English

Passage: First stream-of-consciousness in chapter 4            This passage shows the reader what Said Mahran now thinks of his old mentor figure, Rauf Ilwan. In the previous chapter, Rauf, though cordial in his demeanor to Mahran, rejects his wish to work as a journalist at his newspaper – due to Mahran’s lack of qualifications, but gives him some money, and states that “No job is menial, as long as it is honest”.            In the passage, Said concludes that Rauf as evolved into someone else and has abandoned and/or betrayed his ideals. As characteristic of stream of consciousness, this passage operates non-chronologically, beginning with Mahran’s thoughts on the ‘new Rauf’, and going through his thought process that brings him to remember how he was betrayed by Ilish, and ranks them similarly in terms of how he feels they have betrayed him. The hatred expressed by Said in lines such as “I don’t know which of you is the most treacherous”, characterises the fixation on the p

            In the highly diverse and global world we live in today, it is inevitable to come across a translated work. We see it in media and entertainment, anime being an example, for instance; communication in general requires it, as our world is becoming ever more connected – world leaders, business people, journalism; translation has touched all areas of society. Despite the existence of Google Translate, works use– at least the professionally licensed ones – human translators, because translation is not something that can just be quantified, there is no singular right answer or approach to translating a work.             This problem is exacerbated once we get to historical texts which often uses different a different style of the same language and has a different cultural context. Consider the works of Shakespeare. Even native English speakers can have difficulty comprehending his works – though it is still the same language. Translating historical texts from other language