A father's Influence

Lauren F. Clemons


Yasin is the son of Ahmad and his first wife, whom both Ahmad and Yasin aren't very fond of. The strained relationship between Yasin's mother and Ahmad began when they were first married and she proved to be a woman who was a little too free for his liking. He divorced her with the intent of getting back together with her later on, but she only wanted to come back if he would promise not to beat her (107). He grew so angry with her for not crawling back to him that he finalized their divorce and never looked back. Years later, Ahmad still grows angry just by hearing the mentioning of his first wife (106) which to me is strange because they've been separate for eleven years now. What could possibly still be the problem with Ahamd and his first wife.

Ahmad's a very arrogant man, who believes that women should just flock to him, no questions asked. He expected nothing less from his first wife, and made sure of that in their marriage. When he decided to divorce her, he only had the intent of carrying it out for a little while, but things didn't go as planned. He believed that she should come crawling back to him carrying no stipulations are conditions. When she did, he grew embarrassed. He thought he was high, mighty and powerful enough to get her back without having to work on himself. When he didn't get his way, he left her alone without even being able to keep a relationship with her son. To do this, just because she only agreed to come back if he wouldn't hit her strikes me as odd. If he really cared about her, then simply agreeing to keep his hands off her shouldn't have been an issue. But with Ahmad, being married is not for happiness, but it's because he wants to be a man. He wants to only allow his wife certain freedoms, and make sure she understands that he's the man. He couldn't allow her to come back into his house if she even thought she could tell him what to do. So he ran off simply because he coudn't have his way.

The passage that made me realize this about Ahmad is on page 106, when Mahfouz writes about Ahmad's anger he still has inside. The sheer embarrassment he felt could still be seen eleven years later. This passage is also when we begin to see how Ahmad's feelings about his first wife have rubbed off on his son. On page 107, Mahfouz writes, “The woman was at least forty, and Yasin was fully grown and aware of his ability to defend his honor from harm and humiliation,”. His mother's remarriage probably isn't necessarily an extremely controversial issue at this time since he also says a little before that sentence that this marriage is one of her more honorable mistakes. Mahfouz states that Yasin simply believes “this anticipated marriage seemed more outrageous than the previous ones and more calculated to cause pain” (107). He sincerely believes, like his father, that she's doing these things to dishonor them and embarrass them. Ahmad's beliefs have influenced Yasin to a point where he doesn't even seem to care at all about his mother. When he goes to visit her, he can't even morsel up any small act of love to show to her.