Original Arabic A Book Report on Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

The setting of Palace Walk is in Cairo, and covers the duration from 1917 and the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Large part of the novel, consequently, is set inside a small single house, both an isolated island and a haven. The outside world is held at standstill here and one of the primary themes of the book is the ultimate and constant struggle to bring time to a stand still. The idea of change compels inexorably in opposition to tradition to an extent that even the walls of the single house is not in a position to keep it outside. These higher changes occurring outside finally intrude inside the house.

Palace Walk is a story of Jawad family and the author, Mahfouz opens his novel with the mother, Amina but not the dominant leader of the house. Amina being always at home is completely submissive to her man. My opinion is the same as yours, sir. I have no opinion of my own, she dutifully tells him (Mahfouz 35). Surrounded by her two sons, two daughters and a stepson- she is satisfied with her share, in spite of the fact that the husband prevents her from going out on her own. This implies that she spends her entire life completely within the house. The father, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, runs a shop. A stern disciplinarian, his whole family gives him due respect. On the other hand, they live in considerable panic of him. His anticipations are very high, and also he is so tough, that a nice deal is in fact kept away from him. According to him there are a lot of white lies and caginess is the norm, implying that in most cases is not entirely in touch of what is happening.

Ostensibly a devoted Muslim, he does not enjoy carousing and reveling with his friends, returning back home totally drunk every night, after enjoying women, wine and song. As a man he is daring to seduce recognizers On the outer look you are decorous and pious, however inside you are debauched and licentious. (Mahfouz 45). From his family he demands a very strict adherence to tradition and Islam, and it is unbelievable, for instance, that his daughters or wife might go into the streets without his company or permission, even if they are decently dressed. One of the primary catastrophes in the novel comes when his wife, Amina allows herself to be persuaded by the children to risk out and is knocked by a car. The husband in disgust sends her home to her mother because of the disrespect she has shown to him and his family. The family has five children. The eldest son, Yasin, does not belong to Amina, but he is rather the son of a past relationship that al-Sayyid Ahmad had. Yasin lived with his mother up to when he was nine years, and then was given to the custody of his father. He is extremely happy living in this step family, and persuades himself that his stepmother is the entire mother I need. however his biological mother emerges as an inescapable portion of his entire life. Yasin is already working and resembles his father in his yearning for personal indulgence drink and particularly sex greatly tempt him. And when his brother Fahmy is really shocked when he understands that is father drinks hard and he is a womanizer, Yasin is thrilled and relieved  implying that is definitely the life he would like to imitate. Fahmy is a student in the university devout, serious and with a nascent political conscience. Later he becomes the only one in that family who is engaged in the struggle for change and freedom. Kamal, the youngest child still a boy, and still able to run away with play and acting in a childish manner. The daughters of the family are Khadija, already twenty years when the novel unfolds, and Aisha, almost sixteen. Aisha is beautiful, her only flaw being that her body is very skinny (plumpness is embraced as being desirable, and there is a continuing work to make the girls fat throughout a greater part of the novel). One of the major problems encountering the house is the fact that Khadija is not married, and that it is indecorous for the younger sister to get married before her nonetheless, in a little break with tradition, Aisha is finally married off first.

Throughout the book the daughters live in entire isolation they dont attend school and cannot unveil their faces in public. The parents extreme achievement denotes to be being in a position to say that no single man has ever come across either of their daughters from the time they seized going to school as little innocent girls. The lives of the girls revolve completely around the family ties, where they assist their mother, at the same time looking forward to their one treasured ambition of getting married. In the house there is even some isolation, as it is unbelievable that the women in that house would take their meals at the same table as their father. This condition is treated as exclusively normal they do not know other lifestyle and still, change is live in the air. All other families allow women to venture in the public. But it stands to be unthinkable in the Jawad family Yasin, who finally gets married (though she does not turn out pretty the way he had desired), causes a primary scandal when he decides to take his wife out, his father irritated that he would discredit his family. Yasin gets married to the daughter of one of his fathers friends however it turns out to be unhappy union. The reckless Yasin, still living in his fathers home, is soon bored by married lifestyle. He is the kind who, when praying would not request for atonement, since he feared his prayer may be approved and he would be changed to an abstinent lacking taste for the life pleasures he once loved and without which life would be without meaning. Zaynab, his wife used to great liberties in their household realizes that after a month her characters had been affected by the virus of submissiveness (Mahfouz 300) which is so rampant in the Jawad family, but she would not put up with entirely everything. The behavior of Yasin becomes excruciating and the marriage finally collapses (in spite of her becoming pregnant). Both Aisha and Khadija get married, however they move away  assuming peripheral role in the story for quite some time. Kamal, particularly, is perturbed by the changes brought about by marriage even though he still visits his sisters, they are seen to be completely different, and the family -- now with the three sons only living at home  turns out to be a different kind of place all together. Al-Sayyid Ahmad has difficulty in tackling the world at large, particularly with respect to his household. He desires to be in entire control, and in his family he is sure of that, as everyone exactly does as he wishes (and lives in panic of him, at the same time respecting and loving him). According to him being a father of girls is an evil which against it we are powerless (Mahfouz 65). He adores his daughters, however fears having to give them to other people (especially in marriage), when he will be unable to protect them and be in control of every aspect in their lives. The boys, too, can not escape his hidebound and overprotective ways the children were destined to be a special breed altogether, outside the aspect of history.  Only he would set their direction in life, not the times, the revolution, or humanity. Revolution and everything that it accomplished were not beneficial to him, so long as they still remained far away from his family.

Yasin is just but a libertine in the mould of his father, and Kamal is too young to be in real trouble, however Fahmy turns out to be politically active. The fever of revolution catches up with him he gets himself drowned by the sublime and hideous emotions of patriotism and a will to devastate and kill. Finally, he managed to reach far-flung ends of supercilious sentiment, swept up in the joy of the chaotic moments and playing a bit larger role in it. Foreigners, the rowdy Australians and the English colonialists always are a presence. Finally the English are at the door of the house of Jawad, creating camps to curb the demonstrations that broke out in Cairo. Kamal seems to be an ally of the soldiers, but the others shun them and are ambivalent. Political issue, in which even his daughter Amina is interested in, is complex with many details unknown. The relation with the colonist is also knotty, for example Yasin perhaps disliked the English people as all other Egyptians did however deep within him he venerated and respected them very much that he often believed that they were created from quite a different stuff than the rest of humans.

Yasin is besieged when an Englishman speaks to him and thanks him for giving him some matches. Eventually, this short encounter will put him in substantial danger. The book folds with what looks like successful promise for a peaceful transition and revolution to Egyptian independence and freedom, but at least for Jawad family it is not to be. Palace Walk is a family portrait. Other characters play central roles, for example the girl in the next door, al-Sayyid Ahmads friends, the son and women father enjoy themselves with however  the focus is on the Jawad family, and the family on Palace Walk, very much that when his daughters move out of the family they too turn out to be  of insignificance. Each member of the family is well-developed in the story, and each plays a significant role. Kamal, who views things through a childs eyes, a playboy Yasin, the political Fahmy, Aisha who is beautiful, and the always serious Khadija. Also in the family there are big and small family misunderstandings, with the strict hand of the family head dominating every one and yet the threatening of a drastically changing world is ever at the door. The children wish to be in their fathers favor, and their actions cause them much pain, mainly due to the fact that they do not want to disgrace their father. The odd family actions are disturbing, but nicely presented by the author, the characters only slightly drawn. The author allows the novel to open very slowly. In seventy one chapters he manages to oscillate from person to person, event to event. From issues about honor and marriage to the true dangers related to revolution, there are various incidences a great deal occurs. Some things are absent. There is almost no sense of the way the daughters go through the transition to married life. However the author offers a wide and impressive canvas. It makes for the good initial pictures of a country in the midst the wrench of change. Palace Walk is not an action-packed, fast-paced novel, but it is a rewarding, rich and always enjoyable read.

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