Who Is The Antagonist In Midaq Alley

''His tone was so reassuring,'' Hasan later recalls, ''that it made me breathe once more the odors of the Granada of my birth, and his prose was so bewitching that my camel seemed to move forwards in time with the rise and fall of its rhythms.'' When the uncle dies, Hasan takes command of the caravan and returns home with his first wife, while his sister Miriam is forced to the lepers' quarter in Fez.

Two men were flirting with a women and counting money which in turn ruined his thought of "Eastern enchantment." After seeing the women shamelessly flirt with the men, he realized that he allowed his feelings for Mangan's sister to get carried away with. He was angry at himself for acting like a fool. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (Joyce 392). The last line says a lot about the story and the complexity of his feelings. However, the fact that he realized he was acting foolishly, showed that he was maturing from an innocent young child, into a man( "Sample Essays Analyzing James Joyce's Short Story-Araby").

In the meantime, he was missing his dear friend like Bechir and Nada.Nada was karim’s girlfriend in Lebanon. He lost her because there was a Civil war in Lebanon. One day in bomb explosion, he lost Nada

Readers must examine Amir’s redemption to Baba. Amir feels guilty of his mother’s death, his first sin to Baba. Longing for Baba’s love, Amir knows that Baba “hated me a little… After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I?” (Hosseini 19). Amir’s day of birth starts his betrayal to Baba since his birth causes Baba’s wife to die. Furthermore, Amir continues

Once back in Kabul, Amir takes steps he would never have imagined, which truly define his character. On his venture back to Afghanistan he learns the truth about Hassan’s connection with Baba. After hearing this Amir feels robbed of the truth and is angry at how his own father could hold this back from him. Despite his feelings, Amir realizes he must not only pay for his betrayal of Hassan but for Baba’s betrayal of Ali too. Amir knows he must face his fears and he understands this when he reveals, “I remembered Baba saying that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me" (Hosseini 239). Following this he undertakes a personal mission to find Sohrab and finds the courage to stand up to the Taliban, nearly dying in the process. During his quest Amir comes face to face with the disturbing Assef and fights him for Sorab, the ultimate sacrifice for his dead half-brother. While he is beaten he begins to laugh, which angers Assef even more. Amir explains that, “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace" (Hosseini 303). After successfully bringing Sohrab back to California, Amir defends his Hazara nephew when General Taheri insults him. Over the dinner

At first, Abbas does not want to leave with his mother and go to a scary foreign country where he knows almost nothing about. But, after his mother tells about life before he was born and that they used to be the richest family in the country and then the government took all of their riches, furniture, jewelry, and anything else that was valuable away from them to pay for the costs of the war and for government use. Now that they have almost nothing left, very little food, money furniture and toys. Then, Abbas changed his mind and was determined to do what his father wanted, for him to go to Turkey and get a visa and move to England.

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. You remember that, Mariam” (Hosseini 11). Mariam, a child born out of wedlock, grew up lacking the genuine love she yearned for. Despite everything, her mother told her, she believed that her father, Jalil, meant the best for her. That was until she made the shocking discovery on her own; he actually wanted to get rid of her. Pressured by his many wives, Jalil forces Mariam to marry an abusive shoemaker. As the last tear rolls down her cheek, she starts to understand the hardships that her mother went through. Emotionally neglected, they left her alone to live in a two-story house in Kabul; this becomes a life changing experience. On her journey

Rather than telling her “no” or telling her of his own poor choices he tells her, “a little” (144). Soraya’s parents are so relieved when Amir marries Soraya because they thought she would never have a suitor. They may not have been so glad had they known of Amir's past; the way he sacrificed Hassan. Soraya and her family believe that Amir is a good man when he is in reality the opposite. It is far from likely that Soraya's parents would have been nearly as enthusiastic had they known of Amir's true cowardice. In leaving his guilt behind in Afghanistan he has learned to play the role of a perfect man with impeccable verisimilitude. Amir has yet again orchestrated irony through his deceit.

One triumphant day, Amir won the local kite fighting tournament and finally earned Baba’s praise. Hassan ran to retrieve the losing kite, which was considered a trophy, and told Amir “For you, a thousand times over”. When Hassan finally obtained the kite, he was cornered by Assef and his friends. Assef was the neighborhood bully and had tortured Amir and Hassan for years. When Hassan refused to give up the kite, Assef beat and raped him. Amir watched the whole thing but didn’t interfe because he didn’t want to lose the respect of his father. The guilt ate Amir alive. “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” Soon after the incident, Amir tried to distance himself from Hassan and Hassan and his father eventually leave. A couple years later, Amir and Baba flee to America to escape the war in Afghanistan. Amir graduates and gets married but even after all those years;

Throughout the novel, Amir endeavors to be approved by his father, Baba, who is admired by people in Kabul. Unfortunately, Baba believes that Amir, unlike him, is very unmanly “and [that he] never fights back. He just... drops his head ” (Hosseini 24). Since Baba wishes for a son who would stand up for himself, he can’t help but observe that Amir’s friend Hassan, as the guy who “steps in and fends the [bullies] off” (Hosseini 24) is his idea of the ideal son. Though aware of his father’s expectations, Amir is unable to change himself and instead envies Hassan and the fact that Baba treats him like his own son by“[patting]Hassan on the back. [and even putting] his arm around his shoulder [like a fatherly figure]”(Hosseini 15). Despite the manifestation of this hatred in Amir, he continues to recognize the bond that he shares with Hassan, “ brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast” (Hosseini 11) which is because both their mothers died during birth. The confusing emotions he feels for Hassan has Amir face a situation in which he acts inappropriately and allows the guilt to manifest upon him. After winning a very important kite tournament for the first time and “seeing Baba on that roof, proud of [him] at last” (Hosseini 71) Amir begins to search for Hassan who had gone to run his kite earlier. Finally, Amir finds him in a dark alley and as he “peeks around the corner” (Hosseini 75) he witnesses a sight that eradicated not only his relationship with Hassan but also Baba’s brotherly relationship with Ali, Hassan’s father. Peeking through the corner of the alley, like a bystander, he watches his one and only friend getting raped. The guilt that came upon him was for two reason; one, his lack of courage to stand up to

The description Mahfouz gives of Hamida makes her out to be the most beautiful girl in the alley. Immediately, her beauty captures the reader’s attention, and causes her to stand out in the novel. In fact, her beauty created chaos among the men in the alley, and is conveyed in the line “she was constantly beset by a desire to fight and conquer…this she showed in her pleasure in attracting men” [Mahfouz, 39]. In the third chapter of the novel, Hamida was described as a beautiful, shapely, dark-eyed girl in her twenties, who longs for fine clothes and a rich husband. Hamida is described as having long, black hair that is near her knees. Her beauty not

Salim turned down the money and took the man’s life because it made him feel powerful. Salim’s eyes showed how much he enjoyed it and had no remorse for the life he just took. He was now hungry for more power so he went and found a new gang to join. After joining Javed’s gang, Salim returns to the room where the three are staying, asserts his power status, and orders Jamal to leave so that he can have sex with Latika. When Jamal takes a stand Salim pulls his gun on Jamal and threatens to kill him. The relationship of the brothers from this point on is drastically changed because of Salim’s lust for power. Even though Salim knew Jamal’s feelings for Latika, Salim still violated her because he could. Salim is in charge now and he takes what he wants, whenever he wants without regard to anyone else including his brother. All these that Salim has made up to this point are to feed his ego and further more push him into an ego driven thug with a gun who believes he can take what he wants at any time.

Even Ahmed becomes compliant as she finds her path to womanhood, further emphasizing that a person’s characteristics can be conformed. She says “…if I had been simply an ordinary girl. I believe I would not have been able to live and accept what my sisters and the other girls in this country have to endure. I don’t believe I am better than they, but I sense within me such determination, such rebellious strength, that I would probably have upset everything” (119). However, her actions speak differently from her words. As a developing woman, Ahmed, renamed Zahra, shows signs of meekness and submission, in contrast to her previous ruthlessness, to the circus owner and her son. “Zahra had given up the use of speech. She wept, and the tears flowed down her face…” (110). Zahra, once domineering, is now compliant. Ahmed alters her personality because she, as well as the Islamic society, associates womanhood with obedience.

In the novels Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building, we are shown the ongoing, daily struggles of the working-poor in both colonial and postcolonial Egypt. Both share central, overarching themes such as debauchery, desperation, and unstable political situations. The two settings are both examples of microcosms, “cities within a city”. Midaq Alley is a small, dead-end neighborhood in 1940’s Cairo that consists of various shops and apartments. Within each of these buildings are characters that live completely separate lives but all have the same aspirations, to experience the world outside and the wealth it has. The Yacoubian Building is also set in Cairo during the turbulent 1990’s. Similarly, the characters were all tenants of a large apartment building, living in cramped and decrepit spaces.

Setting is used in literature in order to set the time and place as well as the mood within a literary piece. Mahfouz uses various settings throughout the novel in order to showcase the development of Hamida’s rebellious character. The different settings come together to deliver the important message of Hamida’s literal and metaphoric entrapment, loss of her identity, and the development of her rebelliousness. Since the novel takes place during WWII in the 1940s, it brings about the idea of modernization due to the colonization of the British, which shows that the setting plays a major role in portraying Hamida as a rebellious character. As Midaq Alley is a translated book from Arabic to English, it may have lost its original value in