Alexandria's Metamorphosis

On the one hand, Naguib Mahfouz chose Alexandria as a setting for Miramar. He wrote about it after the Nasser's revolution when only few traces of the cosmopolitan still there. However, it seems from the comparison he made between Cairo and Alexandria that Alexandria is drastically affected by the departure of the Alexandrians with foreign origins and foreigners. Alexandria in the novel is not only a setting or environment, but also a state of mind, symbol or a philosophy. Each character has his/her own view of Alexandria. For some characters in the novel like Zohra's family and Tolba Marzouk, the multiculturalist cosmopolitan Alexandria is a problem, for others as Zohra and Mariana, it is a fading utopia. Mahfouz made Alexandria a character that reaches and interacts with other characters in despair, anger, loss and joy. Mahfouz embodies Alexandria to be the answer that the characters are longing to have. Each character came to Alexandria to find what he needs, hoping that the city which was amalgam of intellectual thinkers, businessmen, foreigners and wealthy merchants will share them this well-being. However, …show more content…
Ironically, we find that the "Egyptian" characters of Miramar suffer from an identity crisis unlike the "foreign" characters in Cocktails and Camels. The approach to the social classes in the two novels was peculiar. Jacqueline depicted the life of the rich class and Naguib in the other side gave a concern for the new emerged class in Alexandria, which is the lower middle class. Nonetheless, both writers expressed the sense of loss and the longing for the old beautiful cosmopolitan Alexandria. Each writer depicted in his/her own way the vanishing process of Cosmopolitan Alexandria in politics, economy and society. Lastly, we can say Jacquline portrayed the pre-revolution Alexandria as a city of dreams, in contrary to Naguib who portrayed it as city of the lost