Skip to main content

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 past and vengeance that he continues to display throughout the story up until his death.This is also the revelation of Said’s hamartia – his fatal flaw, by Mahfouz, which would be his ‘raison d’etre’ becoming vengeance on those whom he feels betrayed him – leading him on an inescapable path that ends with his death.

           The thought process that Mahfouz writes for Said displays much of this hamartia and irrationality. Said genuinely cannot decide whether or not Ilish is the most treacherous of the pair – even though it could be argued that Ilish has had by far the most negative effect on Said’s life (getting him jailed, being romantically involved with his wife, and as a result of the betrayal, responsible for Sana not remembering him). The irratic thought process that Said displays is also emphasised with the use of italics to connote a stream of conscious passage: italics are less ‘solid’ than normal font, therefore the reader associates the stream of consciousness parts with less stability – which matches Said’s own instable and irratic thought process.


           The use of stream of consciousness by Mahfouz draws the reader’s attention to the aspects of Said that could be considered as ‘tragic hero traits’, such as Said’s hamartia, the seeds of his downfall, and his instability. He also reveals and thus characterises the traits of other characters in these passages.

Comments

  1. Cathy8 February 2018 at 13:47

    Victor's computer won't allow to post comments; his 'killer sentence' is

    "This is also the revelation of Said’s hamartia – his fatal flaw, by Mahfouz, which would be his ‘raison d’etre’ becoming vengeance on those whom he feels betrayed him – leading him on an inescapable path that ends with his death."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cathy8 February 2018 at 13:50

    "The thought process that Mahfouz writes for Said displays much of this hamartia and irrationality. "
    can be modified to: "Mahfouz allows the readers to view the stream of consciousness of Said as it acts to characterize Said to become more dimensional character as it illustrates harmatia such as his irrational ideas and decisions."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is Water and Alice Munro Short Stories

Alice Munro’s short stories are usually about women and families from a suburban and or rural setting. She discusses topics such as gender roles and interpersonal relationships, usually from a woman’s perspective. What David Foster Wallace’s theory on education can do with this, is that it allows us, the reader, to adjust our perspective, to be sympathetic to the characters. Although I personally am not a girl growing up in a post-WWII Canadian small town, I can still relate to or at least empathise with the characters and their emotions that Munro has created. In Munro’s stories, her characters tend to have personal flaws or defy the tradition character ideals, for example the narrator in “Boys and Girls”, despite her desire to keep her role helping her father and dislike of the role women are designated for in her family, she ends up subconsciously transforming, until she starts to fit the mould of what her family and society says a woman should be. While we, the audience, may expec
4 comments
Read more

Ibo Background Assessment

Note: Written from a non-Ibo person perspective, however the person has knowledge of what the Ibo culture is and what their achievements are and is speaking on behalf of it at the Royal Colonial Institute’s annual dinner. Set in the Late Victorian era, as the assignment suggests. Words in-between this: [ ], are explanations of phrases, and would not be said in the actual speech.             Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Royal Colonial Institute. As you all know, this is a time of great change in this world. In the span of 100 years we’ve gone from walking on foot and horseback, to being able to get to Edinburgh from London in only 8½ hours whilst sitting, in relative comfort. Despite losing America a century ago, the British Empire has grown immensely since then, acquiring massive territories in Africa. Truly, the Sun never sets on the British Empire. But despite your dominance and hegemony over the world, the human cost of the colonies that form your overseas empire has be
3 comments
Read more

Podcast Assignment

In class we had to do a podcast about an endangered language. My group, Lingo-radio, featuring Azim, Seo Jung, and myself, did a podcast on Romansch, one of the four official languages of Switzerland. We went for a conversational/natural type of podcast, and based our dialogue on bullet-points, rather than a strict script. Here is the file:
2 comments
Read more