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.