¶ … Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz is a portrayal of several individuals living within a particular section of Cairo. Almost all of the characters are Muslim. Several are middle class but others, the most striking of the narrative, are quite poor and simply struggle to survive. Through creating such variety of characters from different social stratum, whom all meet in the context of the alley of the title, the author is able to construct a novel that both tells a tale and yet is also revelatory on a social and on a political level. The book has often been called 'important' not just in terms of its humor and striking literary value, but because of the unsentimental social reality it depicts. The principle protagonist of the tale is a young woman named Hamida. Hamida is an orphan raised by a foster mother. She becomes, by choice and economic need, a prostitute. Hamida in many ways can be said to represent the author's vision Egypt before World War I. Hamida is not a bad person. However, all of her life she has known privation, both privation in terms of a lack of fulfillment of basic physical needs, and also basic emotional needs. She has never known the love of her...
Mistaking valuable 'things' for truly valuable affection Hamida becomes a prostitute because she wants makeup, fancy clothes, and money to buy things. She bankrupts herself both religiously and morally for the trappings of success deemed important by the secular world. Like Midaq Alley itself, Egypt once shone forth as a gem of time gone by, a "shining star" whose "ancient glory" is no more (1)
Midaq Alley Key Ideas and Its Significance Religion Marriage Upward Mobility Egypt Nationalism In the book Midaq Alley, Naguib Mahfouz is talking about life in Egypt during the 1940s. It is focusing on several different concepts which are relevant in the Middle East today. To fully understand the importance of these insights requires examining key insights from the book. This will be accomplished by carefully examining key ideas and analyzing their significance. Together, these elements will
Of course, the geography of the Middle East was greatly influenced in the later Twentieth Century by the ongoing conflict between the Arab states and Israel. The creation of Israel itself in 1948 made the greatest change, and the British were involved in that struggle as well. The state of Israel was created in 1948 in a battle between the newly declared state and her Arab neighbors, ending in 1949
Hamida Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz is given credit as the author who was first to bring the narrative art of novel writing to the world of Arabic literature. He is also the literary genius who wrote Midaq Alley - and numerous other highly acclaimed works - about the fascinating real people from a slum in Cairo who were caught in between old Arabic traditions and emerging modern behaviors and materialism
Arabic literature thrived from the 4th to 7th century which mostly involved poetry about love, fighting and courage. With the arrival of Islam, literature lost its value and the Quran (Noble Book of the Muslims) became the focus of all study. Arabic poetry underwent a period of decline from which it arose during the reign of the Umayyads. Many works were translated in Arabic during the reign of the
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