Why does Mahfouz employ stream of consciousness narration in the novel and to what effect?

Naguib Mahfouz, the author of the novel The Thief and the Dogs (TTATD), uses the style of realism combined with stream of consciousness narration in his novel. This combination shows how Mahfouz steps away from the conventions of a single type of genre.

Mahfouz's purpose of stepping away from the conventions of any particular genre was to craft a novel that incorporates multiple windows from which a person thinks ranging from soliloquies, to direct monologue and finally to indirect monologue. A soliloquy is very direct and is generally used to expresses strong emotions and an example from TTATD would be Chapter 1 when the story talks about his ex wife and his ex best friend Ilish as they both betrayed him when he was in jail by getting married and therefore it is understandable for him to have immense feelings towards it. Furthermore, I believe this novel has its soliloquies concentrated in the beginning and at the end of this novel as the beginning is when the audience is introduced to Said’s strong emotions and the end is when the audience sees the ending of Said’s emotions and how his insanity essentially reaches its ‘climax’ by the end.

 The difference between direct inner monologue and indirect inner monologue is analogous to that of talking to someone about an issue versus eavesdropping and hearing someone else about that same subject respectively. I believe that there are many instances when Said talks to the sheikh where multiple shifts between direct and indirect inner monologue is present. This is done in order to show immediate contrasts between what Said thinks the Sheikh thinks of him (direct inner monologue) which is negative, versus the nonchalance the Sheikh displays towards Said (indirect inner monologue) which essentially shows the ‘non- judgmental’ characterization of the Sheikh in this novel.

The last style of narration this novel integrates is third person narration. This style of narration is highly effective in summing up scenes so in TTATD, this style is generally used at the end of introducing or exploring an important event. This allows the reader to comprehend the novel from the narration styles mentioned above before being told what is happening. When the audience is immediately told what the scene is about through third person narration, it restricts the readers from independently formulating heir own ideas and exploring the setting and characterization individually therefore, I believe that this particular way of using third person narration is useful as it allows the readers to be independent and eventually the thoughts of the readers gets closure through clarification (third person narration) at the end of important scenes and events.

Along with the advantages mentioned above of Mahfouz’s techniques, there are still a few limitations to his style of writing and appreciation of language. Firstly, this is a translated book so many of the proverbs, idioms and phrases may lose their effect to some particular readers. I believe that the loss of this affect is mainly applicable to solely English- language speakers. People who speak other languages, especially Arabic since this book is translated from Arabic, which have the use of ‘fluffy’ phrases incorporated in them will have an upper hand in terms of comprehending it through the appreciation of a language in which ‘beating around the bush’ is considered an art. This style of language is also seen in Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe and even though the book was written in English, Achebe wasn’t just an English speaker, he also spoke language/s native to his homeland which allowed him to fuse the art of his language into English. In English itself, the art of language through proverbs and idioms is only heard in the aristocratic class and otherwise, the usage of language in this particular way is seen as being indirect which has a condescending implication to it and this is why I believe that solely- English speaking readers will lack the ability to appreciate different styles of language being merged into the language of English as that is the only way (the way of English language) they know of. On the other hand, it could also be that only English- language speakers may have an exaggerated appreciation for Mahfouz’s style of language because it is something ‘new’ and ‘different;’ however, either way they both lead to an inaccurate appreciation of Mahfouz’s language. This is debatable as it is hard to define what an ‘accurate’ extent of appreciation of language is.

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