Midaq Alley :: Naguib Mahfouz, Midaq Alley

Naguib Mahfouz is the author of the book Midaq highway that was translated from Arabic by Trevor Le Gassick. First published in 1966, Midaq Alley displays a diachronic period of Egypt in the most intimate sense as it is presented by means of the lives of the characters that inhabit the driveway. Although the book is set in the early forties it possesses a taste of eternity as the reader watches the characters struggle finished questions of morality, ethics, and traditions. (The resolution of which shape their behavior.) This is all perceived through the eyes of the ageless path, which is witnessed with positive indifference. Thus, inhancing the feeling of eternity within which the circle of life is forever revolving.Midaq Alley persents a diversity of chracters that creates the atmosphere that it is a whole life and a complete portray of a functioning Egyptian socity of the forties. Mahfouz successfully relates the events in Midaq Alley with the outside world by r efering to politics. This is illustrated when he states that -at this period of the Egyptian history, working girls were usually jewish-they were the starting flare that began modernization. The materialistic insentive that characterized most of the inhabitants of the alley best seen in Hamida, who in pursuite of her dreams of wealth and dresses became Titi that belongs to Ibrahim Faraj-the pimp. Another airless reference to political events is through Abbas who leaves the alley to go work for the British Army in persue of material gains-regardless of the question of paterialism furthermore, Mahfouz states the bad conditons of trade through Salim Alwan-the factory owner, as wartime cut in imports from India. Thus, stimulating merchantes that are personified in Salim Alwan to trade in different commodities, which perviously never interested them for instance, tea. This resulted in the foot of black markets and subtaintial profits for merchantes.Intimate description of the inh abitants in Midaq alley gives the alley a life of its own. Mahfouz indulges the reader in the inhabitants inner thoughts and desires Kirshas drug dependance and homosexuality Zaitas sadistic nature Hamidas untamed ambitions Alwans desires for Hamida Hussains dissatisfaction. On the other hand, thither is Radwan Hussainy-the religiiou figure Abbas the niave lover. Thus, Mahfouz created a complete sphere for a socity with the good on the bad with the intangled destinies of the characters in Midaq Alley.