Paper 2 Outline: TATD and TFA

Pride can lead to failure and self-destruction or to accomplishment and self-fulfillment. Discuss the presentation of pride and its consequences in at least two of the works you have studied.

  Within the books Things Fall Apart and The Thief and the Dogs by Chinua Achebe and Naguib Mahfouz, respectively, pride, or hubris, within the protagonists lead to their own self-destruction and failure to reach their goals of power for Okonkwo and revenge for Said where they could not adapt to change when change had come to them within their village and their friends.

1) Mahfouz uses Said’s hubris to further show his mental deterioration as he tries to gain revenge his enemies.

Evidence:

- Chapter 7 when Said states that he is a murderer and can’t be caught until he is able to fulfill his revenge.

2) Okonkwo is fixated on his idea of being a male figure, without any attachments to more feminine aspects like love and affection, that he becomes a brutal and unforgiving figure in the village.

Evidence:

- When Okonkwo is advised to not join the men who were to kill Ikemefuna as he has cared for him. Instead, he denies such an attachment and kills Ikemefuna himself without remorse (until the remorse he is shown to feel later on in the book)

3) Said’s excessive pride only aims to feed his hamartia, which is his spitefulness, until he is unable to think or function without having his goal of murdering Ilish and Rauf in mind.

Evidence:

- When Nur begs Said to stop his killing spree and instead run away with her to a safe place to live out the rest of their lives, Said states that he must kill Rauf and Ilish who have wronged him

4) Okonkwo’s pride at being a powerful male figure in the village and being an avid follower of the rules stops him from being able to adapt to change when the British arrive in the village.

Evidence:

- Okonkwo refuses to allow the British to rule so he tries to stage an attack, only leading to his arrest and when the villagers refuse to stand with him against the British, he kills himself in his defeat.

Character Analysis TATD: Said

Passages (chapter 7):

  "Your turn will come, Nabawiyya. There's no escape from me. I'm the devil himself. I've granted you life, thanks to Sana, but I've enclosed you in a punishment greater than death; fear of death, the unrelenting terror. As long as I live you'll never enjoy the taste of peace.

  He came down Shari Muhammad Ali, in a stupor, without a thought to where he was going. Many people would now have a murderer on their minds. The murderer must hide. He must take care to avoid the rope and the gallows. You must never have the executioner asking what your last wish is, Said! Oh no. The government must be made to ask you this question, but on some better occasion!"

  The passages that are found at the end of chapter seven are extremely significant to Mahfouz’s story, The Thief and the Dogs, as it further characterizes Said, the protagonist, as a tragic hero as well as give insight into his mental deterioration evident throughout the story. The passages start with Said cursing Nabawiyya and stating that she is next in his line of enemies that need to be killed in the name of self-justice. He states “Your turn will come, Nabawiyya. There's no escape from me. I'm the devil himself. I've granted you life, thanks to Sana, but I've enclosed you in a punishment greater than death; fear of death, the unrelenting terror.” Here Said shows his fatal flaw, or hamartia, which is his unrelenting obsessiveness with revenge and his spiteful nature. Instead of being satisfied with, wha Said believed to be his murder of Ilish, he plans to still torture Nabawiyya, his ex-wife. He even uses a metaphor when stating that he is the devil, creating undertones of fear and discomfort in the reader as this mentally unstable man has now admitted that he is alike the very symbol used for evil and death, the devil, that relates to themes of torture and nightmarish hatred. This further shows Said’s mental deterioration as, instead of comparing himself to a warrior of justice as he was when he first began stealing, he now sees himself as a torturer. This extreme use of juxtaposition utilized by Mahfouz, therefore, characterizes Said as a mentally unstable and brutally violent tragic hero whose hamartia is fed by his seemingly never-ending supply of hubris. Another part of these passages that also show Said’s mental deterioration is when he addresses himself in the third-person as ‘The murderer’. He states in the story, “He came down Shari Muhammad Ali, in a stupor, without a thought to where he was going. Many people would now have a murderer on their minds. The murderer must hide. He must take care to avoid the rope and the gallows. You must never have the executioner asking what your last wish is, Said!” In this, Said is mentally vocalizing his thoughts of how he must hide from the government who would, surely, try to execute him for his crimes. He acknowledges himself as a murder, not a warrior or a person fighting for justice, which juxtaposes his previous ideas of how he thought himself to be as such when he was going to rid the world of treacherous people like Rauf, Nabawiyya and Ilish. He calls himself “the murderer” which shows this contrast in ideas but also shows how far he has truly lost his sense of self as he does not even call himself a person, but a title of murderer, which usually links to people who have no heart or are seen as less than people but rather simply criminals. Through this, we see how Said is slowly losing his sense of self as his need for revenge takes over him. He even seemingly talks to himself as he states that the executioner must not ask him what his last wish is, showing how he has somehow split from himself and this murderous and spiteful side of him is alike a new person who is separate from the thief and the broken father known as Said.

Stream of Consciousness Post

  By using a stream of consciousness narration technique style in his writing, Mahfouz is able to characterize Said within the short period of time he is given, due to the fast-paced and extremely short span of time the story takes up before Said’s death, and also give context on how characters, such as Nabawiyya, may have changed drastically. When speaking of how Mahfouz uses Said’s consciousness to be able to characterize him, we are able to not only see the amount of anger and need for revenge that Said imposes and wishes to exact on his enemies like Ilish, we also see his more personal and sensitive sides. One of which is when he becomes paranoid with worry that is shown from a friend to a friend when Nur, a woman who had helped Said and had not changed during his absence, that later changes to a worry of a lover as he realizes that he loves Nur and, even after his acts of revenge and knowledge that he is a wanted man, wishes to live a life of peace with her. Another example is how Said vividly remembers the way he had tried to win the hand of Nabawiyya when she had stilled worked for the Turkish woman beside the hotel. Said is seen to be clever, a trait he openly expresses, but also kind and endearing as he constantly tries to make Nabawiyya notice him and love him the way he loves her. These memories that sprang from Said’s consciousness allow us to see Said in a more caring manner and characterize him as someone who, when they love, they love deeply. Another way Said is characterized is loyal as, when he remembers his memories with Rauf, we see how Said tried his best to meet his expectations and only answered to Rauf and the needs of the revolution rather than try to live a more calm and less politically-driven life. Even after his release, Said is shown to have strong feelings against the government and keeps his ideals against those in general who have wronged him, both characterizing himself as a loyal person to the cause of the Egyptian revolution and also making him stubborn in his thoughts as he refuses to change his stance on his ideals. This stubbornness is again shown when he refuses to stop in his need for revenge even when Nur begs him to stop killing his enemies. There is also the point that this type of narration shows contrast in characters to also give the audience the same amount of shock that Said has when he sees how much his past friends had changed into his current enemies. The first example is Ilish who, from Said’s memories, once was Said’s lackey and a loyal man to Said and his ideas but currently he abandoned his loyalty and married Nabawiyya, Said’s ex-wife, and took in his only child, Sana. Instead of showing Said respect, he mocks him with his friends and kicks Said out of his house. The second example is when Said remembers how Rauf was just a news reporter and was fighting for the revolution while teaching Said as his mentor. He was a loyal man to his values and hated the government with as much vigor as Said, until we see as Rauf himself is a prominent and rich figure, the embodiment of their past enemies, and instead of supporting the revolution and helping Said to exact revenge on those who wronged him, Rauf becomes one of those individuals and sends Said off without his support for Said’s revenge. Said, being shocked, now notes Rauf as his enemy and the story continues.