Half A day
S Selina Jamil
Professor Jamil
EGL 1020
7 February 2014
Following a Pattern in “Half a Day”
Naguib Mahfouz’s suspenseful focus on life’s transience in “Half a Day,” translated into English by Denys Johnson-Davies, enables him to trace the process through which the human mind usually loses its potential over and becomes oblivious to the passage of time. Journeying for the first time to school “alongside” his father, the Narrator as a child, who is conscious of “time” and of “a street lined with gardens” and “extensive fields planted with crops, prickly pears, henna trees, and a few date palms,” shows that he begins a new phase of life with much potential for creativity and mindfulness (55). But, as this nameless protagonist represents the average man, upon entering “school” (55) he loses his sense of flexibility, and his whole life becomes so mechanically repetitive that it may be compressed into one day. Mahfouz’s point is that, despite all his initial potential, the Narrator never develops his individual identity; for, as he dutifully follows a given “pattern” (56), which he acquires through the instruction that school signifies, his faculties of attention, imagination, emotions, and instinct suffer from inhibition, and he loses the freedom to create a meaningful and original pattern as an individual.
As Mahfouz shows the contrast between the Narrator and his father at the “early morning” of the former’s life, the father is ironically oblivious to the son’s potential as a unique individual (58). The self-absorbed adult, who wishes the young boy to emulate his “father and brothers,” calls school a metaphorical “factory” where “boys” mature into “useful men” (55). But as Mahfouz uses dramatic irony, school as “factory” is suggestive of the production of repetitive and mechanical copies, and hence of a restrictive environment which stifles individual expressions. And this is exactly what happens once the child enters the school premises:
The gate was
Professor Jamil
EGL 1020
7 February 2014
Following a Pattern in “Half a Day”
Naguib Mahfouz’s suspenseful focus on life’s transience in “Half a Day,” translated into English by Denys Johnson-Davies, enables him to trace the process through which the human mind usually loses its potential over and becomes oblivious to the passage of time. Journeying for the first time to school “alongside” his father, the Narrator as a child, who is conscious of “time” and of “a street lined with gardens” and “extensive fields planted with crops, prickly pears, henna trees, and a few date palms,” shows that he begins a new phase of life with much potential for creativity and mindfulness (55). But, as this nameless protagonist represents the average man, upon entering “school” (55) he loses his sense of flexibility, and his whole life becomes so mechanically repetitive that it may be compressed into one day. Mahfouz’s point is that, despite all his initial potential, the Narrator never develops his individual identity; for, as he dutifully follows a given “pattern” (56), which he acquires through the instruction that school signifies, his faculties of attention, imagination, emotions, and instinct suffer from inhibition, and he loses the freedom to create a meaningful and original pattern as an individual.
As Mahfouz shows the contrast between the Narrator and his father at the “early morning” of the former’s life, the father is ironically oblivious to the son’s potential as a unique individual (58). The self-absorbed adult, who wishes the young boy to emulate his “father and brothers,” calls school a metaphorical “factory” where “boys” mature into “useful men” (55). But as Mahfouz uses dramatic irony, school as “factory” is suggestive of the production of repetitive and mechanical copies, and hence of a restrictive environment which stifles individual expressions. And this is exactly what happens once the child enters the school premises:
The gate was
Cited: Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Print. Keats, John. “Letter 32: To George and Thomas Keats.” The Letters of John Keats. Ed. Maurice Buxton Forman. London: Oxford UP, 1952. 69-72. Print. James, William. Writings 1878 – 1899: Psychology: Briefer Course, The Will to Believe, Talks to Teachers and to Students, Essays. New York: The Library of Congress, 1992. Print. Mahfouz, Naguib. “Half a Day.” The Time and the Place and Other Stories. Trans. Denys Johnson-Davies. New York: Anchor Books, 1992. 55-58. Print.