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Showing posts from February, 2018

Said Mahran Characterisation Blog Post

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