Naguib Mahfouz\'s Midaq Alley

¶ … 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 from the world of the West. Among his many interesting personalities in this novel is one of the central characters, and a compelling protagonist, Hamida. She is an orphan; she yearns, dreams, and pines for a way to escape the bitter realities of the poverty her life is saturated with.

Hamida is a very interesting and unique character. Her passion to attempt to escape the dregs of an impoverished lifestyle through the seamy world of prostitution is a behavior which is probably not unlike the actions of scores of young girls in third world countries all over the planet. And on the surface, when a woman tries to escape poverty by turning to street walking, she is really trading one evil for another. But because of her particular Arab cultural and physical environment, Hamida was inclined to do some radical, daring and even dangerous things, all of which helps author Mahfouz weave his web of dramatic and colorful events for her and her interacting characters.

The description the author gives readers of Hamida (26), in a scene where her foster mother is talking about the upcoming marriage of an unlikely character, is of a twenty-something woman with "bronze-colored" skin and "black, beautiful eyes." The contrast of her white pupils with her black eyes, which were "framed with mascara," was, Mahfouz writes, "striking and attractive."

But juxtaposed with that raw, stark beauty (Hamida's figure is "slim" and her face is "pretty") was a young woman who had lice in her kerosene-saturated, knee-length, unwashed hair - and moreover, this is a woman who had a reputation as a notorious hothead.

In fact, Hamida's social position and place in the alley community is that of an attractive yet moody person with a strong temper; one who could show "an appearance of strength and determination which was most unfeminine."

Clearly, if you lived in Midaq Alley, you certainly didn't "cross" Hamida - and indeed, to illustrate how tough she was, her nickname - given her by her foster mother, who was also a match-maker - was "the khamsin," which is the name for "the vicious and unpredictable summer winds" (25).

And in the novel, while Hamida yearns for an escape from the traditions and the poverty of the part of Cairo in which she is rooted, she envies women who have managed to break the chains and free themselves from the cultural, social, and economic morass. She very much envies the Jewish factory girls she sees: "If you had only seen the factory girls!" she tells her foster mom (27). "They all go about in nice clothes. Well, what is the point of life then if we can't wear what we want?"

Her greed - a constant yearning for new clothes - and a lusting for respectability is such a strong theme for Hamida, she even suggests that death would be better than being without a new dress (27): "Don't you think it would be better for a girl to have been buried alive rather than have no nice clothes to make herself look pretty?" She had "fantasies of wealth" (40) and she allowed "envy" to nibble away at her; and in addition, she possessed a "frigid heart" (84), plus she had a "rebellious" and "unmanageable" disposition (86) to boot.

Readers will notice that the author begins to portray Hamida as a sexy (39) woman in Chapter 5, as she "draped her cloak in such a way that it emphasized her ample hips and her full and rounded breasts." Indeed, in Chapter 8, her breasts are now in "protuberant form" (69). Those are far different descriptions of Hamida's sensuality than Mahfouz' earlier narrative - previously Hamida was merely "slim" and "pretty" with stunningly lovely eyes - but the author is preparing the story for Hamida's dip into prostitution.

But before that takes place, she agrees to marry Abbas, a barber in the neighborhood whom she is not very attracted to, but who has impressed her with words of love, and has shown her that he, too, desires to escape Midaq Alley. Marrying someone strictly as a possible ticket out of misery may seem an absurd idea, but Mahfouz has used this circumstance in the novel to show the reader how desperate Hamida's life really is. Abbas then becomes involved in working for the British Army, cutting hair and sharpening swords; ironically, as Abbas is off doing that, his supposed future wife Hamida is also "working" for the colonizers of Egypt - the Americans and British - as a prostitute.

Her pimp, Ibrahim, helps her learn how to become more attractive to her "customers" - by changing her name to "Titi" - and in the early stages of her relationship with Ibrahim, an excursion in a taxi creates a defining moment in Hamida's quest to escape the alley. "Now her willpower deserted her and her emotions were as intoxicated as her heart, her blood, and all her feelings danced within her"(189), Mahfouz writes in Chapter 23. "Pimps are stockbrokers of happiness!" her pimp explains (197) while still trying to seduce her. "...Don't forget that I love you. Please don't let anger finish our love. I'm inviting you to happiness, love, and dignity," he continues, in a line that rings with irony and bitter reality for this poor yet attractive young woman. Dignity? Happiness? Love? These words are used by the author to paint a portrait of the life Hamida chooses over the bitter poverty she was born into; add to that, the cynical words spoken by the pimp, to himself, after their first evening together: "She's a whore by instinct. She's going to be a really priceless pearl" (198).