Symbols In Midaq Alley

Among one of the most famous symbols used in Ground Zero is the Ground Zero Cross. It represents the spiritual and physical healing this country desperately needed. After the attacks on 9-11, Fr. Brian Jordan OFM, a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest, said it was a “symbol of hope... [a] symbol of faith... [a] symbol of healing.”

The Glass Castle is a memoir by Jeanette Walls in which she tells the story of her childhood and the way she became who she is. Her path to her balanced present was too difficult and full of hardships, yet she managed to become a successful and prosperous person whose life experience gives her a push to make her life happy. It stands to mention that the novel is full of symbols which contribute to reader's understanding of Jeanette's character and represent her most important traits and desires. Besides, all the symbols such as the fire, the Joshua tree, the geode and the glass castle are recurring and contribute to understanding the struggle of Jeanette's childhood, her ability to overcome it and build a successful life.

What is symbolism? Symbolism is representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning. In “The Outsiders” there are many symbols that represent different ideas of the characters and novel

Murder usually happens because people can't accept others. However, in the short story, “On The Sidewalk Bleeding”, if at least one person would have considered helping Andy and not turn their backs on him. He would have lived. “On the sidewalk” Bleeding was written by Evan Hunter. Evan hunter's lesson of the story is self-identity, this is the main theme of the story because it is built around why Andy was stabbed. Andy was stabbed because he was wearing a purple jacket with the word royals on the back. The royals are a gang, their rivals are called the guardians. The author showed a few symbols in the story, but the main one is Andy's jacket. The jacket is the main symbol because without it there would be no story.

The Alchemist , by Paulo Coelho conforms to the idea that everything is a symbol and that the meanings for a symbol can vary depending on the person that is interpreting them. This book is filled with symbolism from the beginning to the end. Every object referenced in the book was significantly symbolic. In the beginning, the scene is set at a giant tree outside of a church, which clearly symbolizes the religious and personal growth that will occur to Santiago. Later, Santiago works at crystal shop trying to make money to go home. His job in the beginning was to clean all the crystal objects. Crystals symbolize clarity and he cleaning the crystal objects in order to make them clean, therefore, if this is connected to his personal journey, he is bringing clarity of the situation to himself and in the and decides to continue the journey rather than give up. One of the more debatable symbols in this book is the desert. To some it may symbolize the hardship and tragedy due to its climate, but to others it may be a journey with rewards at the end. Continuing through every page of the story,

In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the theme of escape is presented by the use of three symbols. These three symbols include looking out windows, riding carriages, and the movement of swimming and boat riding. All of these symbols help Mrs. Pontellier realize that she wants an escape from her life. Edna feels inclined to escape throughout the novel and three symbols that prove this are windows, carriages, and movement.

A poignantly, contrary, contrast between her land, and her art, she has been habitually known for her Monumental, and epically extensive scope and size. Ancient Egypt exudes the expression of human creative skill and imagination.Her

Proverbs 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

In addition to Shakespeare’s use of metaphors, he also utilizes symbolism throughout the play to prove that power does not lead to happiness. The most prominent symbol used is the owl, and many characters mention hearing, “the owl scream” (2.2.19). The owl symbolizes death in the play because whenever an owl screeches, someone dies. This common reoccurrence of “death” causes the reader to realize that with power comes temptations and problems. Another mention of the owl is when Banquo dies. Before his death, he tells his son, “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!” (3.4.26). By saying “fly” Shakespeare alludes to the owl symbol again. Banquo tells his son to fly away from the murders so that he may not become a victim. This “flying” symbolizes

She had already lost her father and brother, and she nearly had lost her life when a bomb exploded near her and tore her leg off. However, when they reached the gate to Pakistan, they found that the border guards had closed the gate and was not letting anyone through. The only people getting through were bribing the guards, but they had no extra money to do this. "I felt desperate to get through, because the sun was setting, and if we got stuck here, what were we going to do? Where would we stay? There was nothing here, no town, no hotel, no buildings, just the desert." "Night was falling, and we were stranded out there in the open." At the end of the second day, Ahmedi and her mother were camped near a friendly family. After striking up a conversation with them, the woman told Ahmedi that her husband, Ghulam Ali, had gone to look for another way across the border. "He was checking out a goat path that supposedly went over the mountains several miles northeast of the border station." "You can go with us," the woman said. The woman's husband agreed to take them, but wanted them to rest one more day and build up their strength since it was going to be quite a climb. "Long after dark---or early the next morning, to be exact, before the sun came up---that man shook us awake." "It's time," he said. The climb was not long, but it was steep. It should have taken us little more than an hour except

One example is that she established trade networks and foreign relationships with other countries which made Egypt a time of peace and prosperity. “Very little is known about these expeditions. Although many Egyptologists have claimed that her foreign policy was mainly peaceful.”

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

Hamida is the character that represents the people who yearn for a change. Often, she feels as though she is worth more than just living in the old alley – and she calls it a “Nothing Alley”(27) and asking herself “Oh what a shame Hamida, what are you doing living in this alley? (27)”. During World War II, many people in Midaq Alley go to work for the soldiers in the hope of earning more money and living in a more comfortable life. Hamida is one of those people who sacrifice themselves and everything that they have in an exchange for the wealthy life they always have dreamed of. Hamida is not a religious person and has a different perspective from the people in the alley because she sees a better life in the modern world. In the end, she decides to become a prostitute for pretty clothes and jewelries. She does not regret choosing this life as she is able to have an opportunity that gives her “desire for life and adventure (186)”.

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