Spirits

At the beginning of Palace Walk, Mahfouz describes how Amina sees ghosts and spirits during the night while her husband is partying. Amina believes that her house is possessed by demons and that she “frequently hears their whispers”(3). This part of the book seems very odd to me because she is the only one in the house who hears these whispers, which makes me think that maybe she is just imagining these spirits. Her children don’t hear the whispers and neither does her husband. I think that Amina just feels lonely and this is why she wants to make herself believe that there is something else in the house with her, even if they are evil. Or perhaps it could be that the boring and monotonous life she has to deal with, the one that makes her want to believe in something else. It could also be the “fears and sorrows”(4) that have always haunted her. In an article I read about the jinn, I noticed that some people believe that if you don't follow the jinn's orders, the jinn punishes you. Maybe Amina has done something that she thinks was wrong and this is her conscience reminding her of her sin. People tend to think a lot more during the night and maybe her thoughts are the ones that make her believe that she hears the spirits. These sprits could be just a reflection of how she feels without her even knowing it and that’s why they only show up when she is given time to think about her life. She could also be trying to make her husband seem better than what he really is by believing that he is the only one who can make the spirits go away. Amina recites verses of the Qur’an and yet the spirits are still there. It is nonsense to believe that one man can make the spirits go away and God can’t. Amina desperately wants to believe that her husband is good to make up for the way he leaves to drink and have fun with other women.

"Jinn." Encyclopedia Mythica. 2010. Encyclopedia Mythica Online.
02 Mar. 2010 .