Similes and Metaphors

“He had perhaps intended from the start to agree but had refused to yield until he had expressed his anger, like a politician who attacks an opponent, even though supporting the same goal, in order to defend his principles” (306).

Lately, while reading the book, I’ve been interested in the thing Kersia brought up in her blog about noticing the language Mahfouz uses to get the story from different perspectives. I began to notice all of the descriptive language he adds to his descriptions of things going on in the book. Another example is when he was describing marriage and Yasin’s feelings toward his new marriage to Zaynab, “It was like a trick chocolate presented on April Fool’s Day with garlic stuffed inside the sweet coating” (307). This simile made me feel what Yasin was feeling in entirety. His similes are designed to put you in the situation and make you understand what the character feels as much as possible. I can definitely make the connection between garlic in chocolate and how Yasin felt about his marriage becoming boring and how the excitement of being married changed completely once he was married just as the excitement of eating a chocolate changes after you taste the garlicky inside.

He also uses many metaphors to accomplish the same thing. On page 308, he describes the same situation with a metaphor, “…, but it was no longer the desire of a fasting person for a tasty delicacy.” The depth he goes in to explain the significance of the issue makes for a better, more relatable read. But, what also struck me was the usage of little motivational words of wisdom that he incorporated into the situations in the book from the narrator’s perspective. As I read, I began to wonder why it was that he was offering the narrator’s opinion or interpretation of what was going on. I wanted to see if the situation was at all related to Mahfouz’s background. I wondered if he was a doctor, counselor, or any sort of motivational speaker of any sort. So I looked this up and found that he wasn’t any of these things and began to question if this was simply his style as a writer, or if these notes played an important part in the plot of the book. So I took my research a little further and found that he was simply a civil servant and an author and didn’t really the answer to the question I was looking for. But, my curiosity is still here and I wonder why he refers to diseases and other things when he writes these similes and metaphors to describe situations in the novel.

Work Cited

1. "Naguib Mahfouz - Biography." Nobelprize.org. Web. 6 Mar. 2010. .
2. Maḥfūẓ, Najīb. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor /Doubleday, 1991. Print.