Confused

The truth is that, after finishing reading the story, I was confused. I didn't know if this was because I didn't read closely enough or because the author isn't clear enough as to what the purpose of the story is. I feel the author goes out of his way to mention certain things such as the weather as he does for example on pages 54 and 55, or he talks repedetley about the guests not even allowing themselves to think about saying something regarding the food being served at the feast. This repeated mentions of the weather and the guests thoughts seem often unnecessary, and in my opinion, make the story more complicated than it needs to be. But that's simply my opinion because I could not grasp the message the author intends to carry across with this story. I feel that the author is attempting a master piece with too many pieces, which makes this story so hard to follow. I mean any story has many characters, but I can easily find out what each character contributes to a certain piece of literature, which I can't do in this case. I find it hard to understand the purpose of each character and each point the author brings up in this story. It's hard to see how all the pieces in this work connect to make a point. After reading the story, I still can't answer, what's the point of story?

Maybe after a discussion, I will be able to have more insight about this story; hence, I will produce a better blog.

Dramatic Irony

The author uses irony to create his satire. More specifically, Brecht uses dramatic irony. This kind of irony is created when there’s “a situation in which the audience knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know” (Irony).

The characters don’t have all the information the audience has. We, the audience, know that Shui Ta and Shen Te are the same person, but of the characters, no one, except for Mrs. Shin, knows that Shui Ta and Shen Te are the same person. They all ask Shui Ta, “where is she? Where is Shen Te?” (101). Not even the gods appear to know these characters are the same person. We see their ignorance about this fact when one of the gods asks, “What have you done with our good woman of Setzuan” (101).

Because they don’t know the entire truth the people of Setzuan have accused Shui Ta of “doing away with [his] cousin Shen Te to take possession of her business” (97). When everyone is in the courthouse, we see the dramatic irony clearer than ever, speciallywhen Shui Tas asks everyone to leave so that he can make a confession to the gods. Everyone believes that “he’s guilty?” and that “he’s confessing!” (101), but because we know the whole truth, we know that he will confess not that he’s guilty of Shen Te’s murderer, but that he is Shen Te herself.

Works Cited

1. "Irony". Examples-Help! 2006. Web. April 19, 2010. <http://www.examples-help.org.uk/irony.htm>.
2. Brecht, Bertolt. The Good Woman Of Setzuan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948.

The Prostitute is The Good Woman

As Wong is looking for someone that will take the gods in, we see that no one seems to want to take them. Finally, Shen Te, a prostitute, accepts to take them in. The author writes:

WONG: Shen Te, it’s Wong. They’re here, and nobody wants them. Will you take them?

SHEN TE: Oh no, Wong, I’m expecting a gentleman…Oh very well! I’ll hide till my gentleman has come and gone. Then I’ll take them. (8)

The fact that the good woman that takes the Gods in is a prostitute is ironic; I find this to be satire. Even more ironic is that the gods think she’s a great woman, despite her profession and even reward her with money.

Later, she proves even more her benevolence. When Mrs. Shin asks for help to feed her children, Shen Te gives rice. When the family that took her in when she first arrived from the country and put her out when her out “her purse was empty” (8) comes asking for asylum, she says to them, “Come in, and welcome, though I’ve only one little room for you it’s behind the shop” (13). Even though they threw her out, she took them in welcoming, proving how good of a person she is. Once again she proves herself to be a fine woman when a man asks for a cigarette, and she gives it to him for free because he says it will make him new man.

Usually, we tend to think of prostitutes as bad women or at least as woman who are not the best kind of person. Yet, here we are presented with the idea that a prostitute can be the best human being. Wong says to the gods that she is “the finest human being in Setzuan!” (9).

This goes against what we would normally think. The satire here challenges and attacks very passively the idea that a prostitute can’t be a good woman. It tries to change that idea by showing that a prostitute can be a good human being.

Ahmad's Achilles Heel

Omnipotent. This is how Naguib Mahfouz presents al-Sayyid Ahmad in the beginning of his novel Palace Walk. Ahmad is the father of five, Yasin, Khadija, Aisha, Fhamy, and Kamal, and the husband of Amina. In his household, like in most Islamic households, he was king and whatever he said went. What was different in his house was that he didn’t follow any rules, not even the rules in the Koran. He would stay out partying and drinking until really late, and possibly having extramarital relationships with other women, which are both unacceptable in the Muslim world. His family wasn’t really comfortable with his behavior but they couldn’t say anything because if they did, Ahmad could have gone berserk, and nobody wanted that, so they just put up with it. At one point his oldest, Yasin, begins to follow in Ahmad’s footsteps. He becomes a man crazy about women and Ahmad doesn’t think much of it. And as the rest of his children grew, Ahmad began to lose his omnipotence.
When a child becomes a teenager, takes school more seriously, and makes more friends, he develops his own ideas and becomes interdependent. He still needs his parents for economic and emotional support, but he no longer needs them for decision-making, at least that’s what he thinks. We’ve all gone through it. Ahmad had five, and they would all go through it. When asked what the worst part of being a parent is, McKennasmom03 answered, “…When [your kids] are hurt or sick and there isn't a thing you can do. Watching them go off to Kindergarten... Watching them take the keys to the car and drive off. Watching them leave home when they [have] ‘grown’. (McKennasmom03)” Ahmad would have to see his five children leave one day, and he did. Once his two daughters were married, Ahmad was left with only boys and his little girls didn’t need him any longer. But before they left him, Ahmad showed some weakness. When the possibility of his youngest daughter, Aisha, getting married before her older sister, Khadija, came up, Ahmad became concerned with the possibility of Khadija getting depressed because her younger sister married before her. Mahfouz says,

When he could at last sit down again, he was breathing heavily. He was distressed and dejected. He had a sensitive heart, more sensitive than most people would have suspected. In fact, it was too sensitive. How could anyone believe that who had only seen him grinning, bellowing, or laughing sarcastically?... Sorrow was going to scorch his flesh and blood in a way that could spoil his whole life, making it seem ugly to him... Each of [his daughters] was a vital part of him (Mahfouz, 229).

Ahmad's kindness is exposed and a small window into his sensitivity is opened.
Daniela mentions this in her blog, Hiding Behind the Wall. The way to get to his weak side is through his children, and this isn't the only example of this in the novel.
The next time that we see Ahmad's sensitivity, it is in a much more extreme manner. It isn't about hurting one of his children, it is about one of his hurting, or no longer hurting, children.“The young man said with obvious sorrow, 'We are sad to inform you of the death of our brother freedom fighter Fahmy Ahmad'… (495)” Ahmad goes crazy. If seeing your children leave once they're grown up hurts, imagine how much knowing that you will never get to see your child again hurts. But he doesn't only show his sensitivity by going crazy and crying because his son died, but he also worries about Amina's feelings. As Tianna puts it in her blog Death in the End, “He does not know how to break the news to his wife.” How would she react to finding out that her son had died. He had never really seemed to care about what Amina felt or thought, but this time it was different, very different. Her feelings were one of his main preoccupations. He couldn't believe that his son had died. He always thought that Fahmy was a nice kid that never went to any rallies or things of that matter. In actuality, Fahmy was constantly attending rallies. But this was unknown to Ahmad, and even if he did know, the loss of his son would still hurt.
By the end of the novel, Mahfouz has taken us through Ahmad's transformation from an “omnipotent” tyrant, to a sensitive person similar to everyone else. By the end of the novel we discover that Ahmad's Achilles heel is his children.






Works Cited

Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor, 1990. Print.

McKennasmom03. "What Do You Think the Worst Part of Being a Parent Is? - CafeMom." CafeMom - Moms Connecting About Pregnancy, Babies, Home, Health, and More. 24 Mar. 2009. Web. 06 Apr. 2010. .

Bruno, Tianna M. "Death in the End." Web log post. Digging Even Deeper. 26 May 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. .

Barajas, Guadalupe D. “Hiding Behind The Wall.” Web log post. Digging Even Deeper. 23 Feb. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2010. .

Not A God, But A Human

Throughout the first part of Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz portrays Ahmad as a powerful, and feared man that thinks highly of himself and whose family views him as a god. Ahmad controls every move his family makes. But through his death and rebellion, Fahmy helps his father to realize that he is nothing but a human. Towards the end of the book, Ahmad loses control of his son Fahmy, who dares to disobey him. Fahmy’s behavior strip Ahmad of his power, driving him closer to admitting his humanity. Later faced with Fahmy’s death, Ahmad feels extreme sadness, which leads him to realize and accept that he is not to a god, allowing himself to break down. With this break down, Ahmad appears to be a new man that accepts his powerlessness and that gives into his human emotions.

Throughout the first part of the book, Ahmad has power, and control over everything that happens to his family because his ego has been aggrandized by the way everyone in the family fears, loves, and respects him as if he were a god. As TheJavi says in his blog, Ahmad Never Changes, that “ [Ahmad] thinks really highly of himself” so he never questions his behavior. He always wants things to be his way. He always has the power over everything and always uses that power to manipulate things, so that he can be at the center of them. For example when the officer wanted to marry Aisha, he said that “no daughter of mine would marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me…me…me…me” (157). Here one can see how egotistical Ahmad is. Another time when we see that Ahmad thinks so highly of himself is when he tells Fahmy, “The only word that counts here is mine. Mine, mine, mine…” (425). Once again, Ahmad shows that he wants things to be centered around him as if he were god. Through these examples, one can see his power to control the family.

But it is the way the family behaves with Ahmad and the way they feel about him that allow Ahmad to have the power to control everything. The family adores Ahmad in a very extreme way. I feel like everyone in the family blindly follows his lead, even when he is wrong. One really gets a sense of this affection, loyalty and fear for Ahmad when the author describes the feelings Aisha had when her father decided that she wouldn’t get married before Khadija, thus denying Aisha from the opportunity of marrying the officer she had fallen for. The author writes:

Although she was hurt, angry, and resentful, these emotions could not touch her father. They fell back impotently like a wild animal stopped by its trainer, whom it loves and fears. Aisha was not able to attack her father, not even in the depths of her heart. She continued in her love and devotion for him. She felt sincerely dutiful to him, as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty. (160-161)

Here we see that the love and fear she felt towards her father was much too strong to allow Aisha to let any of the negative emotions be against her father. The fear and the love she had wouldn’t even let her think of feeling the hurt, anger, and resentment against her father even in the secrecy of her heart. Not even the other strong emotions she felt could erase the deep love and great fear her father incited in her.

No one dares to speak against Ahmad because the fear incited by his power is intimidating. Even more than the intimidation, the affection they feel for Ahmad makes the family look at him as something close to a god. Here one can instantly see a cycle. The family’s veneration causes Ahmad to be powerful and Ahmad’s power causes the family to venerate him. Seeing not only Aisha, but everyone else comply to his wishes, simply makes Ahmad feel more powerful, even as powerful as a god. Aisha obeys him because she feels “dutiful to him, as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty” (161). This last sentence proves that Aisha, and even the rest of the family see Ahmad as a god. They obey him because to them he is like a god; in their eyes, he has power to control everything.

Since Ahmad’s is empowered by his family’s submissiveness, when one of them, Fahmy, goes against his will, Ahmad starts doubting his power and seeing that he’s weak. Fahmy always venerated his father like the rest of the family; thus, he never dared to disobey his commands. But things change with the war because Fahmy has really strong feelings about the war, even stronger feelings than the fear for his father. When Fahmy has to confess to his father that he has been distributing handbills to promote Egypt’s independence, Ahmad is alarmed and angry, and tells Fahmy to stop. Fahmy, ultimately, refuses to swear on the Qur'an that he will stop, and instead, he continues his behavior, going against his father’s will. He does this even though in the Qur'an it says, "Three persons shall not enter the Garden: the one who is disobedient to his parents,” meaning that his offense is a great one. But despite the divine law, Fahmy disobeys his father. His son’s rebellion causes Ahmad to be stripped of his power. Ahmad says, “He said no to me for the first time in his life…should I reveal my lack of power to [Amina]? Should I seek help from her weakness after my power has failed” (449). By opposing him, Fahmy takes away the power that Ahmad was so sure he possessed, and makes him feel weak, showing that Ahmad’s power was in the hands of those that feared it. Here we see clearly that the submissiveness of the family built Ahmad’s power; thus, without everyone’s submissiveness, he lost the power to control. Here Fahmy has taken Ahmad closer to seeing his humanity.

But it isn’t until Ahmad’s death that Ahmad realizes and accepts that he is not god, and allows himself be human and break down. When Ahmad finds out his son had died, one can see how human, how sensitive Ahmad truly is because he finally lets us see it. He thinks when he gets the bad news, “How can I have a home without him? How can I be a father if he’s gone?” (495). Here Ahmad is saying that he can’t have life without his son; he can’t be a father without him. Before getting to this part, one would have never thought that Ahmad would think this way because one always perceived Ahmad as egotistical man and as one who never needed anyone. But with Fahmy’s death, he’s humbled. As Mauricio discusses in his blog, Sensitive Soul-dier, Fahmy makes Ahmad change his ways. Ahmad finally touches the ground and sees that he can feel pain too. Mahfouz says, “ a time would come when [Ahmad] would be all alone and could devote himself to his sorrow with all his soul…giving free rein to tears so he could totally exhaust them” (497). Ahmad sees that he can suffer too because he’s just human.

A cycle can always be broken; it just takes a small change in one of the elements involved. Fahmy broke the cycle going on with the family and Ahmad. He changed his behavior when he went against his father’s will, stopping the source of his father’s power. By dying, Fahmy places his father in a situation that Ahmad has never been in, making him feel new strong emotions such as sorrow. By making Ahmad feel powerless after disobeying him and sad and hopeless after dying, Fahmy lets Ahmad see that he can be human, and that he doesn’t always have to act like he can control everything because he can’t. Death comes when it wants to come, and Ahmad has no control over that.

Works Cited

1. Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
2. Mvazquez. "Sensitive Soul-dier." Weblog post. Digging Even Deeper. Web. 06 April 2010. <http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/04/sensitive-soul-dier.html>
3. TheJavi. “Ahmad Never Changes.” Web log post. Digging Even Deeper. Web. 24 March 2010. < http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/ahmad-never-changes.html.>
4. The Holy Quran. Maulana Muhammad Ali, 2002. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. <http://aaiil.org/text/hq/trans/ma_list.shtml>

Ahmad: Strong to Weak

In Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, one of the main characters is Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. He is the father of good children, a husband to a very obedient wife, and the proprietor of a successful store. When the novel opens up, we, the readers, are given the impression that Ahmad is a cold-hearted womanizer who has a missing toe due to a corn and mistreats his family. The level of disrespect that he gives his family, his wife especially, is immense. He disregards the effects that his actions will have on his family, which are the influences that he is having on his son Yasin and the fear that he is instilling in his other children. But Ahmad becomes a different person when he is with his friends. He becomes a light- hearted, drinker who is considered the life of the part. But even with them, he is powerful and influential. He has the power to attract the finest singers and become lovers with them. He exemplifies the “macho man” appearance. But because of certain happenings throughout the novel, we see the great Ahmad turn into a weak, helpless ordinary person. By the end of the novel, he realizes that he has lost his influential status. He is no longer in control of everything around him, which broke him down.
But it was not always like this. In the first part of the novel, Ahmad knows that he controls all that happens in his house. On page 4, Ahmad tells Amina, “I'm a man. I'm the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept any criticism of my behavior...” Ruqaiyyah W. Maqsood, a Muslim imam, would disagree with this statement made by Ahmad. He said that, “Her [a Muslim woman's] husband is not her master; a Muslim woman has only one Master, and that is God. If her husband does not represent God's will in the home, the marriage contract is broken.

What should one make of the verse in the Koran that allows a man to punish his wife physically? There are important provisos: he may do so only if her ill-will is wrecking the marriage - but then only after he has exhausted all attempts at verbal communication and tried sleeping in a separate bed.” Ahmad, obviously, goes against Maqsood because he hit her and is the most loyal, and docile woman in the novel. But Ahmad wants to scare her so he knows that she won't defy him because of fear. No one in his house would dare challenge his authority at this point. Their fear of him overpowers their love for him. Mahfouz explains Kamal's love for Ahmad as “a hidden jewel, locked up inside him by fear and terror”(50). The fear goes a lot further than Kamal. His own wife is afraid to talk to him about things or express herself because she might be beaten. Amina refrains from telling Ahmad about the things that Kamal has done at school and at home because she fears what he will do to him and sympathizes with Kamal. Ahmad knows what his family feels toward him and he feels satisfied with that. He is content as long as he gets respect and his family does not embarrass him. He does not seem to be effected by the fact that, besides respect, he does not get very many signs of love from his own family.
At his store, he has many loyal customers and employees that keep his business running successfully, which keeps his status up.
All is going according to Ahmad's plans and likings. He is blessed with a successful family and friends that all respect him and his authority. But it was not his family or friends that broke his reign of power. The Australian soldiers were the first to challenge him. A challenge from any of the soldiers was the most threatening and detrimental to Ahmad because he could not do anything to challenge them because he feared them. Ahmad say that “Their tyranny separated him from the Ezbekiya Garden entertainment district, which he abandoned in defeat,...”(11). It was the same situation when he was led by the English soldier in the middle of the night to fill that trench. It appeared that they were at a higher level that he. They were referred to in the novel as a “god” when Yasin encounters them. He cannot even decipher their language to communicate with them. Ahmad is very belittled in this scene. A man that is so well respected and honored in his community is forced to dig dirt to fill a trench that he didn't even burrow at gun point.
Ahmad senses the change in his authority. But he can't sit back and accept the truth of what is happening. He has to show and prove to himself that he still has power. This is also why he chooses to sleep with these unmarried women and party all night also. He has to prove to himself that he still has the same stuff in him that he did when he was a younger man when his pedestal held him so high above others. Maybe, this has something to do with why he gets so upset when he sees Yasin's actions resemble his. He wants to stop Yasin's rant before his son turns out to be the way Ahmad is by the end of the novel.
It is apparent that Ahmad struggles with not having power when he requests that Aisha and Khadija move back in with them until they have their babies. Ahmad, being the man that has controlled and been responsible for keeping his daughters safe, feels uncomfortable with the idea of not being able to protect them. He knows that these men cannot do as adequate job as he can and has done for majority of their lives. Ahmad's impatience when he was waiting to receive information about Aisha while she was in labor is great evidence of this. He thinks because he is her father he should be the first to find out anything that is going on in that room. He could not comprehend how he was not their first to receive the information about his daughter, especially if she is in danger of dying. Dying. Death is the major thing in the novel that throws Ahmad way off track. Death is the one thing that Ahmad knows that he has no power over. He can't bring anyone back once they have died. This is the point where he can't deny his downfall. As Daniela says in her blog He's Human After All, “to a certain extent Ahmad is portrayed as a god.” But when death arises, we, the readers, are exposed to an Ahmad that we had not seen throughout the entire novel. We see a weak, powerless human being. When he is first hit with the news, he can't even fathom the idea of Fahmy being dead. This is the only time in the novel where we see Ahmad hopeless. He does not have a solution to this. He can't get mad because that won't do anything. He sees that there is nothing in his power that will bring his son back. He knows that his power that he has adored has faded to nothing. This is the situation that finalizes it for Ahmad. He knows that he is not really that powerful. As Mvazquez discusses in his blog Sensitive Soul-dier, Fahmy is the one who brings about the true change in Ahmad. No one could say anything to Ahmad to change him. Things had to happen to him. First, soldiers belittle him, then he can't help his own daughter, and finally there is nothing that he can do for his son. There is nothing he can say to console his wife after the lost of her favorite son.
For majority of the novel, Ahmad would never have thought of being this powerless. If anything happened that upset him, Ahmad would probably drink that problem away. But he has been brought to the point where he sees that there is nothing that he can do except grieve. He wanted to always have control of everything so that nothing unexpected happens that he might not be ready for, for example Amina breaking her arm and Fahmy getting shot. But with Amina, he could felt he could solve the problem by instilling more fear in her. But with Fahmy, it is not possible to solve this problem. He can't instill fear in him and obviously fear would no have stopped Fahmy from going because it didn't before. The novel begins with a display of Ahmad's power and ends with that power being yanked away from him.



Work Cited

Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.

Maqsood, Ruqaiyyah W. "Islam, Culture and Women - Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood." Islam For Today. Web. 06 Apr. 2010. .

Mvazquez. "Sensitive Soul-dier." Web log post. Digging Even Deeper. Web. 05 Apr. 2010. .

Daniela. "He's Human After All." Web log post. Digging Even Deeper. Web. 05 Apr. 2010. .

Transformed Man

Throughout Naquib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk, we are introduced to a number of different characters that represent a different aspect of life in Egypt. But, amongst the many different characters Mahfouz introduced, one stood out – Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. In part II of Abu Talut’s article, “The Status of Women and Men in Islam,” the responsibility of a man is great when it comes to maintenance and protection of his family (Talut, II). Al-Sayyid Ahmad represents a Muslim man who, at times, is overprotective towards the women in his family, controlling of everyone and everything around him, and experienced in forbidden pleasures like extramarital affairs. But, throughout the novel we learn that he worries mainly about his social appearance rather than what is best for his family. Through this all, Mahfouz shows us a transformation in Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s behavior as the novel progresses and by the end of the book, we see a side of Ahmad that we had yet to see throughout the novel.
At the beginning of the novel, we see Al-Sayyid’s wife, Amina waiting on her husband to arrive after a night out with friends. She weighs on him hand and foot, removing his cloak, loosening his sash, removing his shoes and socks, pouring water for him to wash his face, and just sits around waiting for him to tell her what to do or giving her permission to speak. Mahfouz described Ahmad’s attitude towards this when he wrote, “Her husband spared no effort to safeguard his dignity and authority” (10). This made it apparent that he made it obvious that he was the one who held the authority in the marriage – something that is apparent in Muslim marriages. But, we also see that Ahmad cares more about his appearance outside of the home and puts in as much effort as possible into his outside relationships rather than those that should be most important, being his family’s. According to Talut’s article, this is not the responsibility of a man. Ahmad’s desire to seem perfect and powerful in public isn’t his responsibility, his responsibility is to protect his family and do what is best for them, not him (Talut, II). This strengthens the idea that Ahmad is selfish and careless with the relationship between him and his family.
As the novel progresses, we see Ahmad dismiss the idea of Amina marrying the man she loves clearly because he is afraid of what people may say about the engagement since no man had ever seen his daughters. He was worried about what people would say about this rather than his daughter’s happiness. As Daniela said in her blog, “Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear” 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. In Talut’s article, he writes that a man’s responsibility is also to protect and defend a woman and to make his family feel safe and secure (Talut, II). It may seem that Ahmad is protecting his daughter but in reality, he’s simply protecting his image and by putting fear into his family, he is doing something that he shouldn’t do – especially if he expects to create a safe environment for his family.
Later in the book, at the beginning of Chapter 65, we see the beginning of Ahmad’s transformation. Mahfouz shows us how Ahmad reacts when he sees two British soldiers approaching him and describes his 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. Mahfouz also shows us how Ahmad begins to care for his family as he thinks about never seeing them again when he writes, “When he [Ahmad] remembered his family, he felt such painful homesickness that tears almost came to his eyes” (445). By doing this, Mahfouz reveals part of Ahmad’s transformation in which he is no longer the “God” he was once portrayed as. He shows Ahmad finally worrying about the future of his family and how their lives will be after he is gone seeing as how he is the one that is responsible for their well being. But, he is now also shown just like any other citizen who has to give in to someone else’s commands and has to endure the possibility of possibly never seeing his loved ones again.
By the end of the book, we are introduced to a completely different Ahmad than we first were at the beginning. The death of his son, Fahmy 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 LaurenF 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 Ahmad showed such vulnerability. It was the first time that he showed his pain and emotions to a complete stranger. Even more shocking 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, Ahmad actually worried about someone other than himself and accepting the responsibility he has as a father and husband.
Naguib Mahfouz’s novel showed the transformation that one person can undergo as a result of specific events. 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. Ahmad didn’t seem as superior to the others as he once did and as the novel came to an end, we saw how Ahmad went from caring solely of himself and his image in the eyes of others to worrying about the feelings of others, being able to express his vulnerability to strangers, and finally acknowledging the responsibility he had as a father and husband.

 
Works Cited
Daniela. "Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear." Web log post. Diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com. The Chinquapin School, 17 Feb. 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. < http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/worshipper-blinded-by-love-and-fear_17.html >.
LaurenF. "Ahmad's Priorities." Web log post. Diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com. The Chinquapin School, 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. < http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/passage- >.
Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991
Talut, Abu. "The Status of Women and Men in Islam II." 28 April 1998. 02 April 2010 < http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/AbuTalut/AbuTalut5.htm >.

Successful Marriage

In Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk, marriage is a topic that is hard to understand, but is all the more intriguing because of it. It's been difficult for the most part, figuring out what makes a successful marriage. Why is it that Amina and Ahmad have been married for 25 years, when Ahmad has proven to not be a husband that many women crave? Ahmad sneaks out on his wife all the time with various women like Zubayda and his next-door neighbor Bahija Ridwan, yet Amina stays right there through it all. In this book, marriage is such a complex part of life that research was necessary to understand what muslims believe to be important in a marriage. According to the Qur'an, Muslims are to believe that “...among [Allah's] signs is this that He created for you spouses of your own kind, that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy for one another...” (Qur'an 30:21). As devout Muslims, which is what they characters of the book (especially Ahmad) are, they should base all of their marriages off of this because this is their law for living a truly Muslim lifestyle. This is the basis of their faith and what they should believe as Muslims. Although there are other marriages in the book that are unsuccessful, Ahmad learns that what's important to keep a marriage alive is this verse in the Qur'an. During his first marriage to Haniya, Yasin's mother, he didn't practice that mercy that is mentioned in the Qur'an but he learns to use it during his marriage to Amina, which turns out to be the most successful marriage in Palace Walk.
The short-lived marriage of Yasin and Zaynab is very similar to the ones between Ahmad and Haniya, Yasin's mother. When Ahmad was married to Haniya he admitted to actually enjoying living with her, which is the only true emotion for women Ahmad is rumored to have outside of lust (106). Like Marixa said in her blog, Ahmad and Women, in the book, we haven't really seen much emotion out of Ahmad for women besides lust. Haniya seems to have been the only woman who brought a little of that out of him, that is until he met Amina. But the “love” is short-lived when Haniya shows that she's a woman who won't take just anything from her husband. Ahmad began to beat her when she would leave the house or do anything that he didn't want her to do. Instead of loving her and treating her like a human being instead of a dog that you train, their marriage ends up failing. This marriage, like many other marriages in the book including Ahmad's current marriage to Amina, could be or could've been a lot better if the husband would put his wife first instead of him trying to seem like a masculine guy who can control his wife. It also could've been successful if Ahmad had learned to practice the mercy that the Qur'an speaks on. Had Ahmad shown mercy to his wife and put her needs before his own needs to be fulfilled as a “man”, many things in his life would have been different. Yasin wouldn't have a strained relationship with his own mother, and probably wouldn't have the outlook on women that he has now.
After his marriage to Haniya, Ahmad goes on to marry Amina. Amina is a totally different wife to Ahmad than Haniya is and she proves to be more along the lines of a wife that he wants. She's quiet, meek, obedient, and most importantly, fearful of him. She's scared to do anything that Ahmad might not approve of, and when she does, her worst fear comes true. When she leaves the house and goes outside to visit al-Husayn, Ahmad finds out and kicks her out. Right then, it seems that Ahmad has gone back to the old ways that got him in trouble with his first marriage. He seems to solve his problems with women by putting them out. But, he knew that just putting her out his house would cease to function. Even though it took him until the end of the book to truly realize, he's not all powerful. Like Daniela said in her blog, He's Human After All, he at some point began to realize that he needs help with things and he can't do everything on your own. When he takes her back, he practices what the Qur'an says is important in a successful marriage, and that's mercy. The act of mercy includes showing compassion to someone and forgiving them for something they've done. When Ahmad finally learns the importance of mercy and showing it in his marriage, he admits to not being perfect and needing help in their home.
At first, Ahmad doesn't seem to be capable of loving anyone besides himself. Once he learned to show love to someone besides himself, he begins to have a successful marriage. That love, like the Qur'an stated, is necessary to have a successful marriage but not just in the book but in real life. In Ahmad's first marriage to Haniya, he doesn't truly love her and doesn't practice mercy on her. Love and mercy should go hand in hand with one another. If you truly love someone, then you show them mercy because you can look past the bad things they've done and forgive them. But, if you want to leave them just because they did something you don't agree with, then that's not love. That's why it's obvious that Ahmad loves Amina. He gets angry with her, he cheats on her and sometimes treats her badly, and I'm not saying that all those things are acceptable for a husband to do to his wife. But, at the end of the day, he always thinks of his wife. When he's taken away by the British soldiers, his mind goes to his family, and it's not just the kids but her as well. Even though Ahmad is still a selfish man, he learns to make room for someone else in his life, and apparently Amina was good enough to fit the bill of that person.




Works Cited
1.The Holy Quran. Maulana Muhammad Ali, 2002. Web. 5 Apr. 2010. .

2.Barajas, Daniela. "He's Human After All." Web log post. He's Human After All. 24 Mar. 2010. Web. 5 Apr. 2010. .

3.Rodriguez, Marixa. "Ahmad and Women." Web Log post. Digging Even Deeper: Ahmad and Women. 20 Mar. 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2010. .

4.Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy). New York: Anchor, 1990. Print.

Sensitive Soul-dier

The ending of Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, Palace Walk, shows one of the main characters opening himself up to the reader. Like an oyster, he opened his strong shell to expose his soft inside. Throughout the entire novel, al-Sayyid Ahmad plays the tough dictatorial father who allows no questioning of his authority, and does whatever he pleases whenever he pleases. But in a dramatic change of events, Ahmad reveals that he isn’t only the strict tyrant that he is perceived to be, he is a delicate, innocent person who, like most other on this world, is torn apart after finding out terrible news about one of his children.

“The young man said with obvious sorrow, 'We are sad to inform you of the death of our brother freedom fighter Fahmy Ahmad… (495)'” Ahmad learns that his son Fahmy just died during a peace rally. He asks the soldiers many questions and among them is a comment which shows Ahmad's ignorance. Ahmad thinks that this was Fahmy's first rally against the war, well it wasn't. Fahmy had gone behind his father's back and attended other rallies before. He must have thought of the saying, “What daddy don't know, wont hurt him.” Well that didn't, but Fahmy's death did. And with Fahmy also died the tyrannical Ahmad that Mahfouz portrayed throughout the novel. Like Daniela mentioned in her blog, Hiding Behind the Wall, “...[H]e was too sensitive, he acted so rough with them to protect himself from being hurt by them.” She is talking about how he acts with his daughters, and this also applies to his sons. But after Fahmy died, he can't be tough on him anymore, and there is no more act.
Like previously mentioned, Ahmad wasn't the nicest guy in the world. He wasn't faithful either to his wife or his religion, he was mean spirited, and he obviously wasn't a good role model, but an even like the death of your child, that can really turn a person around. I'll sidetrack to my personal life briefly. Whenever my mother hears a story about how someone's son died, she says, “Ay no! Yo no podria vivir sabiendo que se me murio un hijo.” With that, she summarizes some of the feelings that Ahmad is having. He could not live knowing that one of his children died. No one can truly feel what Ahmad feels unless they are a parent themselves.
And Ahmad learned a lesson that any other parent in this situation would learn. As I believe Johnathan tries to get at in his blog Father's and Children's Relationships, he learns what the role of being a father is. The death of Fahmy is going to bring him closer to his remaining children.
Fahmy is now dead, but he left an inheritance of lessons for his family, and the first one to get his share, Ahmad, learned quickly, and changed his ways.



Works Cited

Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy). New York: Anchor, 1990.

He’s Human After All

Throughout the first part of the book, we see how the family views Ahmad as a God, and how the author to a certain extent portrays Ahmad as a God. The author shows us how Ahmad is loved and respected by so many people. Everyone in the family fears Ahmad, and he feels that’s how it should be because as Javi mentioned, “he thinks really highly of himself”; thus, he thinks his family should fear and respect him. In a sense he feels that if they don’t fear him, then they won’t respect him. As Lauren says, “His entire life is based off the fact that the things she does for him are done out of her fear for him.” Ahmad behaved so strict with the family because he fears that if he’s nice with them, then they will no longer fear him, and he will lose control. He wants to continue to be almost worshiped by the family.

But in the last section of the book, we finally see an Ahmad that’s human, and isn’t so perfect and powerful after all. He’s in denial for a long time, but he comes to realize that he is not all-powerful. When he’s forced to help fill the hole with dirt by the English soldiers, Ahmad says talking to himself first and then to God, “Your body’s powerful and strong and can take it, despite being impaired by the evening’s inebriation…O God, preserve us…I’m not meant for this…not meant for this. God vanquish those who doubt Your power…We are weak…I’m not meant for this” (448). Here we see Ahmad first trying to convince himself that he was strong; he wants to make himself believe that he can take all the work because he it a tough man. But he admits after being put through so much work that he is not God; he comes to see that he can’t take it because he is weak, because he too is human.

Here for the first time we see Ahmad come to this realization. He was always so cocky before. He always wanted things to be his way because he had the control. He always had the power over everything. When the officer wanted to marry Aisha, he said that “no daughter of mine would marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me…me…me…me” (157). He feels so important and powerful. He wants everything to have him at the center, and he knows that at least in this case he has the power to make that decision. Another time when we see that Ahmad feels so highly of himself is when he tells Fahmy, “The only word that counts here is mine. Mine, mine, mine…” (425). But when he is filling the whole, we see a completely different side because for the first time he doesn’t have power over the situation; for the first time, he can’t have the final say. We see that he finally realizes that only God has the power over everything, that he is only human just like everyone else.

It is in this later part in the book that we see him accept it himself, and for the first time, we see him suffering and about to break down. When he finds out that his son died, Ahmad takes out his human side completely. We see how human, how sensitive he truly is. He thinks when he gets the bad news, “How can I have a home without him? How can I be a father if he’s gone?” (495). I mean here we see that basically Ahmad is saying that he can’t have life without his son; he can’t be a father without him. Before getting to this part, we would have never thought that Ahmad would think this way because we always get a different attitude from Ahmad. Here he’s humbled by the situation and he finally touched the ground and sees that he can feel pain too because he isn’t God, as he and other people in the family saw him as.

Foreshadowing

Picture by
D'Arcy Vallance
"He had entered the nest of matrimony with no leftover desires and heart full of good intentions..." (308). Yasin imagined marriage this way. Little did he know what lay ahead of him.

Mahfouz says:

[Yasin] saw the similarity between his father’s character and that of his own mother. Both of them were sensual and pleasure-seeking. They ignored convictions…The relationship between them had ended quickly, because a man like him could not stand a woman like her, and vice versa. In fact, married life would have been impossible for his father, if he had not happened to upon his current wife. (298)

As I read this passage, I began to think more about Yasin than about his parents. Yasin himself is a lot like his father. As Dominique Hackett mentioned on one of his blogs, people inherit certain things from their parents genetically that affect the way they act. Here I’m not talking about eye color or height; I’m talking about Yasin inheriting his father’s lustful ways, and maybe even his mothers’ ways.

I kept this passage in mind as I read, and when I started seeing the way Zaynab behaves, I wondered if Yasin could have long relationship with her. Yasin and Zaynab reminded me about Ahmad and his first wife. All four of them are pleasure-seekers in different ways, but in the end they want to enjoy the pleasures of life, Yasin with women, and Zaynab with freedom, as she lived with her father. There is definitely a similarity between Yasin’s and Zaynab’s character. “Both of them [are]...pleasure-[seekers]” (298).

If his father and hi mother couldn’t stand each other because they were similar, why should Yasin and Zaynab be able to stand each other? Later we learn that Yasin cheats on Zaynab, and she decides to leave him. She is not Amina; she will not stand the humiliation. She managed to be patient for a little bit, but “she could no bear to be patient and forgiving any longer” (386).

Yasin thinks that if a woman like Amina hadn’t appeared on his father’s path, than “married life would have been impossible for his father” (298). As I said before Yasin is so much like his father, so how could we expect Yasin to last with Zaynab if she is basically the opposite of Amina? Yasin needs a woman like Amina, someone that will be submissive and obedient.

I thought about all this points, as I learned more about how different, or liberal, Zaynab is, and came to see that Yasin and her would probably not last. I feel like the author foreshadowed the separation of Yasin and Zaynab using the passage at the beginning of this blog. It doesn’t take much effort to see how masterfully he makes it all fit in like a puzzle.

NOTE: When I found that Zaynab had left her home, I wondered how did she have the courage to do that and if she even could do that. I will not lie; I thought that in the Muslim culture you got married and never had the chance to get divorced. You either stay married or died. That’s what I assumed, but I did a little research and found that it was somewhat this way in ancient Egypt. But in modern Egypt law have been changed to make it more possible for women to get divorced if they want to.

Bibliography
1. Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
2. “Talking health to men.” 2000.Women’s Rights. March 3, 2010.
<http://library.thinkquest.org/C001142/countries/egypt.php>

Hiding Behind The Wall

Throughout the book, Mahfouz portrays Ahmad as a tyrant that unleashes his anger with his family every chance he gets and a sinner who cheats on his wife, drinks, and lives in hypocrisy. He loves women, but not necessarily the women of his house; he loves people, but we don’t get a sense of his love for his family. Ahmad seems to be an evil father who doesn’t love his children. But when Ms. Shawkat offers Ahmad a marriage proposal between her son and Aisha, we come to see the pain he feel for not being able to marry Khadija, the oldest daughter before marrying Aisha, the youngest. We finally can clearly see that he loves his daughters so much that it hurts him to no be able to make them both happy. We get a sense of his love when the author says:

He was distressed and dejected. He had a sensitive heart, more sensitive than most people have suspected. In fact, it was too sensitive. How could anyone believe that who had only seen him grinning, bellowing, or laughing sarcastically? ...Sorrow was going to scorch his flesh and blood in a way that could spoil his whole life, making it seem ugly to him. How happy it would make him to spare no expense to delight both his daughters…Each of them was vital to him. (229)
Through this quote for the first time in the entire book, the author shows clearly that despite being extremely strict with them, Ahmad does love his daughters. Here we see Ahmad in a way that we hadn’t seen him before; we see him as a loving father, as a human being. The exposure of this side of him, made me change my point of view regarding Ahmad.

This quotes discloses a different Ahmad. From all the other accounts in the book I could never imagine that he “had a sensitive heart…In fact, it was too sensitive” (229). As I read this I started to think about the way he was toward his family in a different way. Maybe because he was too sensitive, he acted so rough with them to protect himself from being hurt by them. The anger, strictness, and sternness with the family is simply a shield to prevent the family from seeing his sensitivity. I can see now and in a way excuse Ahmad for some of his behavior. After all, I feel that many people aren’t so different from him. Many of us at some point in our lives have acted rough or even evil with people to protect ourselves; we’ve built walls to stop others from seen who we really are. Men specially are often taught to behave this way. An article form the Boston Globe says that “men are often raised to hide emotions, except for anger,” which could be another explanation of Ahmad’s behavior. So why should we judge Ahmad as rough as we have in almost every one of our class discussions?

During one of our class discussions, we questioned if Ahmad loved his children. Many of us quickly responded that he didn’t. We used the way he treats Kamal as an example of why we thought he didn’t love his children. But don’t parent sometimes scream at their children when they are upset. Sometimes they say things they don’t mean. I’m not saying this is the exact case of Ahmad but that just because a parent acts rough with his children doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love them. As Aby mentioned when we had this discussion, parents impose discipline on their children because the love them and not because they want to hurt them. I didn’t see Ahmad behavior this way until the author tells us that “sorrow was going to scorch his flesh and blood in a way that could spoil his whole life, making it seem ugly to him. How happy it would make him to spare no expense to delight both his daughters…Each of them was vital to him” (229). Here we see that seeing his children hurting hurt him because he loves them. He didn’t allow Aisha to marry the officer because she loved her older daughter so much and didn’t want to disappoint her and not because he didn’t love Aisha. When Ms. Shawkat proposes the marriage, he accepts because he can’t say no to her and because he doesn’t want to stand on the way of her Aisha’s destiny. He’s happy to marry her because he knows she will be happy, but it pains him to know her other daughter will suffer. Only a father who truly loves his daughters will be torn the way Ahmad appears to be when he can’t make both of his daughters happy.

I think that it’s important to examine this quote and re-analyze our opinion about Ahmad and everything he does to get the true meaning of him as character. So after doing some further examination of the quotes, what do you think about Ahmad? Have your opinions change about Ahmad or do they remain the same?

Sources

Osborne, Helen. “Talking health to men.” 2009. The Boston Globe. February 23, 2010.<http://www.boston.com/jobs/healthcare/oncall/articles/2009/04/08/in_other_words/?page=2>

Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear

The family adores Ahmad in a very extreme way. I feel like everyone in the family blindly follows his lead, even when he is wrong. No one dares to speak against him because the fear incited by his power is intimidating. Even more than the intimidation, the affection they feel for Ahmad makes the family look at him as something close to a god. We really get a sense of this affection, loyalty and fear for Ahmad when the author describes the feelings Aisha had when her father decided that she wouldn’t get married before Khadija, thus denying Aisha from the opportunity of marrying the officer she had fallen for. The author writes:

Although she was hurt, angry, and resentful, these emotions could not touch her father. They fell back impotently like a wild animal stopped by its trainer, whom it loves and fears. Aisha was not able to attack her father, not even in the depths of her heart. She continued in her love and devotion for him. She felt sincerely dutiful to him, as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty. (160-161)

Here we see that the love and fear she felt towards her father was much too strong to allow Aisha to let any of the negative emotions be against her father come out.

The words the author uses to convey the feelings Aisha against her father are powerful; the author uses hurt, angry and resentful, which are all very strong emotions. Here we start to see the pain her father has made her go through by not allowing her to marry. We understand through those words what’s going on in her heart.

When the author says, “these emotions could not touch her father” (161), one can interpret that she couldn’t allow her father to see how she felt or that she wouldn’t allow herself to feel those emotions against her father. After reading the next two sentence that say that her emotions “fell back impotently like a wild animal stopped by its trainer, whom it loves and fears,” and that “Aisha was not able to attack her father, not even in the depths of her hear,” I came to the conclusion that despite the strong emotions she felt she wouldn’t allow her self to turn those emotions against her father. The fear and the love she had wouldn’t even let her think of feeling the hurt, anger, and resentment against her father even in the secrecy of her heart. Her conscious wouldn’t let her feel that way about her father. Not even the other strong emotions she felt could erase the deep love and great fear her father incited in her.

Then the author closes the passage by telling us that Aisha obeyed her father “as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty” (161). This last sentence proves my last point that Aisha, and even the rest of the family saw Ahmad as a god. They obey him without question because they love and fear him.

The author uses Kamal to show as another example of someone who sees Ahmad as a god. When having a conversation with his mother, Kamal asked if his father feared god, and then commented that he couldn’t “imagine [his] father being afraid of anything” (67). Here we see how high Kamal holds his father as to think he doesn’t even fear god.

The fear and love caused by Ahmad’s character make his family hold him in a very high esteem almost as high as God’s. As I wrote about this topic I began to wonder several things. For example, does Ahmad mean to cause these feelings and their result? Is it his vanity that leads him to want to be like a god, or does he behave how he does unconsciously or with another intention? Does the family see how close to god they see him? How contradicting is for the family, specially the Amina, to hold Ahmad as high as they do and yet believe God has control over everything?

The Love Lost Among the Disrespect

In our in class discussion, we focused a lot on how women are disrespected in the book. We placed much emphasis on how the male figures such as Mr. Ahmad and Yasin are disrespectful with their words and behavior. But I think that in the middle of all the “disrespect,” as we judge it to be, Naguib Mahfouz has placed Kamal, a character that to a certain sense still holds innocence and much love in his heart, in the book to show that there’s another side to the story. There’s a love side. The life of women isn’t only waking up early and serving the men; their lives aren’t all about being disrespected by males because, as the author shows through Kamal, there’s much love for women. Here I’m not talking about a lustful love, but a tender and sincere love from a son.

We get this sense of love for the women from Kamal when the author writes:

The truth was that [Kamal] loved the women’s company with all his heart and did not want to be separated from them even when he was working. Seeing them gave him a pleasure nothing else could equal. He loved his mother more than anything in the world. He could not imagine existing without her even for a moment. Khadija played the role of a second mother in his life... Aisha…loved him deeply, and he reciprocated her love totally. (65)

Through this quote we can see that women are loved so much. Mahfouz makes sure to show that Kamal has such a strong love, not just for his mother, but also for his sisters. Kamal holds a strong affection for these women because they are important in his life.

In class, we touched on how women are submissive and sometimes are degraded by men, but we missed to see really how important women are. Through the quote I mentioned above, I feel like we see women in a different way. Women are very special and essential in the life of males. Kamal loves his mother more than anything else in the world, which makes us see that it’s a pretty strong love. The author says, “He could not imagine existing without her even for a moment” (65). Here we see clearly the importance of women. His mother is so essential to his life that Kamal doesn’t see himself without her. He needs her to live, and that is a very strong statement about the significance of the role women hold in this society. It changes to a certain extent the negative way I thought all males treated women in the book, and the way I viewed the role of women. Women are more than just submissive human beings who should follow commands. They are the heart of men because without women, men can’t live.

I ask you all to rethink the role of women in this book. Is their role just cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the house, or is there a more important role that, we as outsider, can’t understand yet? What is really the significance of women in a males’ life? I think women are essential to men, but what do you think?