Beauty

" It's beauty that's made me so bored I'm sick. It's like a new word that dazzles you the first time. Then you keep repeating it and using it until it's no different for you than words like 'dog,' 'worm,' 'lesson,' and other commonplace expressions. It loses its novelty and appeal. You may even forget its meaning, so that it becomes strange, meaningless word you can't use." (pg. 337)
Newly wed husband clearly has doubts and doesn't believe in love. This passage reminds me of pathos, since it holds lots of description and a nice metaphor, it contributes to the reader's emotions in an odd manner. Mahfouz uses beauty as if it were something boring and uninteresting in the minds of men. This passage shows how something so intoxicating can also bring about boredom and displeasure. It's hard to believe that Yasin would say something like this, since he " inherited" his father's lustful and " midnight amusement" qualities. But it's in my mind, as well as in most, that beauty is just among the first qualities a guy sees in a woman and is enticed by its pleasant and magnificent power to extract the emotions and thoughts of men. Beauty plays a vital role in this novel as we see with Aisha, Khadija, Al-Sayyid Ahamd and Yasin, but also it poisons them. Its wonderful that Mahfouz was capable of playing with his words and causing beauty to play with the emotions of men. In doing so, Mahfouz captivates the reader into thinking that beauty is marvelous and causes a great deal of controversy upon the novel's characters and the readers. Yet, does "beauty" ever get boring and unappealing? According to Yasin and Mahfouz's metaphor he simply states it as if it were a new word. I love that combination. Learning a new word provides a pleasing effect, yet once repeated it also brings about irritation. Think of it as if it were a repeated song over the radio station, getting played multiple times within every tuned-in station. But it's difficult to understand that a married man can find his wife unattractive. It creates a feeling of pity and doubt about how a woman can endure a man that finds her uninteresting. That can be a good reason why Yasin married her. He was so dazed about her "beauty" that that word stuck to his mind and that's the only characteristic that he truly found in her upon marriage. A woman would like to get recognized by other things, but since he was at a stage of lustful and disgusting manners, he only got caught up with what was put in front of his eyes and he fell in love with the appearance of his wife, not for who she was. As a reader, one is blinded by rage and curiosity as to why Yasin is the way he is. Of course he only states it trying no to sound cruel, but it seems that living with a wife and not be able to go out and do mischief when he was single is what leads Yasin to take that course and announce his message to Fahmy.
The passage chooses a metaphorical stance and provides some description, followed by emotions. The metaphor had an impacting effect when announcing that " beauty" was unappealing and that it was a word. But not just any word. A word that only characterizes Zaynab and to which shows that words have a great effect on people. Words convey messages, but here beauty has more emphasis to the things that distract men and to how men see women. They are seen as tools, but beautiful tools, to be fair. Even words like this can provide a certain way of talking, especially in this novel. Using the word beauty provides a good effect on men's wife, but when used to say it to another woman, is very illegal. Basically, this passage shows what Yasin feels and how Fahmy rejects the idea of having a woman be talked of as if she were just a breath of air.