Sheikh Al Junaydi

One of the most overlooked characters throughout The Thief And The Dogs has been Sheikh Al Junaydi. Sheikh is the person who Said immediately goes to for spiritual purposes and he represents the complete opposite of what Said is. Sheikh's characteristics represent optimism and positive, if there is anyone who Said should be like or should try to emulate, he should look no further to the Sheikh as he represents the clean mindset and the harmless creature that Said Mahran should be like. Mahfouz integrates Sheikh in his novel in order to showcase a nice contrast between his personality and Said's personality with the Sheikh portraying the morally correct mindset one should have as he doesn't believe in taking revenge and striking back at others. As readers, we consistently see Said's action as being morally incorrect and envisioning Said as a person who really needs a mental intervention therefore with the way Sheikh is characterizes it adds a nice dimension to show living proof of what Said Mahran should be like. Sheikh offers Said food to eat and a roof to love under, he consistently aims to resuscitate Said and give Said a better understanding of what he has done than what Said even realizes himself. Sheikh is consistently looked upon highly throughout the story and is always looked at by Mahfouz as a possible “higher power” and Said’s superior as he is consistently a problem solver and one who always makes sure to help those around him. Sheikh is a rather flat character as there aren’t so many points in the story involving him nor is there any mentions of him having a darker side but the flat levels that Mahfouz uses to portray him are really able to showcase the good side of people throughout this story while provide another perspective on the behavior of a person with decent morals at the time of the Egyptian revolution.

The positive characterization of Sheikh really helps make the negative and greedy behavior of Said Mahran stand out. Said is desperately wanting to seek revenge and condemn the people who have done him wrong in the past and through showing the differences in the beliefs and ideologies of Said Mahran and Sheikh, Mahfouz really brings out the morally incorrect behavior of Said and lets the readers really dig into the wrong things that Said is focusing on. Said is continued to be characterized as vengeful and blinded into his own pride as he strongly believes what he is doing is correct and through using a very positive and intelligent character like Sheikh by integrating him in moments where he consistently helps out Said Mahran. Mahfouz enlarges the effect of what Said is doing even more and further helps the readers realize that he isn’t going to get anywhere with his attitude and will only get somewhere in life with a positive attitude like Sheikh’s. Sheikh’s positive attitude indirectly sheds more light on the negative characteristics of Said Mahran. Overall, the work of Mahfouz through contrasting 2 different people help in illustrate the theme of revenge throughout the story. Sheikh is highly against revenge and we see throughout the book that he persistently reminds Said about not taking revenge and moving on with life. Said however with his ignorant ego completely cuts off Said’s words and he decides to continue to try to take revenge which in the end leads to his ultimate downfall as he dies at the end of the story. Mahfouz tackles the revenge theme to portray Said as a tragic hero and uses Sheikh as a key piece in the novel to showcase the peaks and troughs of the story while help show the journey of Said Mahran from his release from jail to his death.  Sheikh helps assist Said’s ignorance which is one of the main reasons why he dies in the end.

Thesis Statement

Mahfouz uses the stream of consciousness technique through the main character Said in order to create an open ended ideology on various values and themes, primarily betrayal

Said as a tragic hero

Said's hamartia/flaw is being unable to let go of the past. He holds grudges towards people which is proven through his hatred for Illish. Said is out there for revenge and his inability to let go of the bad things that have happened in his past are what make him a flawed character. His belief in getting back at people is what drives his character's journey throughout the story and eventually proves to doom him as he dies at the end.

Said has excessive pride through being overconfident in his beliefs of getting back at Illish and through his hatred for Illish and Nabawiyya. Said is very stuck up with what he is doing and he believes what he is doing is morally correct even though ideally he should be focusing on a new life rather than bursting back into his past for revenge. His excessive pride takes a big toll on him as he dies in the end primarily due to his ignorance of finding the solution to the problem he was having.

The biggest turning point in the story is when Said sees his daughter Sana but only to be rejected by her with Sana disapproving of what Said is doing. Said had waited for a long time to see Sana with her meaning almost everything to him but the rejection further stimulates Said's desire to strike back at Illish, which turns out to be the wrong thing to do. Losing Sana meant that Said truly lost a huge part of himself. His realizations do occur when he tries to murder Illish. He starts to realize the new identity and the bad things he has done when trying to murder Illish which cause Said to realize how far he has fallen in his life.

His decline was deserved and his demise was definitely bound to happen due to his ignorance. He knew that murder attempts can definitely go wrong and put him in more trouble in his life. He understood the consequences of his vengeful personality but he stuck to those negative characteristics which resulted in a death that was brought upon himself.
 

Stream of Consciousness

Throughout his acclaimed novel The Thief and the Dogs, Naguib Mahfouz consistently utilizes the stream of consciousness technique. This technique is used to illustrate the various thoughts and feelings going through a particular character's mind. This provides a really detailed description on the character's thought process internally and able to contrast it with the way the character behaves externally and how he carries himself in real life. In the Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz constantly reverts between first person and third person which helps in revealing to the readers how the protagonist of the novel Said feels about many different things throughout the story which helps us the readers with delving deeper into his emotions and beliefs. The novel is based on true events so it helps Mahfouz in integrating his own personal interpretation and beliefs on the revolution itself.

The stream of consciousness technique makes the novel follow a non linear plot which adds a realistic touch to the novel as a whole. When recalling memories, we are barely ever able to remember them sequentially and moment by moment in the right order, we remember them in a random order with moments being split up in our head randomly and coming back to us from time to time. Said barely recalls the memories in a linear order. This manner of non linear memories keeps the reader right there with Said since it is very realistic to remember things like how Said does and it does add a little bit of the element of surprise because it intrigues us in seeing Said put all the pieces together when recalling specific events. 

Mahfouz uses a lot of interior monologues in order for the readers to understand the struggles Said is going through. The use of the flashbacks and the technique help in shaping Said's perspective towards several other characters in the story. It can clearly be inferred from the technique and circumstances that Said does dislike Ilish and Nabawiyya. This helps demonstrate with  the narrative structure how Said is a rather emotional character despite being an expert thief. This adds to helping we the readers in being able to sympathize with Said and see him in a different light despite our initial reactions of not being able to sympathize with him due to his endeavours as a burglar. Throughout the story, the flashback involve interactions with many other characters which helps us understand the revolving people around Said's life and be able to see clearly on what sorrounds the main centerpiece of the novel.

There are several advantages in using the stream of consciousness technique. We can get a new viewpoint on many characters and see them in a different light, be able to relate to the flashbacks and the non linear nature of the stream technique and the context of the novel since it helps us learn more on the conditions of Egypt at thet very time.

Value of Studying Literature in Translation

When looking at books or plays that have been dubbed into another language, it may look like it was a piece of cake to translate something from one language to another...but actually it isn't.

Each language has it's own certain words, expressions, metaphors and meanings which are difficult to translate or gauge its true meaning in another language. There is a clear limitation as some words may be hard to translate so we are forced to subsitute in the closest possible meaning in order to make up for the lack of a visible match. Learning about a book which has been translated does help open doors into understanding different aspects on words and certain things that have a unique meaning.

A great part about studying a translated text is viewing something from a dofferent context and perspective such as viewing Thief and the Dogs from an Egyptian perspective and the revolution in Egypt helps shape our understanding better of the text and of the culture itself. A translated text helps see how the context can shape the writing ability of the author due to looking at the different circumstances the author was living in.

A link can be made to Lost in Translation where Feng Tang's work was translated into English and it appeared that 3 of the 326 poems were vulgar and inappropriate. This clearly shows the limitations on translating but also how understanding thse texts are shaped vis context due to the fact that many generations will view this in the weong light while others will not have a problem with the supposed vulgarity.

Paper 1 perfect

The following extract is a leaflet written by Norman Angell in 1914. The text expresses the desire of avoiding war and the idea of Enhland fighting with Russia in the war. Angell uses several literary devices along with the use of the underlying theme of pacifism to get his major ideas across to the British audience. The text was released in 1914 at a time when England was at the brink of war and had made a likely agreement with Russia. Normall Angell uses literary devices, logos and pathos in order to help convince his audience

The audience is clearly identified as the British people but more specifically people who don't have much of an understanding on the current state of England in their alignment in the war. This can be inferred from the line “What is Russia”, this clearly indicates that the author assumes the audience is unsure about the war and doesn’t really know what is happening. The author also possibly refers to unemployed people as it’s target audience since on the bottom of the leaflet, the author states “Get your local notables to hold meetings of protest against England”, this takes into effect that the author is trying to get some people to take action to stop England fighting with Russia and so unemployed people fit the bill as they do not work or do anything time consuming. The purpose is clearly to convince the audience that fighting for Russia is a bad in idea in the war. The main big writing on the bottom stating “Britain, Stand Clear!” clearly gives reference to the fact that Britain should back away from Russia and change its plans. The author’s main headline “Why Fight for Russia?” clearly refers to the main idea of the daunting possibility of England's position in the war. The author continues to use statistics such as 50 billion pounds spent in Crimea in a way to lure the audience from the likelihood of fighting with Russia.

The content is linked to the the history in World War as in this leaflet, the author Norman Angell talks about the prospects of a war coming up and what is the right ideology for Britain to have in this circumstance. “The greatest enemy of British ideas of liberty and justice”, this directly supports how Angell contrasts the 2 different perspectives of the 2 different nations heading into the war and how that should deter Britain from participating with Russia. “The most opposed to all which we value”, this line from Angell again refers to the different ideology and how that sets the table for the right thing that Britain should do. The theme is of pacifism as Norman portrays Britain in a positive light as he is British himself so there is bias for the British side. He portrays them as peaceful. “It is the Russian Government which has been shooting down workmen”, this is an indirect reference to the peacefulness Britain holds as the author aims to show that Britain is a rather safe nation while Russia clearly isn’t.

The author writes about Russia in a very critical tone. He clearly speaks in a very harsh manner about it using extreme words such as “greatest enemy” and “most opposed to all which we value”to indicate how bad Russia really is. The author then refers to what Russia actually is and what they are supposed to have in a degrading manner as he is trying to play down Russia and indicate the negative aspects of it in order to drive his purpose through. This sets a mood of the British people wanting to take action as the audience has convinced the audience well enough to do something about the frightening prospect of working with Russia. “Write your memeber that you will try and turn him out”, this takes into account the effect of quick action the author puts on the audience as he clearly sends a message to them to do something about this issue.

The author uses logos to convey his message across. “65 million civilised Germans, of our own race and blood”, the use of logos aims to create sympathy towards the audience as in context the author refers to Germans relationship with Russia to make the audience feel bad as the author indicates the closeness of the relationship by stating their own race and blood. The author brings up how Russia is the country in which “we spent 50 million pounds in Crimea”. This demonstrates how Britain did take action and help Russia out but they did not give back to Britain. Author uses pathos when calling Germans part of Britain’s own race and blood to help let the audience sympathize the connection between the 2 nations. The author uses anaphora as he states “Russia is” twice which helps give a great emphatic statement on what Russia truly is and makes the audience realize Russia’s true identity and what it is and what it is not. He always uses a rhetorical question in “Why fight for Russia?” which helps the audience recognize and think for a moment on why are they actually thinking of siding with Russia.

The author uses a large font in saying “Britain, Stand Clear” as a summarization of his main idea but also to get the big message across of staying away from fighting with Russia. The author uses very small font in the bottom in a very sneaky way to get people into taking action about fighting against Russia. The author uses a big font on the very top asking the audience “Why fight for Russia” this helps in emphasizing what the audience should actually do as fighting for Russia may not be the best thing. The author uses big font to strike out his message in a emphatic manner to his audience so that they get what he is truly talking about.

Overall the author uses ethos, pathos and varies his font size in a variety of ways to truly get his points across in convincing the audience on why they should not fight for Russia. The author is very critical and at times sneaky in helping convince the audience.

English propaganda post

I do believe and agree that the term propaganda tends to always refer to something that is negative. The definition of propaganda is information of a biased or misleading nature normally used to support a political view. Propaganda by meaning doesn't necessarily mean something negative as using it to help support a view that one thinks is great could be a positive outcome but when it's used in context, it tends to always refer to something negative. I think this because even though one side is politically supported in a good way, it always comes at the expense of the other party/country/side. A support of one side completely is an insult to the other side as in propaganda that the compliments and the favoritism of one party reveals to the audience that the other side doesn't do and is incapable of doing the things that side itself is doing. It is also negative as political rivalries tend to hold a lot of negative implications and I feel that it is always used to call out the other side for failing or not being able to do something.

I can link this to the documentary Control Room. In the documentary, Al Jazeera was biased in different ways as Iraqis said that they were more in favour of Americans while the Americans said that they were favouring Iraqis.The bias here was with Americans trying to convince the Iraqis how big of a threat Saddam was and another huge use of propaganda was the American official who said the pictures used by Al Jazeera were fake as Al Jazeera would find people and portray them in sadness. This links to the fact on how propaganda can be seen negatively as the bias from Al Jazeera held negative implications as they were providing people with false information by portraying Iraqis in a worse light.

This can also be traced to article by Jessica Lynch. Jessica Lynch was portrayed in the media as a success story and as a hero because of American soldiers being able to rescue her from an Iraqi capture and attack. She was portrayed as shot and then helped by American soldiers which thus results in propaganda being used in the media as a negative means of portrayal since they intended to make Iraqis look more like the "bad" nation. The Lynch story was then scrutinized later on as there was no proof of American soldiers taking Jessica Lynch to hospital and saving her life as doctors and medical workers denied that. There was a claim made that Americans were taking videos to show to the American public how they were on the road to saving Jessica Lynch but however there is so evidence proven that the American's theory of saving Lynch is true. The propaganda here clearly put Iraq under fire and created a lot of negative implications.