Said Mahran Passage Analysis

Passage:

_And then your mother died. You almost died yourself during your mother's illness, as Rauf Ilwan must surely remember, from that unforgettable day when she had hemorrhaged and you had rushed her to the nearest hospital, the Sabir hospital, standing like a castle amidst beautiful grounds, where you found yourself and your mother in a reception hall at an entrance more luxurious than anything you could ever have imagined possible. The entire place seemed forbidding, even hostile, but you were in the direst need of help, immediate help._

_As the famous doctor was coming out of a room, they mentioned his name and you raced towards him in your gallabeya and sandals, shouting, "My mother! The blood!"_ _The man had fixed you in a glassy, disapproving stare and had glanced where your mother was lying, stretched out in her filthy dress on a soft couch, a foreign nurse standing nearby, observing the scene. Then the doctor had simply disappeared, saying nothing. The nurse jabbered something in a language you did not understand, though you sensed she was expressing sympathy for your tragedy. At that point, for all your youth, you flew into a real adult's rage, screaming and cursing in protest, smashing a chair to the floor with a crash, so the veneer wood on its back broke to pieces. A horde of servants had appeared and you'd soon found yourself and your mother alone in the tree-lined road outside. A month later your mother had died in Kasr al-Aini hospital._

All the time she lay close to death she never released your hand, refusing to take her eyes off you. It was during that long month of illness, however, that you stole for the first time--from the country boy resident in the hostel, who'd accused you without any investigation and was beating you vigorously when Rauf Ilwan turned up and freed you, settling the matter without any further complications. You were a true human being then, Rauf, and you were my teacher too._

Analysis:

This passage extracted from chapter 11 of the novel The Thief and the Dogs is important as it can be used to analyze specific traits of Said that we don’t see often in other instances within the novel. Moreover, it also shows Said’s view towards Rauf Ilwan before being betrayed. This allows us to understand Said’s new attitude and justifies his hate for Rauf.

First of all we can notice Said’s love for his mother, a feeling which he does not have towards many others in the novel. He is presented as trying his best to convince the doctors to help his mother despite their hostility and “disapproving stare[s]”. Throughout the novel we can see that Said demonstrates this kind of love only towards Sana, and only very late in the novel towards Nur, being worried when she disappears without a trace. We can notice that Said tends to do anything in order to help those whom he loves. He argues with the doctors when he is trying to save his mother, he tries to get revenge from Nabawiyya and Ilish yet he is constantly thinking about the life of Sana if both of them would be killed, but he is tempted to take that risk for her better good. Similarly, when Nur disappears he goes looking for her despite having the police looking for him.

A common theme within the novel can be the one of deceiving appearances, and this can be noticed as well within this passage, when Said describes the “famous doctor” who in the end turns out not doing anything for his mother, and just leaving her to die. Moreover, the hospital is presented as “forbidding, even hostile, but [he was] in the direst need of help, immediate help”, an idea that persists throughout the novel, Said needing help but finding the person he considers “the most important thing [he has] in this insecure world”, Rauf, hostile. The author could be using this idea to make a link to the context of the novel, emphasizing his confusion about the new government through Said’s confusion about Rauf’s change of principles.  Therefore we can see that Rauf who is presented here as extremely involved and helpful towards Said, is in fact symbolic for the government who has changed after the revolution. After Said’s betrayal, Rauf becomes as mentioned extremely hostile and denies his initial principles and his role in Said’s life, being his “teacher”, being “a true human being”. This is in fact what Said is most angered by in what regards the character of Rauf. He is now considering him a dog and wishes to kill him as a result of his betrayal and drastic change in attitude. By presenting Rauf this way, Mahfuz makes the reader empathize with Said and as a result, his aggressive behavior and attempt to murder Rauf are to some extent justified in from of us, the readers.

The Thief and the Dogs - Narration

Over the course of time, literature has changed, or perhaps it could be said that it has adapted to our lives, authors trying to find new ways to effectively explore the main issues and aspects regarding human experience. 

One example can be seen in the perspective adopted by different novels. While literature works from the Victorian era tend to emphasize different elements surrounding individuals such as religion or society as a whole, modern literature focuses more on the importance of human experience, the individual being ‘explored’ in more detail. This idea can be exemplified by looking at two pieces of literature, The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz (1961) and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958). 

Although published only 3 years apart, we can notice significant differences in terms of the way the story and plot are approached by the two authors as a result of the different aims or purposes. In The Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz makes use of both third person narration but also stream of consciousness through the protagonist’s internal monologues and soliloquies. This is an important aspect conferring the novel its complexity. Through the use of these techniques, Mahfouz is able to explore the character of Said Mahran in great detail during one important period of his life. One example of this could be found even from the first chapter of the book, the narrator switching between third person narration used for describing Said’s surroundings and stream of consciousness which allows us to understand Said’s as a person along with his life story. Third person narration is used when the author mentions that “once more he breathed the air of freedom” telling us that Said was finally out of prison and that “there was stifling dust in the air” which describes as mentioned Said’s surroundings. A switch to direct internal monologue can then be noticed, which signals the use of stream of consciousness, when Said starts thinking about “Nabawyiyya. Ilish. [Their] two names [merging] in [his] mind”. Furthermore, this direct monologue is combined with indirect monologue where the author describes his other thoughts, Said thinking whether luck will “give him some decent place to live, where such love could be equally shared”. Here Said’s thoughts seem to be overlapping, half of him thinking about his home and half thinking about revenge on his enemies. This highlights the author’s purpose of presenting Said as confused which is important since we know that the purpose of the author was to present his own confusion relating to the changing Egyptian society after the revolution through the character of Said. 

Another important instant when the author makes use of the stream of consciousness is the beginning of chapter four, when Said thinks about Rauf Ilwan. The use of this technique here is helpful in understanding both Said’s character, again seeing that the novel is focused on the individual an therefore being an example of modern literature, but also to portray Said’s past as seen through his own perspective. Here it is possible to notice one limitation of the technique as we are being presented only one version of the story, the one of Said, which might as well be biased. Moreover, despite the possible bias, this passage does help as well in characterizing Rauf Ilwan through his actions or at least the way they are presented by Said. For example he is presented as “[trying] to deceive others” and it is mentioned that he has betrayed Said. 

Lastly, another important moment in the novel could be considered Said’s days in Nur’s house. Here, Mahfouz begins to portray Said as slowly losing control over his life, the silence and darkness slowly driving him insane.  In chapter fifteen, the stream of consciousness is used with the id of soliloquy, Said starting to imagine a conversation with the judges, saying that “whoever kills me will be killing the millions. I am the hope, and the dream, the redemption of cowards”.  Apart from the characterization of Said simply though his act of speaking to the walls as if they were judges, we can also see his own perception of himself, his self confidence and appreciation. We have also witnessed this in the previous chapters of the book when he describes himself as a great shooter, saying that his shots never miss. 

Overall, it is possible to see that the author’s use of stream of consciousness throughout the novel is very useful in terms of portraying in detail the elements of the protagonist’s life, including his past and present decisions. 

On the other hand, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe seems to be a novel that shares elements of modern literature and literature from the Victorian era. The reason is that the novel is revolving around the life of one character, Okonkwo, yet overall it seems that he is sometimes only a tool used by Achebe for portraying more important elements in the novel such as the Igbo culture, including their religion, values and beliefs and therefore the focus not being predominantly one individual’s experience. 

From the point of view of narration, Things Fall Apart is written using third person narration, having an omniscient narrator. This eliminates any suspicion of the events being presented in a biased manner, whereas this question could always be asked when talking about stream of consciousness in Said’s case. 

Within a novel, characterization plays an important role as it helps us understand not only the characters but the story as a whole. While looking at the description of characters in both novels we can distinguish both similarities and differences that arise as a result of the different techniques of narration used, this again highlighting the difference between a more modern novel and one that is sharing characteristics of the novels from the Victorian era.  If in The Thief and the Dogs we could see that characterization was made mostly through character’s actions along with Said’s description of characters within his monologues, in Things Fall Apart the characterizations are mostly realized by the narrator. Yet, a similarity can be found as well here because the characterization in Things Fall Apart can also be made by using character’s actions. 

Overall, we can see how the narrative style can vary from one novel to another depending on the goal that the author has in mind. While the Thief and the Dogs is a novel whose aim seems to be focusing on an individual and one moment in his life, Things Fall Apart is a novel that focuses more on an individual’s culture, presenting his entire life and development in the process.

Literature in Translation

Hi, 

Today I am going to talk about pieces of literature that are being translated from one language to another as well as the positive and negative impacts that translation can have on the work. 

First of all, why would someone wish to translate a piece of literature? What could possibly be the benefits of this? 

Learning a language can be difficult, but reading and understanding literature in an unknown language is impossible. Here is where a translation is always welcomed. By translating a piece of literature, the translator makes it possible for us, the readers to understand its message and its author’s emotions. Consequently, by studying literature in translation we are indirectly studying and understanding more about the author’s culture through the ideas that are presented and the way this is achieved. I would personally classify this as a positive aspect of translating literature as it is a big step towards international mindedness. 

Translation is a useful tool that unlocks the mysteries of a multicultural world, yet it is also a difficult art. When translating a piece of literature it is important to consider both the context in which the original text was written and the one in which the translated text will be published and so, the translator is required to be able to interpret the intended meaning of the original text and transpose it in such a way that the overall message does not get altered and lost in translation. An article published by India Today, presents the story of Feng Tang, a known Chinese author facing great difficulties in his career as a result of one of his works, and that is a translation of 326 Indian poems. Due to the difficulty present in translation, it seems that Feng Tang has failed in the eyes of some elder scholars in producing an accurate representation of the poems, by being to ‘vulgar’. Here it is possible to see how especially in the case of poems, translation is challenging as a result of the different interpretations that people can have in what regards a stanza, a metaphor, or even one single line of a poem. 

Therefore, translation can be seen as a way of successfully spreading the knowledge and values of a culture to different nations, emphasizing the beauty of literature, but it can also have a negative impact if done incorrectly, affecting the image of the work as a whole and potentially the one of the culture it belongs to.

Deception is Just as Bad as telling an Outright Lie

               I personally agree with this statement and the reason behind it is that sometimes there is not such a big difference between the way we would define deceiving someone or lying to someone. Deceiving would be considered convincing one of something that is not true, which is in the end lying, the only observable difference here being the premeditation or purpose behind a deceiving attempt. It is true that lying could have the same result overall yet it would lack the previously mentioned premeditation.

                Taking for example a documentary about the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMsK4F5VOsE) we can notice examples of deception which was applied and lead to a result which was the same as if an outright lie was told. One of the aspects that stood out for me was the difference between American media and Al Jazeera, and especially their views. The senior producer of Al Jazeera, Samir Khader, mentioned that people should be informed of exactly what is happening, “there is a war around you, something is happening in the world; you’re still sleeping; wake up!”. During the interview at the Military Centre, the military mentioned how Saddam Hussein has supposedly threatened the Americans with weapons of mass destruction, statement which is later discarded by the military when more questions on the topic are asked by the interviewer, by saying “I misunderstood your question”. This signals the deception of people at the time. They were deceived into believing that Saddam Hussein was threatening the USA, which was the reason for the attacks. Linked to this comes also the transmissions in which Americans mentioned that the casualties were limited, yet it was in contradiction with the images published by Al Jazeera. Overall, the American media as stated by Samir Khader was promoting the idea of people from both the USA and Iraq being under threat. This could be developed into a perception of safety provided by the action of military forces in Iraq, again deceiving the Americans. Journalist for Al Jazeera, Hassan Ibrahim, mentioned that he had faith in the American public that they were going to understand what is going on and stop the war, yet as we can see, the deception here was something that was in the way of this happening, showing again how deception can be as bad as a lie.

Al Jazeera was also initially accused of being biased, showing only footage of American troops and not of Iraqi troops and their negative actions, yet in defense, Al Jazeera journalists mentioned that there is no one that has that kind of footage, showing that overall every media, including themselves, can be biased in what type of information they present and what they leave aside, and this contributes to the deception of the population.

Pastiche

http://reagancoalition.com/articles/2016/trump-releases-his-plan-for-2nd-amendment-leaves-millions-furious.html

Rationale:
This article shows bias towards the matter of gun control laws in America, overall highlighting the republican ideology supporting weapon carrying. The pastiche is re-written as to display a bias emphasizing a democrat ideology, opposing weapon carrying.  

 Pastiche:

Billionaire businessman and presidential candidate Donald Trump always speaks in vague generalities and does not offer specifics about where he stands on the issues.

There is however one exception and that is his stance on gun rights and the Second Amendment, as Trump just released his official policy position on his campaign website.

“The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period,” the position paper began.Trump went on attempting to convince people of how the government should not be able to take away this right since it has not been created by the government in the first place and nor can it be taken away by it. Describing the Second Amendment as “America’s first freedom,” Trump, used the argument that it helps protect the entirety of rights we currently have.

Instead of adding new gun control laws, Trump proposed tougher enforcement of laws that are already on the books which are supposedly going to protect and defend that right.

Moreover, instead of reducing the probability of gun attacks taking place by limiting the access to guns, Trump relies on the reduction in these attacks by sentencing gun criminals to mandatory minimum five-year sentences in federal prison, noting that crime rates are supposedly going to fall dramatically when criminals are taken off the streets for lengthy periods of time.

Trump also proposed strengthening and expanding laws allowing law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves from criminals using their own guns, without fear of repercussion from the government.

Nevertheless, Trump blames the recent shootings on clear mental problems that should have been addressed, and proposes fixing our nation’s broken mental health system by increasing treatment opportunities for the non-violent mentally ill, but removing from the streets those people who pose a danger to themselves and others, overall refusing the idea of gun and magazine bans which are deemed by him as being ineffective.

Not only are these bans not going to be established but Trump proposed as well a national right to carry, a national concealed carry reciprocity law that would compel states to recognize the concealed carry permits of any other state, as if the right to carry a gun would be equal to the right of holding a driver’s license which would be accepted by all states.

"Daddy" IOC Practice

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxrQRPaIaVGlbnVOY0RNUk55MGM

Outline IOC Coriolanus

 

 

Context:

-          Passage selected from Act 1, Scene 3

-          Previous to the passage, Marcius is sent to war in Corioli where his victory brings him the name of Coriolanus. After the passage Coriolanus returns to Rome and he is suggested as consul.

 Overview and Structure:

-          The passage presents the conversation between Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother and Virgilia, his wife after Coriolanus leaves for war.

-          The passage is organized in such a way so that it allows us to see the views and concerns of both characters, yet in much more detail for Volumnia rather than Virgilia.

 Purpose/Significance:

-          The significance of the passages is given by the dialogue itself because it allows for Volumnia to be indirectly characterized through her speech.

-          This also helps the readers understand Coriolanus’ attitude and beliefs, since he is so easily influenced by his mother.

-          The passage mostly builds up the plot of the play, foreshadowing the further misunderstandings between Coriolanus and the plebeians due to his attitude.

 

Approach: Sequentially