Ahmad and Children

Naguib Mahfouz shows the audience how much care Ahmad has for his children when on page 12 he writes " making no distinction between the eldest and the youngest". This small paragraph stood out to me because it gives the audience a perspective of how Ahmad views his children. This section prepares the audience for the one meal when the males all eat together: breakfast. The reading gives a warning to what is about to occur in the book. It gives us, the audience, a sense of what level of importance Ahmad gives to his children.

Susan, this is the blog that I previously had technical difficulties with it. I sent it to you through chinquapin mail on September 14.

A Father's True Thoughts

"He felt a boundless confidence and pride in this answer but later had acknowledged that his treatment actually had changed, although he had tried to keep anyone from detecting his hidden intention to change" (Mahfouz 285). We feel a sense of regret and compassion coming from Ahmad in this chapter. Mahfouz puts this paragraph here, after the arguement between him and his son, Yasim, because he wants us to slightly see the parternal side in Ahmad.

The way Mahfouz has dialog from only Ahmad in this chapter allows you to get into Ahmad's head and truly understand how he feels. Ahmad mentions that he reacted upon anger; trying to justify his actions. Ahmad's attitude and deffensive tone allows the reader to comprehend that Ahmad does love his children and that he didn't want to hurt Yasim. Mahfouz illustrates Ahmad's affection by having him look back at his past. He is recreating the emotions and moments that Ahmad went through. It shows that Ahmad has a passionate side and feelings.

The Coffee Hour

I'm sure that most people associate "Coffee Hour" in the beginning of the day. It's usually taken to start off the day with energy. What I found to be very intriguing is how Mahfouz depicts the family's coffee tradition in the beginning paragraph of Chapter 9 to take place right before sunset.

Looking at the storyline, it appears that the coffee hour scene takes place at the end of the first day of the novel. From the first sentence, there is already a clear point that Mahfouz wants to convey. The passage starts off with, "Except for the father...."(Mahfouz 52) It might sound obvious, but Mahfouz didn't include that there for no reason. He wants to emphasize how important the father's absence will be throughout this chapter. Up until this point in the book, this is the first time that the reader gets to see the family congregating.

The setting describes Amina sitting in the center of the room with the children facing opposite her. This portrays a powerful mother who takes the position of head of the house. Surprisingly, Amina shows loyalty to the tradition imposed by Ahmad, only allowing Yasin and Fahmy to drink coffee with her and making Ahmads influence visible even though he isn't in the household. Aside from that, there is still a sense of bonding in the family since the passage does show that the rest of the children thought the conversation itself was enough to be "contented"(52).

Mahfouz sticks this paragraph in the novel to demostrate a sense of the lifestyle right before sunset. As we all know, Ahmad day really starts when he gets to party with his friends. Mahfouz uses the text to show that for Ahmads family, the day really starts when their father is absent.

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. .

Love or servitude

In classic books that have and a woman the story is always the same. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, and boy and girl get married and stay together forever because of their strong love. But this is not the case in Naguib Mahfouz’s book, Palace Walk. In this book there is no great romance between the man and the woman. What happens here is more like the boy finds girl, boy ask parents to have girl marriage, and boy goes out with friends while girl stays home and takes care of the house. This is clearly the opposite case of the usual romance novels. But what the couples have in this book is not love, but servitude.
Most relationships these days are based on the fact the woman and the man chose to be with one another because they love each other. These couples are the exception.
The first couple seen in this story is Amina and Ahmad. Amina is not allowed to leave the house at anytime of the day and if any man gazes upon her from the windows of the house this could lead to scolding from her husband. She is allowed to cook, clean, and take care of the children and her husband but nothing more. Ahmad, on the other hand, is allowed to go out and do his business then he can stay out with his friends drink and fornicating with strange women, but if he gets home and his “wife” Amina is not awake to clean him up when he gets there that is another step that could lead Amina to a grave punishment. “ … If only for the moment she was not his servant but also a partner in his life”. (pg 11) This is what Amina thinks every night when Ahmad comes home from his nightly outings with the boys. Ahmad comes home drunk and Amina pleasantly undresses him and washes his feet like a servant would. But the reason she likes these times at night is because these are the only times when Ahmad will talk to her and tell her things about the outside world. This is the first time talks to her like a person who is his equal instead of like a slave who he thinks is beneath him and should just do what he says. But when morning comes for the next day he treats her like trash yet again. From the quote above it seems as if Ahmad is not married because he has any love for Amina but for the fact that she can be a great life long servant for him. It seems like love doesn’t matter anymore, that it is not even taken into any consideration in these marriages.
Hear and obey … hear and obey” ( pg 198) This is what Amina keeps repeating to herself after Ahmad kicks her out of the house for being disobedient and going into town. She says it as if this is what Ahmad has instilled in her to constantly follow, kind of like how the army brainwashes its solider. In her mind she has done something wrong because she has upset Ahmad and the servant is always there to please and make sure that the master is taken care of. If this is called love it is not the love that is seen today. In relationships today both people are servants to one another in a sense it’s not just one does all the work and the other gets to sit back and enjoy the benefits of the other shard work.
The servitude is clearly seen and explained in Abigail’s blog. She writes, “Young Amina, having been raised in a culture where women have always been seen as inferior to men, has been serving her husband for a quarter of a century. She has taken good care of her household, her husband, her stepson, Yasin, and her children since the age of 14.” Abigail’s words show that there is not love in between the marriages here but only the fact of servitude. It shows that the women aren’t seen as the love of the man life, but that they are seen only as a servant, a tool that is to be used regularly but never treated any better than just a tool. In her blog she goes on to write, “Mahfouz, as Amina's memory of Mr. Amad's words, writes, "'I'm a man. I'm the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept any criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is to obey me. Don't force me to discipline you" (4). These words were the words that taught Amina to adapt to her new life.” The quote in this part of Abigail’s blog shows how Ahmad also sees his wife’s role. He doesn’t see her as a friend or a partner just some one who must obey him like a dog must obey their master. Aby also writes that Amina begins to learn how to love her new life. Well of course she does, she has no choice but to lover her new life. As a servant to her “master” she has to love what she does so that she will be able to do well so that Ahmad will not punish her.
In Rykeem’s blog on Woman worth he writes, “Growing up, I was always taught that women, like a diamond, are to be cherished and treated with respect. But when and where did that become the accepted view? As we see from observing the treatment of women in Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk, not to long ago, women where no more than objects, a mere possession of a gentlemen. A general characteristic of property or an object is the essence of being controlled or used for the benefit of someone else. The word “object” has an implication the entity, object, has no ability to choose, a right given to every human by God”. The words he writes are so true to the story. The women are treated just like objects, something that is to be had but not treated like she is a person. This is exactly what Ahmad thinks of Amina as a possession. She is to do what she is told and to serve him because she is his to have and control.

Work cited
Hackett, Rykeem D. "A Woman's Worth." Web log post. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. .

Cisneros, Abigail V. "What Not To Judge." Web log post. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. .

Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. Toronto: First American Edition, 1991. Print.

Love and Marriage

Naguib Mahfouz is able to give the reader a taste of the fear that Amina feels in chapter twenty-nine of Palace Walk, after the accident (her being hit by a car) has taken place. Since the novel is written in third person, we are given a description of the fear that everyone in the house feels when the question of how they will confront Ahmad is brought about. To her surprise, however, Ahmad did not resort to anger, as predicted. Instead he told her to “‘Stay in bed till God heals you’” (184). When he leaves the room, Mahfouz describes Aisha’s reaction. “Her pale face blushed when she remembered the affection he had showered on her when she had been expecting nothing but his overwhelming anger that would blow her and her future away. Yes, she felt both pride and embarrassment when she started to talk about their father’s sympathy for her in her time of need and how he had forgotten his anger because of the affection and pity that had seized hold of him” (185). “Pride” and “embarrassment” are words that do not go hand in hand. Amina seems to be lying to herself about Ahmad’s affection for her. It is as if she wishes that it were really affection that Ahmad felt instead of an obligation to their marriage.

As I have mentioned in my previous response “Love, Lust, and Custom,” in Islamic culture, marriage is something that everyone must do. Love does not necessarily play a role in every marriage. With Amina and Ahmad's marriage, as Westerners, we find ourselves scrutinizing their marriage and declaring that there is no love involved. Perhaps this is true; maybe Amina is attempting to find love in the littlest things. As human beings, we strive for love, especially women. But who are we to judge or define love? In Islamic culture, I have noticed that marriage is love. We believe that love comes before marriage, and sometimes this holds true for Islamic culture as well, but usually marriage comes first in Islamic culture and the two newlyweds must learn to love one another because divorce is frowned down upon.

In the case of Amina and Ahmad, Amina feels that Ahmad must feel some kind of affection toward her since he did not get angry at her venture outside. But there is also a feeling lingering in her private thoughts that this may not be enough. “Privately she might have wished he would complete his kind treatment of her by renouncing his night out, as was appropriate for a husband whose wife had suffered what she had. Since she knew his temperament well, though, she fabricated an excuse for him ... She would justify his departure with the excuse she had already invented...” (188). It is clear that Amina wishes for Ahmad to be more caring about her fragile situation, but in the end she gives in and accepts that she will receive no more affection from him.

In the article,“Marriage in Islam,” there is a section that discusses love and how it is viewed in Islamic culture. Love is something that does not last, it is a feeling that can end; whereas marriage is a commitment that is necessary in Islamic society. “Love blinds people to potential problems in the relationship. Arranged marriages on the other hand, are based not on physical attraction or romantic notions but rather on critical evaluation of the compatibility of the couple. This is why they often prove successful.” This article makes a valid point: successful marriages are successful only if those married are compatible. Love waivers, but if two people meet each others needs, then there would be no reason for them to part. It is somewhat of a convenience factor. So although Amina desires to be loved, this is not necessarily the case in her marriage. When Ahmad summons her to return home after dismissing her, it is not he who comes to get her from her mother's house, but her sons. The reason for summoning her must have had to do with the fact that he needs her in his life, not for love, but to carry out her duties as his wife; he needs her for the convenience.


Works Cited

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

2."Marriage in Islam." Jannah.Org :: Islam the Eternal Path to Peace. Web. 20 Mar. 2010. .

Importance of women

In the novel Palace Walk written by Naguib Mahfouz we are presented to an Egyptian family who practices Islam. This novel is narrated in the 1920’s meaning that Egypt was still partially in control by Great Britain. I say partially because there were signs of a revolution starting against the British. Women in Islam are to obey their husbands and always stay home unless told differently by man. Throughout the novel we see that women are also respected, loved, and appreciated. Women are willing to fight for everything that they want and that they love.
“Then, the children arrived, one after the other. In their early days in the world, though, they were tender sprouts unable to dispel her fears or reassure her. On the contrary, her fears were multiplied by her troubled soul’s concern for them and her anxiety that they might be harmed. She would hold them tight, lavish affection on them, and surround them, weather awake or asleep, with a protective shield of Qu’rans suras, amulets, charms, and incantations. True pace of mind she would not achieve until her husband returned from his evening’s entertainment” (3).
We see how at the beginning of the novel the author Naguib Mahfouz gives us all of this information in the first couple of pages. This really caught my eye because it shows that no matter how young the woman are in the Egyptian society they still have to have children at a very early age. As Javier said in his blog
“This passage really impacted me because its found on the third page of this novel. The author was able to include a lot of things in these few sentences that are fundamental to the whole understanding of the Egyptian culture and this book. Mahfouz, makes it seem as if women are married young and find themselves serving no purpose until their children are born. He makes me feel that their only purpose in the Egyptian culture is to be a care giver and provide comfort to the family” (Women).
Women have to become mothers at a young age in Egypt and they are not look down at. Man actually like the fact that they can have children because that to them is an assurance that there name will live on forever. To women in Egypt it seems natural to have kids at a young age because of the way that they quickly get that natural instinct of a mother. They learn how to take care of their children and they are also scared for their children. Many woman seem to become by natural habit a caring a loving person to the husband that they have. Even though they really don’t get to know the man that they are marrying sometimes they don’t even know how they look until they get to the marriage ceremony.
Women also take care of themselves and others. The best thing that they do is that no matter how badly they seem to be treated they still fight for their government and for the freedom of their country. Britain controlled Egypt for most of the 1920’s until finally Egypt decided to fight for their independence from Britain. This meant that Egypt was going to need everyone that was willing to fight for that country to do it. This was so important for everyone that even women were allowed to go and fight for what they believed was right.

"Beautiful women marched in protest
I went to observe their rally.
I found them proudly
Brandishing the blackness of their garments
They looked like stars,
Gleaming in a pitch-black night.
They took to the streets;
Sa'd's home was their target"
-Hafiz Ibrahim (374)
This poem shows how it is that women all over the world have fought for the freedom that they feel that they deserve. Amina heard noises first and was afraid to check because she was afraid to wake Yasin. The true is that she was afraid of being punished. As soon as she heard that loud noise and saw what was really happening she shut the blinds and left. Yasin stayed there and was the one that noticed that even women were fighting agains the british. We have to remember that this book was written before Egypt received there independence from Britain. The women in the Egyptian culture are not allowed to go outside unless they are single. This time it was an exception for women. It must have been an exception because the men knew that they needed all the help that they could get. The men know that women love their country and therefore will allow them to fight for the women want and for what man will allow. In the end of the novel Fahmy dies and that in a way softens Ahmad. We see that Ahmad doesn’t know how to break it down to Amina or Kamal and when he walks in the house he hears Kamal singing “Visit me once a year/ For it’s wrong to abandon people forever” (498). This made me think about how is it that at such a moment something like that just happens by coincidence. Ahmad was entering his house with the intentions of telling Amina and Kamal that Fahmy had just died and then he hears those words. Those lyrics at that time were probably the last thing that Ahmad was expecting to hear. We realize at the end of the novel how much Ahmad really loved Fahmy because never in the novel did I read about Ahmad crying until he found out that Fahmy had died. Ahmad is a strict father but the true is that he just cares so much about his children that he’ll do anything to just protect them. Ahmad also cares about his children being able to live a life the way that Islam says life should be live.
As we can see women play a very important role in the Egyptian life. That’s why they are cared for more when they are younger then man are. They are also protected because no father wants to let there daughter be seen outside of their house. The reason is that whoever wants to marry their daughter is doing it because they want to be related to him and only him. Without women the world would be different and not a good different. Therefore women are the most important people living on this earth.

Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor, 1965. Print.
http://heritage-key.com/egypt/egypt-and-era-discovery

Like Father Like Son

A lot of parents think that when they do different things that are questionable in society's eye, their children are ignorant of their actions, but as we see through everyday experiences, children are very intelligent and see a lot of things their parents do and often times grow into adults and indulge in some of those very activities. Parents also strive to raise their children to grow into their own people, adults with keen abilities to make their own decisions, but often times we see children become the very thing parents don’t want them to be, and other times when they become the complete opposite. In Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk, Ahmad Abd al-Jawad struggles with raising his eldest sons, Yasin and Fahmy, to what he would call a man, honorable and in the eye of society, flawless. In the case of Yasin, he struggles with marriage and what it takes to keep that sacred bond alive. Throughout the novel, we see Ahmad engaging in various affairs with women outside of his marriage. As far as I know, we model our relationships after the relationships exhibited by our parents, who give use our first look at marriage and the way it is suppose to be. Is Yasin merely a mirror of his father, and will he follow in his father's tarnished footsteps? The simple answer to this question is yes, but no. No, because the simple fact that every individual is made differently and makes their own choices, like in the case of Fahmy who dedicates his life demonstrations, but yes because of the fact that Ahmad has so much of an influence on him that he does follow in his footsteps.
At the beginning of chapter forty six, we get a since that Yasin has changed when the text states, “Yasin...poured himself into marriage with all the energy, enthusiasm, and optimism of a man who imagined he was carrying out the initial steps of a program for carnal enjoyment that would last day after day, month after month, and year after year” (307). From this quote we get a sense of Yasin undergoing change, but in his case, is that possible? Does the way he treat his wife reflect the way that Ahmad treats Amina or furthermore, his mother? When looking at this quote, words that stood out were “poured” and “all”. These words that are used to characterize Yasin and his actions suggest devotion and determination to having a healthy marriage. Growing up, Yasin was forced to experience that divorce of his parents and the way in which his father treated his mother. After observing his parents divorce, Yasin, probably began to see marriage as less than sacred, which was the way in which God intended it to be seen.
After reading an article that talked about genes and the transfer of those genes, I saw that there were studies that suggested that parents may pass onto their children a gene of “indulgence”. I know it may sound a little far fetched, but look at this as if it were any other illness or disorder. In this context, the theory of an indulgence gene is based on the probability or statistic that suggest that it is very likely that children will indulge in some of the same actions and activities as there parents. After reading a little deeper into the novel, the narrator conveys to the reader, “His greedy appetite overcame his hesitation. He put his hand on her waist. Then he pulled her gently toward his breast” (382). If this is true, is not the fact that Yasin is lustful and is an adulterer attributed to his father, Ahmad. If children whose parents are alcoholics and exhibit psychopathic symptoms by chance have the same disorders as their parents, then why couldn't a kid whose parent or parents were adulterers have the same problem?
Growing up, my mother always quoted the King James Version Bible saying, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it”, an old saying from Proverbs 22:6. If this is true, then how does this relate to this novel? As the head of the household, Ahmad’s responsibility is to raise his son with good intentions and expect that they would, as an adult, carry those traits with him. Near the end of this novel, it is discovered by Ahmad that Fahmy has been involved in demonstrations against the English. At this news, Ahmad becomes furious. But why on earth would Ahmad be angry that Fahmy has become a demonstrator, standing up for what he believes in, beside the fact that he is scared for his son’s life. If Ahmad has done his job as a father, then he should be behind Fahmy, with the knowledge that what he is doing is for a good cause and right.
Taking a look at this novel, Ahmad is seen as a strict and demanding father that does his best to raise his children in the way that they should go. But after raising his children, are they then allowed to think for themselves or are they prisoners to their father's desires? The answer to this may be found in Yesenia Chavez's Disobedient, a blog about Fahmy's actions. After choosing to indulge in demonstrations and is exposed as a Freedom Fighter, the author paints a picture of Fahmy's maturity, stating:

He started to bite his lips to suppress his tears. He felt ashamed at being so weak. When he was finally able to speak, he launched into a rambling plea, because he was deeply moved and wished to conceal his embarrassment: “Forgive me, Papa. I’ll obey every command of yours more than willingly, but I can’t do this. I can’t…I can’t accept shrinking back and abandoning my brothers, and I don’t think you would like me to. There’s no way life would be bearable if I did…What is my life worth?...What is the life of any man worth? Don’t be angry, Papa. Think about what I’m saying….I assure you that there’s no danger in our little, nonviolent job(426).

Does Ahmad want his sons to be men or does he want them to, like a subservient woman, follow his every wish and command without flaw. When looking at this passage, we see Fahmy, as seen in Marcell Johnson's Out With the Old, struggle for independence, though in this instance, he fights within himself and with his father rather than for his people. In this passage the word “can't” strikes me as extreme. When people claims that they can't, it implies that they are physically incapable of executing a task, and as a man, it seems that Fahmy is incapable of terminating his activity in demonstrations. Ahmad's intention was to raise his sons to be their own men and think for themselves, but how is that possible when he constantly shoves his views down their throats.
Josh Billings, a famous humorist writer, once said, “To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while”. Though written by a humorist writer, this quote is very true. It is extremely difficult to raise a child because there are no recipe books on making or molding a child into what it is supposed to be. In the case of Ahmad, how can a man raise sons up to be great when he himself is living a contrary life? As we see from Yasin and Fahmy, children are affected greatly by the actions and lifestyle of their parents.

Work Cited

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

Reasons to Believe. Adultery Gene? Feb. 3 2010.
http://www.reasons.org/blogs/joes-corner/adultery-gene

Syed Ahamed. English Translation of the Message of The Quran. Lombard, Illinois: Book of Signs Foundation, 2006.

Johnson, Marcell, “Out With the Old.” Digging Even Deeper. Blogger. March 4, 2010. April 7, 2010.

Chavez, Yesenia, “Disobedient.” Digging Even Deeper. Blogger. March 24, 2010. April 7, 2010.

Ahmad’s Regrets

Throughout Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, Palace Walk, we see how Ahmad treats his family with detachment and harshness. Although he does feel affection for his loved ones he does not show it. He acts like this because he believes that if he shows any sign of agreement toward them, they will begin to disobey him. Because of this Ahmad appears to never be pleased with anything his family does no matter how good it is. Ahmad acts detached and indifferent towards his family until his son, Fahmy, dies and he realizes that he was always too strict with them.

The reason Ahmad acts so strict towards his family is because he is thinks that if he shows that he’s pleased with anything they do, they will immediately start disobeying him. Yesenia describes Ahmad’s thinking perfectly in her blog entry, “Disobedient”. She says, “Ahmad is a typical father who forces his entire family to be submissive to him. He is strict to the point where he manipulates the way his wife and children act. The reason why Ahmad doesn’t show affection towards his own family is because he believes that if he does then they will take advantage of him.” Because of this fear he has of losing control over his household, Ahmad is very demanding of his family. Nothing, even anything his best son, Fahmy, does, is ever good enough.

Throughout the novel we can compare and contrast how different Fahmy and Yasin are. One of those moments in which we can see how different they are is the way the way Yasin reacts versus the way Fahmy reacts when they find out the truth about their father, Al-Sayyid Ahmad. In their eyes their father had always been a proper, honorable, and pious man. However, they then find out that he has been going to parties to sing and drink and has been having affairs with various women. Yasin and Fahmy react very differently when they learn this truth. Fahmy condemns his actions and Yasin praises him. We get a glimpse of what they about their father’s actions on the third and fourth paragraphs on page 271.

The first of these paragraphs show Fahmy’s thoughts. He says, “‘My father doesn’t differ at all from Yasin except in having sunk lower…. There must be something I don’t know… My father hasn’t done anything wrong…. He can’t do anything wrong (271).’” To Fahmy his father was a true hero, so much so that when he learned this he believed it was a lie. When he finally accepted it as the truth the image he had of his father was marred. He no longer regarded him with the same respect and admiration. He believed he was even worse than Yasin. When Fahmy learned this truth he was appalled and condemned his father’s actions.

In the second of these paragraphs we see the way Yasin thinks. He says, “’He sings. So what’s wrong about singing? He gets drunk, and believe me, drinking is even better than eating. He has affairs and so did the Muslim caliphs…. Our father isn’t doing anything sinful (271).’” Yasin always held his father in the highest esteem. However, when he learned about this truth he became even admirable to him. Yasin thought it was great that his father acted the way he did. He thought that there was nothing wrong in having many affairs and objectifying women.

This contrast of what Fahmy thought versus what Yasin thought about their father’s actions is just one example that shows how Fahmy is a better son than Yasin. Everything Ahmad has taught Yasin has been to no avail. Yasin still drinks, wastes his money foolishly, has lovers, and if that weren’t enough he praises his father when he learns he does this. Fahmy on the contrary is a proper, honorable, and pious young man; everything his father always wanted his sons to be. However, does Ahmad praise him for this? No. All he ever has to say to his family are negative things. Although Fahmy was a much better son and overall person, he never received any kind of praise from his father.

Another example of how Fahmy is a much better son than Yasin is the way Yasin tried to rape Umm Hanafi. With this incident we saw what a savage animal Yasin is. His brutal sexual desires are well described here: “He was blinded by lust. What kind of lust was it? A lust kindled by a woman simply because she was a woman, not because of any of her qualities or associations. It was a lust that loved beauty but would not turn away from ugliness. In these crises, everything was equivalent. He was like a dog that eagerly devours whatever scraps it finds” (277). This is something Fahmy wouldn’t have even thought of doing.

Another incident that greatly angers Ahmad is when Yasin sleeps with his wife’s personal maid, Nur. When this occurs Ahmad is enraged but not so much at the fact that Yasin has slept with a woman that isn’t his wife; he’s more enraged because of whom that woman is. He explains why giving us examples of his own affairs

Just as he loved beauty in the abstract, he loved it in its glittering social framework. He liked to be noticed and to have a widespread reputation…. This social use of his love did not require him to sacrifice beauty, for in his circle beauty and reputation went hand in hand, like an object and its shadow. Beauty was most often the magic wand that opened the door to reputation and noteworthy status. He had been the lover of some of the most famous entertainers of his time. Not one of them had disappointed his yearning for beauty or his craving for loveliness. For these reasons he thought scornfully of Yasin’s conquests. He repeated disapprovingly, “Umm Hanafi! … Nur! … What a beast he is (391)!

With these statements Ahmad is basically saying that he disapproves of Yasin’s conquests because they weren’t beautiful, distinguished, or influential. Yasin had no criteria to choose his mistresses; when lust blinded him he would be content to lie with any woman. And this was exactly what enraged Ahmad; he didn’t like that his son was a savage willing to sleep with any woman regardless of what she looked like or who she was. Here we see how much Ahmad disapproves of Yasin’s actions.

These reproachful actions, however, aren’t reason enough for Ahmad to value what a good son Fahmy is. Like Marixa says in her blog entry “Wake-Up Call”, “Unfortunately Ahmad only realizes where he has gone wrong when he learns that Fahmy has died while at a demonstration. This is the turning point in Ahmad’s life. It becomes the wake-up call that Ahmad needs to realize that he is not the almighty and that he is human just like everyone else.” It’s at this point that Ahmad realizes that he had a great son and that all he ever did for him was point out his flaws.

After Ahmad learns about Fahmy’s death he begins experiencing what, according to “Coping with Grief and Loss” an article in Helpguide.org a trusted non-profit resource, calls common symptoms of grief. He experiences the physical symptoms of grief, shock and disbelief, and guilt. His shock is apparent when he learns the news, “Although there was an unmistakable look of belief and dismay in his eyes, the father rejected the news, shouting, “Fahmy?” (495). And after the shock comes the guilt, Ahmad begin thinking of all the things he didn’t say or do for his son. He begins thinking about the last time he saw his alive, “Consider the memory of the quarrel they had had after the Friday prayer at al-Husayn or that of their conversation that morning, when Fahmy had appealed for his affection and he had reprimanded him –– how much of his heart would they consume? How many tears would they stir up?” (497). It’s very unfortunate, but Fahmy had to die for Ahmad to realize what a great son he was.

Works Cited

"Coping with Grief and Loss: Support for Grieving and Bereavement." Helpguide.org:

Understand, Prevent and Resolve Life's Challenges. Web. 31 Mar. 2010. .

Chavez, Yesenia, “Disobedient”. [Weblog entry.] Digging Even Deeper. The Chinquapin

School: AP English Class. 24 Mar. 2010. (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/disobedient.html) 27 Mar. 2010.

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

Rodriguez, Marixa, “Wake-Up Call”. [Weblog entry.] Digging Even Deeper. The Chinquapin

School: AP English Class. 30 Mar. 2010. (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/wake-up-call.html) 31 Mar. 2010.

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. .

The Prices for Freedom

Is freedom really free when there’s a high cost to pay for it? In Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk the characters have to pay with their reputation, their family, or their lives for freedom. Mahfouz tries to answer the question are these prices for freedom greater than the things you give up when suppressed. Taking freedoms means not accepting submission and being rebellious. One can rebel against their parents, culture, government or religion; whatever sets the rules and limits. Mahfouz wants his readers to realize the consequences to rebellious behavior because in Islamic countries there is a contradiction in their ideology and actual practices. There seems to be a struggle between the traditional Islamic beliefs and modern ideologies. Almost all the members of the family had gone against Islamic rules and culture to steel even a small bit of freedom their religion doesn’t allow.
The different views of the intimacy music creates in the book reflects the debate of the acceptance of music in Islam. Some Muslim scholars believe music should be banned because of its association with sensuality, dancing and drinking (Kutty). Music overall is a very controversial and heavily debated topic by Muslim scholars for many years. In general Islam does not either absolutely accepts music or remains indifferent (Sabir). Here’s an example of an argument against Music in Islam: “In modern schools and universities, we observe independence, free expression and secular thinking being encouraged. This idea of freedom…is a predominant, underlying theme of today`s music. It is being used as a means for drilling those modern ideologies that are totally contrary to Islamic Shariah and values, into the minds of Muslims” (Music and Islam). This opinion is interesting in the way it connects music with freedom. It suggests that freedom especially in relation to secularism and modernism is something bad. Musicians have a lot more freedom and play than any other character in the book. Musicians like Jalila take social and sexual freedoms which cost her the traditional life of a husband securing her. Jalila, for example, as a musician has sexual and social freedom but at what cost? She avoids her arranged marriage and lives a risky life; however, she has the freedom to chose her lover and she is free to walk over to the men’s side in the wedding. Music has modern and traditional views because of the kind of intimacy it creates. Traditionalist wants to protect Islamic people from its association with sin like fornication and adultery. Modernist wants the freedom to indulge in not only the sinful intimacy but the intimacy of communication and connection when it's intangible. An example of this kind of intimacy is when “Jalila united the two of them [Fahmy and Maryam] in a single experience of listening and possibly feeling. She had created an occasion for their spirits to meet” (261). This intimacy is a spiritual intangible connection. Then there’s the intimacy between family members shown through how Yasin feels music connects the family. He thinks to himself, “Everyone sings. It’s a family with deep roots in music” (251). Since music knows know limits and touches the core of people’s emotions, there’s no consequences or prices to pay to feel the connections it creates. Since people do not have to give up anything to feel, they are free to experience music with no cost.
The struggle for traditionalism and modernism also appears in marriages. Married women gives up the most freedom for the security of a husband.. As a woman Amina is forced to adapt to husband wills and submit to his rule. In Havi’s blog Women’s Role he compares the treatment of woman to the treatment of animals when he examines how Amina is not even allowed to sit next to her husband but on the floor because she feels she is not worthy. She has the least freedom of anyone in the novel however it is impossible to believe that she would never exercise her free will. An online article from Time magazine states
Among the gravest oppressors of Muslim women today are Family Laws, the legal frameworks governing marriage and divorce, inheritance, and custody. The laws are the front-line in the war between traditionalists and modernizers. Laws about women remain in the grip of medieval legal reasoning about the family. They vary by nation, but their message is consistent: the husband is the provider, and the wife submissive (Power, Lumpar)

Traditionalist need these rules and regulations to keep away and control modernism. Modernism allows more freedom but not without a price. The movement toward modernism is a movement toward freedom from the traditional limitations. Ahmad, who sets the most traditional rules for his family tries to control this freedom movement but he cannot control the movement of modernism from entering his house. Amina exercised her free will regardless of the rules he sets. She pays the price when she gets hit by the car because she gave up the security of her home and husband offers however she gains an experience of her lifetime. Mahfouz describes, “There was no way to quench her thirst. Visiting the shrine had so stirred up her yearnings that they gushed forth from their springs, flowed out, and her yearning that they gushed forth from their springs, flowed out, and burst over their banks. She would never stop wanting more of this intimacy and delight” (170). Usually Amina is able suppress her wants and desires and adapt but she finally owns a desire she could never rid of. Is it worth it? She’ll most likely never see the place again. She’s also separated from her family for going against Ahmad’s strict rules. She risk never seeing her family again for that small bit of freedom to visit her beloved al-Husayn. Was never experiencing better than only being able to experience it just once? She considers this for herself when she is invited back to her home. Amina “…stood for a little while in a strange confusion. Before she realized what she was doing she turned and asked, ‘Should I go’” (232). She wonders for a second if she should return home to her husband. It’s like she’s asking herself is her submissive life worth all the sacrifices. It’s amazing that she even wonders this because she never before thought she had the choice. When she exercised her free will she realizes giving up her freedom is a choice not a obligation. However she decides her family is worth more than her selfish desire for freedom.
In the Islamic culture, education is a freedom because and one gains the power of knowledge and must give up ignorance. The power of knowledge makes people less likely to submit which is why many woman are forbidden from education. Ignorance of the world keeps them at home. Fahmy takes the most of this freedom and his education about what is going on within his country gets him deeply involved in it. With the power of knowing he clearly sees his enemy and his reason for fighting. He fights for freedom of his country which to him is worth his life. Fahmy tells his mother “A people ruled by foreigners has no life” (347). Fahmy feels like the fight for freedom is worth his life because he feels like the foreigners that rule his country already has his life. He is fighting to win it back. He literally lives the contradiction in political views before and after the movement for independence when he goes home and then goes to school. At home he feels The moment his mind had returned to this stifling atmosphere of lassitude, ignorance, and indifference, he felt a blazing fire of distress and pain that desired release from confinement…. At that moment he wished…he could be surrounded once more by a group of his fellow students. Then he would be able to quench his thirst for enthusiasm and freedom…” (326).
The home represents traditional values in the way the home limits and suffocates him. “ Life strengthen this hope with exertion, and death strengthened it with sacrifice” (357). His life is lost and his country is still not free. Ahmad tells his friend, “Fahmy learned how the boy had been lost and might just have never existed…the poor lad perished, but Sa’d didn’t return and the English didn’t leave” (466). Is all this death necessary for freedom? Is Fahmy’s death for his country really pointless? In the long run the demonstrations and rebellion are necessary. If the country continues to be submissive and servile to the English then nothing will ever change.
Yasin and Ahmad takes sexual freedoms going against their religion. Islam does not allow fornication or adultery and yet this does not stop them. As Lauren writes in her blog “They consider themselves to be devout, faithful muslims, yet from most of the men in the book, we see them living lives that are contrary to what they should be doing as well-practicing muslims.” Only when Ahmad’s life is threatened does he think about quitting his night life. They give up the chance to fall in love and truly love a woman for these sexual freedoms. Yasin looses his family because he can not control his lust and takes too much sexual freedom. “…Love for him was nothing but blind desire. It was the most elevated form of love he knew” (72) pg 81 Yasin’s view of woman “ It was for the sake of this lust alone that he had married the first time and then the second. Over the course of time, his conjugal love was affected by calm new elements of familiarity, but in essence it continues to be based on bodily desire” (99). Fahmy who does not take these sexual freedoms is able to fall in love even though he’s not allowed to marry his love because he took the freedom to look at her and she took the freedom to show herself when it was forbidden.
With such huge prices to pay for freedom, the reader must conclude that freedom is not really free. There is such a huge struggle between modernism and traditionalism but both come with a cost. It is up to the individual to chose and measure the consequences and no one no matter how hard they try can take that from a person.

Work Cited
Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor books, 1990.
Power, Carla, and Kuala Lumpar. "Muslim Women Demand an End to Oppressive Family Laws - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Time, 17 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Apr. 2010. .
[Weblog] Clemons, Lauren, “Leading a Double Life.” Digging Even Deeper . 3/24/2010. 4/5/2010 (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/leading-double-life.html).
[Weblog] Macias, Javier, “Woman‘s Role” Digging Even Deeper . 2/11/2010. 4/5/2010 (http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/02/womens-role.html).
Sabri, Mustafa. "A Topic of Dispute in Islam: Music." Wake Up! 1995. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. .
"Music and Islam." Inter-Islam: Relaying the same message brought by the Prophets, Prophets Adam - Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Them All). 1998. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. .
Kutty, Sheikh A. "What Does Islam Say on Music?" Islam Awareness Homepage. Aug. 2002. Web. 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 >.

Kamal's Innocence

An important character that often gets overlooked in Palace Walk is Kamal. Kamal is very important because as a small child he is very innocent and in his innocence he says and does many things that affect greatly how some things play out in the novel. Like Dee explains in her blog, “Kamal was seen through my eyes as one of the characters that a lot of people blew off, but he offered an important role to a lot of the situation in the book that were significant to the over all theme of innocence and honor…We can see Kamal’s feelings when he says, “In that coffee hour Kamal frequently felt lost and neglected by his family. Hardly anyone paid attention to him” (53).”

I also agree with what Aby says in her blog, “Kamal seems to want to be like his dad and brother.” Like Dee and Aby say, all Kamal wants to do is be an adult, so he tries to act like a grown up and in doing this he says and does many things that have important repercussions throughout the novel. Although he has no intention to Kamal impacts greatly his family’s lives.

One example of this is how he becomes good friends with the soldiers that camped outside his house. Kamal is attracted very attracted to them because they are foreigners; he is especially interested in their appearance and the language they speak. Because of this Kamal begins talking to them and becomes acquainted with them. One day they give him a caricature they had drawn of him. Kamal looked at the picture and didn't think it looked like him. Then he saw that the men were laughing and realized that they were joking. However, when he showed the picture to Fahmy, he thought something else. Fahmy told him, "'O Lord, this picture omits none of your defects and exaggerates them . . . the small skinny body, the long scrawny neck, the large nose, the huge head, and the tiny eyes'" (438). He went on to say, "'It's clear what the secret of their fondness for you is. . . . They like to laugh at your appearance and foppishness. To put it plainly, you're nothing but a puppet to them'" (438). When Kamal saw this caricature of him he though it had simply been a joke between friends. However, when he showed it to Fahmy he learned otherwise. This episode could have fueled Fahmy’s anger towards the English, which eventually lead to Fahmy’s death. This innocent act by Kamal could’ve been a lethal consequence for Fahmy.

Another instance that shows Kamal's innocence is when he is telling a story at the evening coffee hour. He tells about how one day that he arrived at the encampment he saw Julian, one of the English soldiers, waving his hand to Maryam who was smiling at the her window. As soon as she saw him she left the window looking terrified. As soon as he finished relating the story he receives alarmed responses from everyone. Amina, incredulous, warns her son against making false accusations. However, Famhy commented, "'He's not lying. No sensible person would accuse him of lying about this. Don't you see that a person his age wouldn't be able to invent such a story?'" (439). As Fahmy said, Kamal in his innocence did not know what he was talking about. Although this was an innocent remark it led to Fahmy’s learning the truth about Maryam.

Work Cited

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

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.

Life and Death

“His arms and legs began a slow limp disjoint motion. ‘How loud the clamor is. But what are they screaming about? Do you remember? How quickly memories are slipping away. What do you want? To chant? What chant? Or just call out? To whom? For what? There’s a voice speaking inside you. Do you hear? Do you see? But where? There’s nothing. Nothing. Darkness and more darkness. A gentle motion pushing with the regularity of the ticking of a clock. The heart is flowing with it. There’s a whisper accompanying it. The gate of the garden. Isn’t that so? It’s moving in a fluid rippling way and slowly dissolving. The towering tree is dancing gently. The sky… the sky? High, expansive…nothing but the calm, smiling sky with peace raining from it”’ (493).

This paragraph is the description of Fahmy’s death. It describes the quick thoughts that flows through his mind as he is dying. there is a lot of questions racing through his head because as Tianna puts it "Death at the end of the novel poses a lot of questions in many people's minds and influences their actions" Death leaves things unaswered and pointless. It’s interesting how Naguib does not outright say Fahmy is shot and killed with a bullet. Death for Fahmy did not end with darkness and nothingness, it ended with peace. The thing he fights for and the reason why he’s in the demonstrations and risk his life for. Peace. Ahmad wonders, “ Peace? Where had it gone and when would it be ready to return? Even in his store there were distressing, whispered conversations about bloody events” (463). The revolution took away peace not only in the streets and in his store but in his very household since his rebellious son was so ready to demonstrate in the bloody revolution. Fahmy’s ‘peace’ will only be felt by him as his life slips away. His death brings the worse part of the war right in his home. All he wants is for everything to go back to normal but was the way everything was the best for his family and for his country. Death is the point of no return for change. Nothing will ever be normal or the way it was without Fahmy. Even though his death will change everything for his family but what about his country he fights for. His life is lost and his country is still not free. Ahmad tells his friend, “Fahmy learned how the boy had been lost and might just have never existed…the poor lad perished, but Sa’d didn’t return and the English didn’t leave” (466). Is all this death necessary for freedom? Is Fahmy’s death for his country really pointless? In the long run the demonstrations and rebellion are necessary. If the country continues to be submissive and servile to the English then nothing will ever change.
Toward the end of the book death and new life are being compared. Aisha and Khadija are pregnant and Aisha gives birth to her baby however it has a high risk of dying, Yasin’s mother dies, and Fahmy is killed in what is suppose to be a peaceful demonstration. Also Mahfouz includes small scares of death with Aisha, Ahmad, Kamal and Fahmy before he actually dies. Chapter 67 ends with gruesome descriptions of death that happened in al-Aziziya and Badrashin and chapter 68 begins with the birth of Aisha’s baby. Its no coincidence that Sa’d Pasha has been freed on the same day Aisha delivers her baby which happens in the next chapter. The revolution relates to Aisha’s birth because in a way it’s like a new birth of the nation and a new birth of freedom. Since Mahfouz does not kill of the baby, the reader is left with hope that it will live which compares to Sa’d Pasha’s return which gives people hope for the freedom of Egypt.

Bruno, Tianna. Death in the end. Digging Even Deeper. http://diggingevendeeper.blogspot.com/2010/03/death-in-end.html

Death in the End

“Death is new to me. I've never witnessed it before. I wish the end could come without it. We all die...really? I've got to resist my fears. Nowadays we hear about people dying all the time, on Ministries Street, in the schools, and at the mosque of al-Azhar...What can the families of the martyrs do? Should they spend the rest of their lives weeping? They weep and then forget. That's death”(428).

It seems that death is a very prominent theme at the end of the novel Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz. In almost every situation that they get into, death is the outcome to worry about. When Ahmad was trapped by the English soldiers after leaving the neighbor's house, he worries that he would be killed by the English soldiers. In the passage above, Yasin is worried about his mother dying. It makes him ponder about dying himself. When Aisha is having issues during labor, Ahmad and Khalil worried about her and her child's death.
We see the characters that appear to the reader to be really tough and inconsiderate of people's feelings have a heart. They think about and are saddened by the idea that life for everyone else goes on after people die. The dead are soon forgotten. There existence is no longer taken into consideration after a week after their death. These two characters are Ahmad and hi son, Yasin.
Ahamd, a man well respected by his family and his community, shows that he is not an all knowing and ready-for-everything being. As Daniela puts it, “we find out that he is not a God.” When death comes to someone close to him that he cares about, we see that he does not know what to do. He does not know how to break the news to his wife. He is simply hit unexpectedly and dumbfounded, which is something that he gets a lot from Fahmy at the end of the novel. Death is not something that anyone in the family was prepared to handle.
Mahfouz brings the theme of death into the novel when Yasin finds out about his mother's sickness. Yasin, who is called a “bull” and has treated woman as they are simply object to get sex from, shows a pensive and delicate side as his father did when confronted by death. Yasin learns from and mirrors a lot of Ahmad's actions, as Marixa says, “Yasin is influenced by his dad and the things that he sees at home.” This situation where Yasin has not seen his father, or anyone else for that matter, deal with this allows the readers to see Yasin in a new light. He questions life itself. When we see Yasin in the mosque praying, he is so sure about what he is doing. He knows not to ask for repentance because he would then have to give up his ways. He isn't troubled about getting a divorce from Zaynab, or at least that is how he tries to appear. But when his mother is stricken with malaria, he doesn't know what his next move will be. Should he cry? Should he part with her on good terms or will their relationship end as it has been existing all these years? Should he get mad at her new husband? He has all these questions because of one thing death
Death at the end of the novel poses a lot of questions in many people's minds and influences their actions. More people joined the demonstrations, probably, because they heard about the people that the soldiers had killed. Death made a huge footprint in the lives of may of the Egyptians at that time.



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

Rod., Marixa. "Courage & Influence." Digging Even Deeper. Web. 26 Mar. 2010. .

B., Daniela. "Hes Human After All." Digging Even Deeper. Web. 26 Mar. 2010. .

Fahmy's struggle

On page 424 the first major paragraph shows the struggle that Fahmy is having with trying to listen to his father and doing what he wants. Does it feel like to you that Fahmy is struggling between trying to be that good kid that his father would want him to be and the person he wants to be? I feel like he is struggling but at the same time trying to rebel against his father and the person that his father wants to make him be. In the paragraph he talks about how he wants to protest against the British but the hardest part would be telling his father that he has become a protester. It seems that Fahmy also gets a thrill form being out there with the rest of the people. But i feel like he is doing what all teenagers do when their parents are to strict on him. I don't really feel like he is protesting because he is committed to the cause and because he really believes that that is what he is supposed to be doing, I think that he is more likely doing it because he knows that his father would disapprove of his actions and that he will be seen as a rebel in his fathers eyes. He is trying to break free of his fathers commands just like every child at some point in their life tries to do. And just like a child he also struggles with his rebellion because of his father. He may not agree with what his father does all the time, but he does respect him because of the fact that he is a dignified and well respected man out in the rest of the world. I'm still not sure on why Fahmy is so afraid of his fathers opinion and what he will say when he finds out that Fahmy is protesting. I think it still has to deal with the fact that children always want to rebel but they never want to fall to out of favor with their parents. They want to reach a certain limit where they make their point, but not go to far as to where their parents give up on them.