Not a God, Not so Strong

The final section of Naguib Mahfouz’s, Palace Walk, brought forth a number of surprises, the most obvious being Fahmy’s death and the revelation of Ahmad’s affair with Maryam’s mother. But, one thing stood out to me the most. The way Ahmad didn’t seem as superior to the others as he once did was really surprising to me. As the novel came to an end, we saw how Ahmad, at force, had to obey the British soldiers who held him at gun point and forced him to work. For a man like Ahmad, it seemed like something so degrading.
Throughout the whole book, Ahmad had been described as all powerful and so much better than everyone else. As Daniela said in her blog, “Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear” she writes about how Ahmad’s family treats Ahmad as if he were a God. She gives the example of Aisha’s feelings towards Ahmad after she’s told that she cannot marry. It is clear that Aisha is upset, but Aisha couldn’t bring herself to stand up to her father. This may have been simply because Aisha didn’t want to disrespect her father, something that is written in the Koran as wrong, but why couldn’t she at least say what she wanted to say? At the beginning of Chapter 65, we see how Ahmad is confronted by two soldiers. When Ahmad sees the soldiers coming, Mahfouz describes Ahmad’s reaction by saying, “With a pounding heart and a dry throat, al-Sayid Ahmad watched the soldier approach” (442). This clearly means that Ahmad was scared. Anyone else would be scared by a man in a uniform, fully armed, and physically strong, but if Ahmad was so “God-like” why wouldn’t he be scared? God’s are usually all powerful and nothing frightens them. Seeing how Ahmad could do nothing to communicate with the foreign soldiers and get himself out of the mess made Ahmad look just as inferior as everyone else. He was no longer giving orders to everyone, he was the one taking orders.
Fahmy’s death brought forth a surprising reaction from Ahmad. At the beginning of the novel, we saw Ahmad as a man who cared solely of himself and how he was viewed. As Lauren wrote in the blog named, “Ahmad’s Priorities,” Ahmad didn’t care about his relationship with his family as much as he cared about his relationship with others and his image in the eyes of the public. He did what he wanted and was content with the happiness of others rather than that of his family. But, when Fahmy is killed during a demonstration, we see Ahmad breaks down. We see him finally thinking about how his family, Amina, will take the news. We see his pain on page 495, when he replies to the young man offering his condolences to him by saying,

“…Dead! I’ll never see him again at home or anywhere else on
the face of the earth? How can I have a home without him? How can I be a father
if he’s gone? What has become of all the hopes attached to him? The only hope
left is patience…. Patience? Oh…. Do you feel the searing pain? This really is
pain. You were mistaken previously when you claimed to be in pain. No, before
today you’ve never known pain. This is pain…” (495-496).

This was the first time I actually saw Ahmad showing such vulnerability. It was the first time that I saw him show his pain and emotions to a complete stranger. What shocked me even more was how on page 497 he started thinking of how Amina would take the news of Fahmy’s death. Mahfouz writes,

“He remembered Amina for the first time and his feet almost failed him. What
could he say to her? How would she take the news? She was weak and delicate. She
wept at the death of a sparrow” (497)

informing the reader of Ahmad’s first realization of how Amina would feel about what had happened. For the first time, I saw Ahmad worrying about someone other than himself.
Ahmad’s transition in the book was clear and surprising. It was evident that Ahmad had undergone such a huge change, but it was surprising that he did and in the manner that it happened. Seeing him take orders from someone and not be able to fight for what he wanted allowed readers to remove the perception that Ahmad was god-like. The way Ahmad went from caring solely of himself and his image to others to worrying about the feelings of others and being able to express his vulnerability to strangers was a huge turnaround from the beginning of the novel. But is his transformation legit? Is it a transformation or simply temporary feelings? Could Fahmy’s death have sparked something in Ahmad or will Ahmad go back to being the way he was before?

Works Cited
Daniela. "Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear." 27 February 2010. diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com. 22 March 2010 < http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/worshipper-blinded-by-love-and-fear_17.html >.
LaurenF. "Ahmad's Priorities." 10 February 2010. diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com. 22 March 2010 < http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/passage-im-writing-about-is-on-page-10.html >.
Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.