Preview

Analysis on Fate of a Cockroach

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
3973 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis on Fate of a Cockroach
Tawfiq al-Hakim or Tawfik el-Hakim, (October 9, 1898 – July 26, 1987) was a prominent Egyptian writer. He is one of the pioneers of the Arabic novel and drama. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of an Egyptian wealthy judge and a Turkish mother The triumphs and failures that are represented by the reception of his enormous output of plays are emblematic of the issues that have confronted the Egyptian drama genre as it has endeavored to adapt its complex modes of communication to Egyptian society.
Early life
Tawfiq Ismail al-Hakim was born October 9, 1898, in Alexandria to an Egyptian father and Turkish mother. His father, a wealthy peasant, worked as a judge in the judiciary in the village of al-Delnegat, in central Beheira province. His mother was the daughter of a retired Turkish officer. Tawfiq al-Hakim enrolled at the Damanhour primary school at the age of seven. He left primary school in 1915 and his father put him in a public school in the Beheira province, where Tawfiq al-Hakim finished secondary school. However, due to the lack of proper secondary schooling in the province, Tawfiq al-Hakim moved to Cairo with his uncles to continue his studies at Muhammad Ali secondary school.
Egyptian drama before Tawfiq el-Hakim
The cause of 'serious' drama, at least in its textual form, was in the process of being given a boost by one of the Egypt's greatest littérateurs, Ahmed Shawqi, "Prince of Poets," who during his latter years penned a number of verse dramas with themes culled from Egyptian and Islamic history; these included Masraa' Kliyubatra (The Death of Cleopatra, 1929), Magnun wa Layla (Driven mad by Layla, 1931), Amirat el-Andalus (The Andalusian Princess, 1932), and Ali Bey el-Kebir (an 18th-century ruler of Egypt), a play originally written in 1893 and later revised. However, between the popular traditions of farcical comedy and melodrama and the performance of translated versions of European dramatic masterpieces, there still remained a void within

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    I see it! No way. It’s crawling briskly near me. That roach is coming closer and closer to my feet as if I had sugar all around it. I am alone and no one is in the house and I had to kill it. I had to try. I got a fly swatter and quietly tiptoed near the roach. As fast as the speed of lightning, I swatted the fly swatter on the roach, hearing a crunching sound. I have been courageous when I killed a roach because to kill a roach, I had to be still, I had to kill it with something, and I had to stay quiet; killing a roach is very arduous and challenging.…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a child and all throughout his life Khaled Hosseini loved reading. Khaled was born and raised, for a few years of his life, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Although Khaled has moved around quite a bit, he has lived in San Jose, California for much of his life. Khaled lived in Afghanistan during the years of the constitutional monarchy. He thought of his time in Afghanistan as very peaceful and quiet.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author chose this title to help illustrate the fact that although the novel follows the life of Amir it is really about the complex life of Hassan. 2. Analyze the time-period in which the novel was written. Hosseini wrote this book relatively recently, especially compared to some of the other novels on the list. The novel was written while tensions between…

    • 1461 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Omar Khadr Case Study

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr was born in Toronto on September 19th, 1986 to an Egyptian-Canadian family. However, he was raised in Pakistan, and moved back and forth between the two countries throughout his childhood. In 1996, the family moved to Afghanistan. At the age of fifteen, Omar asked to stay at a group home for young men. His family agreed, therefore he lived with a group of Arabs who even gave him weapon trainings.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Tupac was born in new york city in 1971. Tupac had a difficult childhood due to his mom being a drug addict. Tupac was raised in a black liberation army people. He attended baltimore school for read arts and studied poetry,jazz,and also ballet. When tupac was small he liked to act sing and dance.…

    • 134 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Contrary to Khaled is writing is Classical and he speaks as the author telling a story. He also allows the character themselves to define who they are. He does not disrupt…

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Exit Discussion

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Lichtheim, Miriam, ed. “Ancient Egyptian Literature, 3 vols.”. Berkley: University of California Press (1973), 1: 25-27…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death Of A Moth Analysis

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “The Death of A Moth” is a power story that has power themes like life and death. In the story, Woolf follows the life of a moth. To analyze her theme, Woolf uses contradiction in the life of a moth. The moth has a life in front of it but it slowly forgets that it will die soon. Virginia Woolf use the theme of life and death to connect to the audience that as much as we forget about death it will soon happen. No one escape death. Woolf incorporates imagery, contradiction, and a dark mood to prove her rhetorical goal.…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Compare and Contrast Essay

    • 1855 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Joyce, James. “Araby.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner, Beverly Lawn, Jack Ridl and Peter Schakel. Boston: Bedford, 2013. 107-111. Print.…

    • 1855 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ancient Egypt and Scribe

    • 3276 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Source: Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. Volume 2: The New Kingdom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976.…

    • 3276 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolic Short Stories

    • 1162 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cited: McMahan, Elizabeth, Day, Susan, and Robert Funk. “Araby” Literature and the Writing Process. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.…

    • 1162 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the existence of mankind, there has been a constant struggle between life and death. Death is unavoidable, however people try to fight it until their last breath. In Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth”, she explains how feeble yet respectable it is to fight against death. In the story Woolf describes a moth’s struggle with death on a September day. At the end of the story the moth finally concedes and accepts his demise, however, not until he has righted himself in to an upright position. She uses the moth as a symbol to represent man and his struggle with death. Woolf uses seasonal imagery and personification to convey the theme that even though death is inevitable and pathetic to fight against, that fighting is noble and allows…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry of Nizar Qabani

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Nizar Qabbani is one of the most popular and bestselling poets in the Arab world. He was born March 21, 1923 in Damascus, Syria and died April 30, 1998 in London England. He studied law at the University of Damascus in 1945 then started his career as a diplomat. He served in the Syrian embassies in Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Britain, China and Spain then retired in 1966 and finally, moved to Beirut, Lebanon where he founded a publishing company. During his time as Syrian embassy, he witnessed much unrest in Syria and turned to writing national poetry filled with bitterness at the defeated Arabic people which launched his first famous poem, “Bread, Hashish and Moon” which was banned at the time.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One of his masterpiece, known as chronicles, which consists of three known chronicles; Ta’rikh muddat al-faransis bi-misr (“A History of the Period of the French in Egypt”), Mazhar al taqdis bi zawal dawlat al-faransis (“The Demonstration of Piety in the Demise of the French State”), and– Aja’ib al athar fi al tarajim wal- akhbar (“The Marvelous Compositions on Biographies and Chronicles”). The purpose of these chronicles has not been analyzed systematically, while each one of them is an expanded version of the previous one (Hatina, 2010, p. 137). they just narrate events about the history of Egypt in terms of the way the Egyptians live in serial events. Some of them includes the use of language by examining the use of lines, and the rendering of the documents. Thus, each analysis has its own dynamic writing process which affected by political transformations, so as for the Ta’rikh muddat al-faransis bi-misr was written against the new reality created by the French occupation and under the strong impression of the events themselves. Whereas, Mazhar al taqdis bi zawal dawlat al-faransis was written “following the French evacation of Egypt and the return of ottamans” (Hatina, 2010, p.137), which was “only after four years of the Mamluk chaos” (Awad, 1986, p. 8). Lastly, Aja’ib al athar fi al tarajim wal- akhbar, which is al Jabarti’s “most important work…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Al-Hakim’s Fate of a Cockroach was first published in 1966. In my opinion, al-Hakim asserts that man has no control over his own fate as the central theme of his play. The belief that one can control his or her fate consequently leads to an obsession with attaining knowledge and power. Through his male characters, Al-Hakim intended to describe the nature of man as presumptuous, self-centered and obsessed with scientific pursuits. Alternatively, the women in his play closely epitomize the humbling phenomena of nature. Within the play, the Queen cockroach and Samia are characterized as ego effacing in events of their husband’s self-aggrandizement. Similarly, we are all confronted with our insignificance in the world when the powerful hand of nature crashes down upon us in the event of a natural disaster. Thus, it can be concluded that al-Hakim believes nature is where ‘power’ truly lies in our world. In terms of Fate of a Cockroach, man’s greatest flaw is the created ideology that we are significant enough to control our own fate.…

    • 2008 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics