first sentence of “Araby” is more than a street. It is a symbol for the way that our protagonist views his life.