It Doesn't End Here

“Ah! How you will enchant the angels”(30).

In Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen, there seems to be a feeling among the people that they have faith that the other will be successful and valued far beyond what they think. The quote above is used twice in the short story. Achille Papin says this about Phillipa, referring to her beautiful singing. Then on page 59, Phillipa says this herself to Babette, referring to her cooking skills. Dinesen uses a few different ways, besides this quote, to show that the characters, Achille and Phillipa, prophesied that the others will do well in life and after.
The two characters Achille Papin and Phillipa, especially Achille Papin, show they have faith that the other certain characters will do well by giving them excessive compliments. When Achille first hears Phillipa sing, Dinesen says that at that point he understood all. This is big hyperbole because how can someone's singing truly explain everything to one. Achille continues to exaggerate his amazement at Phillipa's singing. He even explains how her singing brought him to another world and because of this he, himself, could not even enjoy the kiss from her. He could not remember it. This exaggerated praise shows that Achille believe that her talent could take her anywhere and impressing people won't end even after she is in heaven.
Dinesin shows Phillipa's appreciation for Babette and faith that she will continue to do well in the way he expresses her body movement. He says that she put her arms around her, and she silently looked at her for a moment. This shows that Babette's gift had truly touched her to her heart.
The two characters have one common way to show that they are truly pleased with the other person and believe that they will please others forever. They use the quote above. It shows how that they have faith that this person's gift is so exceptional that people will never get tired of it or not be pleased by it. Achille believes that the gift of singing that Phillipa has will please the angels because it is so pleasant. They even refer to her as an angel herself. Phillip uses the same line that Achille used on her to explain to Babette that her gift is so great that it will please the angels above.
Also, Dinesen uses a theme of being taken outside of yourself when treated to these two gifts. Achille talked about how he was not himself when he kissed Phillipa. He was so caught up in her heavenly singing that he did not remember experiencing it. The brothers and sister who experienced Babette's dinner had the same feeling after that ate her dinner. They could not remember what they had eaten. The did not remember the experience, but they knew that they were changed.
This, among other ways, is how Dinesen shows that and why others think that their gifts are so heavenly and will please the angels in heaven.

Work Cited
Dinesen, Isak, and Isak Dinesen. Anecdotes of Destiny ; And, Ehrengard. New York: Vintage, 1993. Print.

Angel of the Slums

The second half of The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht is a little more serious and teachy than the first half. But there was one thing that I found a little humorous. On page 57, Mr. Shu Fu states that Shen Te in known as the “Angel of the Slums.” I found this to be humorous because, just a few days ago, Shen Te was a prostitute that they looked down upon. And now they call her an angel. Now that she is giving them things and has cleaned up, she is an angel.
Before, they would not have taken time to get to know her. They would have had once glance at her and have made their judgment. It is ironic how the people of Setzuan consider her holy and congregate against Shui Ta to get her back, but only a little while ago. They had considered her dirt. The family that expected her to house them had, themselves, kicked her out when she had no where else to go. Now, the people were demanding so much of her. They thought her to be some saint.
The only person that calls her bad is the one person she puts above everyone else: Yang Sun. “And since you always do the wrong thing, it's lucky your cousins coming...”(66). It is crazy how the person that just received two hundred silver dollars from this girl says that she always does the wrong thing. If there is anything that she did wrong, it was falling this guy.
Although Yang Sun is the only person who seems to out and out show his lack of respect and appreciation for this “Angel of he Slums”, the other people of Setzuan seem to disrespect her and feel that they have some sort of entitlement to her charity. The family are the main ones. They are continuously rude to her. She gave them a little, and the nearly make her undone. The question that is risen (and that we discussed in class) is: Was it a bad thing for Shen Te to be so good to people? Shui Ta tells Yang Sun, “She is a human being, sir! And not devoid of common sense!”(56) The people seem to forget that she is a human being. She needs to provide for herself and her shop. She can only do so much. But they seem to not consider this and abuse her kindness. If she is an angel, shouldn't they all aim to please her, instead of disrespecting her?


Work Cited
Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1999. Print.

Woulda Guess That?

These days we, the youth, seem to think that the only way to make humor is to make someone fall or have an out-n-out joke. But we see in the play The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht. He uses a form of satire. Irony is the one that I found most repeatedly in the reading up to act 5. For example:
Policeman:(lyrically) We can't pay six months' rent, so what do we do? We marry money.
….
Policeman: Should she put an ad in the paper?(31)
Old Woman:(not eager to commit herself) Well, if she agrees –(31)
Policeman:I'll write it for her. You lend us a hand, and we write an ad for you!(31)
Shui Ta: (slowly) Not a bad idea.(31)
This passage seemed extremely amusing to me and quite ludicrous because these people are discussing a prostitute. They have just said that she did wrong because she used to sell herself for money. Now, these same people are putting an ad in the newspaper to see what the highest bid will be for her. With their plan, she will be selling the rest of her life.
Then along with that, this is a policeman, of all people, who conjure the plan of putting an ad in the paper. Policeman are supposed to be the epitome of justice, while this police officer is doing this deed.
This is not the only place where Brecht uses irony for humor, but this example stood out to me as the most hilarious.


Work Cited
Brecht, Bertolt, and Eric Bentley. The Good Woman of Setzuan. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1999. Print.

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. .

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. .

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. .

New Marriage

“Don't you know that I forbid my wife to leave the even if only to visit al-Husayn? How could you have given in to the temptation to take your wife to a bawdy show and stayed there with her until after midnight? You fool, you're propelling yourself and your wife into the abyss. What demon has hold of you?”(314).

In Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, marriage in Islam is a very big theme. For majority of the novel, Mahfouz in a way teaches us that marriage is not really a connection between a man and a wife, but a requirement of society. He shows us this with the relationship between Ahmad and Amina. We never see them be what we, Americans, think of as husband and wife. He treats her as a slave. At the start of the novel, it is shoved in the readers face that this is the status of wives in Islam. 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...” Mahfouz sets the tone of how a wife is treated this early in the novel.
For majority of the novel, one would believe that the marriage is not a good thing and that women would not be happy to be married. This would especially be thought when one sees the freedom and happiness of the women in the novel who are not married, such as Amina's mother and Zanuba. In JNV's blog about divorce, we see the different ways that men feels about marriage and the way women feel about marriage. But after Aisha gets married, we, the readers, are exposed a different feeling towards marriage. In chapter 43, we see that Aisha and her husband seem very happy about marriage. It seems as if as if Aisha has freedom even though she is married. She tells her mother of the story of how she was able to keep her kohl and dress, which she was not able to do before because she “wasn't a Shawkat”(290) then. This whole conversation with Aisha surprised me because I was under the assumption that marriages in Islam was not a happy union, besides of the social standard. In Islam, the marriage is supposed to have patience, kindness, etc.(Huda)
Besides Aisha's marriage, we see that Yasin has a happy marriage at first. He adores his wife and she satisfies him. They seem to have a very peachy relationship until Yasin comes to the point that he is bored with marriage. This explains a lot about the feelings towards marriage in Islam. This may explain Ahmad's feeling towards marriage as well.
Ahmad's and Yasin's views towards marriage seem to be very similar. They both cheat on their wives with musicians, who they believe are more exciting than their own wives. This is because they can't hold out on then and disobey them, whereas these other women can because they are not their wives. They appreciate the spontaneity of these women, but they would beat their wives if they even proposed spontaneity. In the passage, Ahmad advises Yasin on what he is doing wrong with his wife. He also advises him to beat her. Thus, the reason that Yasin's marriage may be so similar to Ahmad's, besides they both have “very sensual” desires, is because Ahmad is advising him. Also, Yasin himself admires Ahmad and the way he lives his life.
I wonder if the way Yasin and Ahmad treat women and view marriage is common around Egypt or are their views specific to them? Do most Egyptian families have a relationship like Amina and Ahmad or Aisha and her husband?




Work Cited
1.Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
2.Huda. "Islamic Marriage - Married Life in Islam." About.com Islam. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. .
3.JNV. "Divorce." Digging Even Deeper. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. .

What Makes a Man

“'You're the oldest brother. In addition to that, you're an employee-- in other words, you're really a man. You're the best one suited for this mission.”... “I, for my part, am no longer a boy. I have become a man and an employee, as you pointed out.”... “Fahmy...you're our man!”(215)

As I read this passage in Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, I though what is it that qualifies a male person in the Muslim culture to become a man. If Yasin and Fahmy are men, what qualifies them to be considered this? I thought maybe Khadija tells them that they are the men for the job because she just want to butter them up to it. But we see that she does not seriously call Kamal a man, and earlier in the novel, Yasin considers himself a boy when he asks his mother did all the deeds that he considered appalling. Thus, I questioned at what point will Kamal be considered a man in their culture and at what point did Yasin become a man from the naiive boy that he was. Is there a rite a passage in the Muslim culture?
After doing some research, I was given the answer that there is no ritual in the Muslim culture as a rite of passage. This means that there is not actual physical ceremony that a young man has to go through in order for him to officially be a man. But I did find out that in the Muslim culture there are different religious expectations of a boy than a man. As a child, boys are not required to pray and commit to all the five pillars. This is because it is felt that they really don't understand what they are saying. They would just be speaking words and doing actions that they were told to do.(Erfani) Children in the Islamic religion start getting taught to read at the age of five. As they grow into teenagers, they are expected to become a more devout Muslim.(Ahmad)
Although this seemed like it applied in the book, especially with Kamal having that class that taught him about the Quran, there seemed like there was much more in the book to being a man. There is an emphasis on being employed, as mentioned in the passage, and having finished your schooling. This sort of right of passage seemed more practical than religious because it seems that one has to be considered a responsible adult with their life planned out. If this is the case, then Fahmy may not be as much of a man as Yasin because he is not employed, but he is still going to school. But he is well on his way because he is finishing up in law school.
There is not that much of a difference in the transition from childhood to manhood in the book and in the culture that we are used to. You are a man when you are considered a responsible and respectable adult. But in the Muslim culture it is a little bit more because you are expected to be a dedicated Muslim, which is part of being respectable since the religion is such a big part in the culture.


References
1. Erfani, Ali. "Muslim rituals marking the transition from childhood to adulthood - by Ali Erfani - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. .

2. Ahmad, Zainib. "Muslim rituals marking the transition from childhood to adulthood - by Zainib Ahmad - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. .

Self-Control

“They were still for a time, looking at each other, united by a single thought, knowing instinctively that they understood each other perfectly. It was not hard for them to read each other's thoughts. Then Fahmy expressed what was preoccupying them: “Now we need to think about who ought to raise the topic with him....”(123).

When I read this passage from Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, I thought this instinctive understanding was there because of the mother/son relationship. The understanding through the silence was because of the fear that the father, Ahmad, had instilled in the son and his wife. It was part of the secret alliance that the family had that did not include their father. They had a common feeling against their father so they automatic fear and resistance.
But as I thought about this quote, “read each other's thoughts”(123) I was reminded of all the other times this phenomenon is referred to in the novel, namely, when Yasin visited his mother and when Fahmy was speaking with his mother, Amina, about his marriage arrangement. After making this discovery, I realized that these types of connections are common throughout this section and among the characters in the book.
The question is raised, “Why is it so important for them to have this relationship where they can communicate without speaking? Why did Mahfouz put it in this novel?”
They need these types of connections because their cultures frowns upon a woman or a man openly communicating their inner emotions obnoxiously. The novel shows that self-control is very well looked upon in their culture. In chapter 21, the narrator tells us, the readers, that, “Only Fahmy was exemplary in his self control”(131) and “Fahmy was known for his self-control”(131). His father and his offspring, besides Fahmy, were prone to exploding. Mahfouz often says that certain characters almost “lost themselves” while becoming angry or excited in their conversation. He is saying that they were about to lose control of themselves. They have to stop themselves because, in their culture, one can't have outburst that show that one cannot control their behavior and conduct. With the conversation between Yasin and his mother, we see that Yasin has to deliberate in his mind what he will say before he actually says it. This shows that he is at least attempting to have self control. The characters have all sorts of wild thoughts, but they can't express them all, especially the women. When Yasin's mother becomes distraught because of the words that Yasin say to her, she cannot scream at him and force him out of her house. She softly expresses her feelings towards Yasin.
This passage, as well as many other excerpts from the novel show that self-control is expected among the members of the culture in this novel.

Knowing Family

“Perhaps it was the way his mother spoke about her husband that put him in such awe of him. He could not imagine that any other man in the world could equal al-Sayyid-Ahmad's power, dignity, or wealth. As for love, everyone in the household loved the man to the point of worship. Kamal's small heart absorbed its love for him from this environment, but that love remained a hidden jewel, locked up inside him by fear and terror”(50).

In Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, the way Ahmad, the father of the main family of the book, treats his family continuously comes up. The level of disrespect that he gives his family, his wife especially, is immense. One finds it especially disturbing after reading the passage quoted above.
Ahmad has the gift of a successful family that loves him, but because he can he chooses to act the way he pleases. He disregards the effects that it will have on his family. His daughters will think that it is alright for their husband to treat them like that. His sons may treat women the same way.
It does not seem that that is so with the way the boys and girls are betrayed in the book. Fahmy adores women and respects his sisters. Kamal loves being around the women of the house and is highly influenced by the feelings that they have. The passage tells us that Kamal probably loves his father because he is influenced by the love that his mother has for Ahmad. Khadija does not let her brothers disrespect her even though they are men. We, the readers, don't know too much about how Aisha feels about men, besides that she is flattered by one. All of these examples show that Ahmad may not be having a negative effect on how his children think of the opposite sex. So the problem may not be the effect he has on them. The problem may be that he is not having an effect on them.
This passage tells us that Kamal's love for his father is “locked up” and “hidden.” This is the exact problem. He is not really being involved in the lives of his children because they have shut him out due to fear. While at the breakfast table, the children do not discuss anything with their father because they are afraid to speak around him. They developed a life that excluded him from any fun that they had. They would become a different person while he was around. Thus, he does not know who his children really are. 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. Because Ahmad continues to treat his family with disrespect, they continue to exclude him from truths about certain family members. Ahmad probably does not know how his daughters act because they are never around him. When they are in his presence, they are not allowed to express themselves. Because of Ahmad's actions, he has become, unbenounced to him, the ostracized one in the family. The family has a life and each member has a distinct and specific personality. He does not know the difference between their personalities, besides that Kamal likes to play around. The family has an alliance against him in a way. They don't tell their father about how each other really acts and they don't do anything to let them know their true characters. Ahmad seems to not care about the true characters of his family as long as they don't disgrace his name.
It is a pity that Ahmad is excluded from the real life of his family. He won't know what kind of person has been growing up in his house. He does little to raise them besides instilling fear in them so that they won't disrespect him or be comfortable around him. He wants them to be good citizens and not stick out in society. But he seems to not care about their characters.