How does Mahfouz use imagery as a means of communicating varying attitudes towards change?
Mahfouz’s novel Midaq Alley contains very detailed, yet often inconsistent descriptive imagery. Representations of Midaq Alley and surrounding Cairo frequently highlight the Alley’s claustrophobic nature, yet also its past glory. This motif of forgotten grandeur is prominent in the novel, and plays a key role in underlining the varied and often clashing views on change. Mahfouz wrote Midaq Alley in and about a time of historic shifts for both the world and Cairo. Population was booming, the British army occupied the city, new technology was being introduced, political and social tensions had never been higher in the aftermath of the 1919 Egyptian Revolution, and immigrants and locals alike sought riches in the new economic booms. Mahfouz recognized the …show more content…
However, on a smaller level she often portrays motifs on change that Mahfouz stresses. Through her we see descriptions of Cairo that are not just Midaq Alley. Importantly, one of such descriptions is the house of Ibrahim Faraj, where the first thing Hamida sees when she wakes up is a gold-embossed mirror. This is one of the most extravagant and expensive items portrayed throughout the whole of the novel, and it is in the house of a pimp. This is an important instance of imagery as it represents one of the facets of change Mahfouz underlines, specifically ambition and the dangers of it. The mirror is the carrot on the end of a stick, and that it is so heavily contrasted with the squalor of Midaq Alley is not chance, and neither is the fact that it is a mirror. Hamida sees herself in it, quite literally surrounded by gold. That it is ultimately intangible and little more than a trap is a statement by Mahfouz on the dangers of ambition, and in the novels context,
Mahfouz’s novel Midaq Alley contains very detailed, yet often inconsistent descriptive imagery. Representations of Midaq Alley and surrounding Cairo frequently highlight the Alley’s claustrophobic nature, yet also its past glory. This motif of forgotten grandeur is prominent in the novel, and plays a key role in underlining the varied and often clashing views on change. Mahfouz wrote Midaq Alley in and about a time of historic shifts for both the world and Cairo. Population was booming, the British army occupied the city, new technology was being introduced, political and social tensions had never been higher in the aftermath of the 1919 Egyptian Revolution, and immigrants and locals alike sought riches in the new economic booms. Mahfouz recognized the …show more content…
However, on a smaller level she often portrays motifs on change that Mahfouz stresses. Through her we see descriptions of Cairo that are not just Midaq Alley. Importantly, one of such descriptions is the house of Ibrahim Faraj, where the first thing Hamida sees when she wakes up is a gold-embossed mirror. This is one of the most extravagant and expensive items portrayed throughout the whole of the novel, and it is in the house of a pimp. This is an important instance of imagery as it represents one of the facets of change Mahfouz underlines, specifically ambition and the dangers of it. The mirror is the carrot on the end of a stick, and that it is so heavily contrasted with the squalor of Midaq Alley is not chance, and neither is the fact that it is a mirror. Hamida sees herself in it, quite literally surrounded by gold. That it is ultimately intangible and little more than a trap is a statement by Mahfouz on the dangers of ambition, and in the novels context,