Thief and the Dogs Passage Analysis

Passage, Chapter 15

Back in the center of the room he took off his gown. The room was hot, the wine had raised his body heat. His wound throbbed beneath the bandage, but the pain convinced him it was beginning to heal.

 

 "I'm not like the others," he said, staring into the dark, "who have stood on this stand before. You must give special consideration to the education of the accused. But the truth is, there's no difference between me and you except that I'm on the stand and you're not. And that difference is only incidental, of no real importance at all. But what's truly ridiculous is that the distinguished teacher of the accused is a treacherous scoundrel. You may well be astonished at this fact. It can happen, however, that the cord carrying current to a lamp is dirty, speckled with fly shit." 

He turned to a sofa and lay down on it. In the distance he could hear a dog barking. _How can you ever convince your judges, when there is a personal animosity between you and them that has nothing to do with the so-called "public welfare"? They're kin to the scoundrel after all whereas there's a whole century of time between you and them. You must then ask the victim to bear witness. You must assert that the treachery has become a silent conspiracy: "I did not kill the servant of Rauf Ilwan. How could I kill a man I did not know and who didn't know me? Rauf Ilwan's servant was killed because, quite simply, he was the servant of Rauf Ilwan. Yesterday his spirit visited me and I jumped to hide in shame, but he pointed out to me that millions of people are killed by mistake and without due cause."

Yes, these words will glitter; they'll be crowned with a not-guilty verdict. You are sure of what you say. And apart from that, they will believe, deep down, that your profession is lawful, a profession of gentlemen at all times and everywhere, that the truly false values--yes!-are those that value your life in pennies and your death at a thousand pounds. The judge over on the left is winking at you; cheer up!

Analysis:

This passage that was extracted from chapter 15 from the novel “The Thief and the dog”, where we see how far the protagonist has developed, as it is now nearing the end of the story.  This passage explores the thoughts of Said, their evolution, and how through his actions, he has twisted his morals and understanding of right from wrong.

Firstly, we notice just how obscure his thoughts have become, when the protagonist places himself in a fictional trial, stating “I'm not like the others," he said, staring into the dark, "who have stood on this stand before”. Through this line, he has now removed himself from the normal thief, proposing the idea that he is greater, or should not be classed together with them. In doing so, Mahfouz creates a scenario where the reader will question their personal thoughts about the protagonist, whether he is wrong or right. The passage progresses, reaching a point where Said begins his justification, why he is different, with the line "I did not kill the servant of Rauf Ilwan. How could I kill a man I did not know and who didn't know me? Rauf Ilwan's servant was killed because, quite simply, he was the servant of Rauf Ilwan”. Said has now placed the blame on another, yet again, trying to remove himself from the fault, going as far as to blame Rauf, someone who had no connection to the guns.  The character that had betrayed him, and their beliefs, a traitor, and how he should be viewed as the villain instead of the “innocent” Said.  

These thoughts show how far his conflict with Rauf has developed, it has consumed him, reaching almost all aspects of his life, even his thoughts while he has spare time. Through this conflict, Mahfouz can keep developing Said, pushing him further and further, right up until his demise. This push, has ultimately caused the protagonist’s thoughts to corrupt, as they constantly change, however with this passage we see that he has convinced himself of his innocence, and that others will agree with him, “Yes, these words will glitter; they'll be crowned with a not-guilty verdict”.  With this, Mahfouz has created a scene where his readers can create assumptions as to how the novel will end, simply due to how Said thoughts are the complete opposite of what the outcome will be. 

Narration

Over hundreds of years, authors have been challenging literature, and the ways one can present it. This would lead to many techniques and topics within the subject of literature, providing variety for all authors to use and adapt to their situations.

With one of these being the perspectives of different novels and texts, examples of this being, how the works of literature from eras such as the Victorian or Renaissance, are heavily affected by religion. While modern literature seems of pay more attention to the individual, which can be seen extremely easily in the new work we are studying, The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz, and comparing it to the last novel Studied, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

One may notice many differences between the two texts, even though they were written and published so close to each other, as to why, would be the purpose of the novel and the message the author may be attempting to present to their audiences. In the Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz makes use of third person narration and stream of consciousness through the protagonist’s internal monologues, which is extremely important for Mahfouz to achieve the complexity of his work. In doing so, Mahfouz can explore the character of Said Mahran in greater detail. One example being found within the first chapter of the novel, the narrator switching between third person narration used for describing Said’s surroundings and stream of consciousness which allows us to understand Said’s as a person along with his life story.

 Third person narration is used when the author mentions that “once more he breathed the air of freedom” telling us that Said was finally out of prison and that “there was stifling dust in the air” which describes as mentioned Said’s surroundings. A switch to direct internal monologue can then be noticed, which signals the use of stream of consciousness, when Said starts thinking about “Nabawyiyya. Ilish. [Their] two names [merging] in [his] mind”. Furthermore, this direct monologue is combined with indirect monologue where the author describes his other thoughts, Said thinking whether luck will “give him some decent place to live, where such love could be equally shared”. Here Said’s thoughts seem to be overlapping, half of him thinking about his home and half thinking about revenge on his enemies. This highlights the author’s purpose of presenting Said as confused which is important since we know that the purpose of the author was to present his own confusion relating to the changing Egyptian society after the revolution through the character of Said. 

It is possible to see that the author’s use of stream of consciousness throughout the novel, and just how useful it can be in terms of portraying in detail the elements of the protagonist’s life, including his past and present decisions. 

However, with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe seems to be writing a novel that shares elements of modern literature and literature from the older areas of literature. The reason is that the novel is revolving around the life of one character, Okonkwo, yet it seems that he is sometimes only a tool used by Achebe for portraying more important elements in the novel such as the Igbo culture, including their religion, values and beliefs and therefore the focus not being predominantly one individual’s experience. From the point of view of narration, Things Fall Apart is written using third person narration, having an omniscient narrator. This eliminates any suspicion of the events being presented in a biased manner, whereas this question could always be asked when talking about stream of consciousness in Said’s case. Within a novel, characterization plays an important role as it helps us understand not only the characters but the story as a whole. While looking at the description of characters in both novels we can distinguish both similarities and differences that arise as a result of the different techniques of narration used, this again highlighting the difference between a more modern novel and one that is sharing characteristics of the novels from the Victorian era.  If in The Thief and the Dogs we could see that characterization was made mostly through character’s actions along with Said’s description of characters within his monologues, in Things Fall Apart the characterizations are mostly realized by the narrator. Yet, a similarity can be found as well here because the characterization in Things Fall Apart can also be made by using character’s actions. 

Translation

Welcome back, it has been a while since the last post on this blog, and I’m excited to get right back into it. Today’s topic is interesting, as I will be discussing translated literature, the positives, negatives, and how it may affect the work overall.

Firstly we must ask the question as to why one would want to translate a text from one language to another?

The answer is quite simple, as learning a language is not the easiest thing to do, because of the amount of time it takes for anyone to learn it. Which is why a translating a text is necessary, as it now opens the text to multiple groups of people, giving them a new perspective into the culture and thoughts of the author. Which is great in theory, as we are now learning a lot about another culture, but is there a possibility that we may be damaging the text with its translation.

Obviously, translating texts are extremely useful, as it allows for a greater understanding of the other people that occupy the same planet as us, but it is a difficult task. Those who translate texts from one language to another, have multiple things to consider, such as keeping track of the context in which the text was written. The translator also has the responsibility of making sure the authors intentions, messages do not get mixed or disrupted, preventing it from becoming lost in translation. If this is not done correctly, it may cause an upset from the readers, with an example being Feng Tang and his interpretation of 3 of Tagore’s poems. Due to is slight deviation on 3 poems out of 326, a huge uproar had begun over his work, as many disagreed with his decisions, which ended with his translations being taken down.

To conclude, translated literary texts can be extremely useful and interesting, however are extremely treacherous for those who attempt to complete the translation of the texts from on language to another. 

Control Room Response

Last week in English we watched a documentary called the “Control Room”; a documentary that gave an insight into the use of bias within the Iraq War of 2003. The video itself was heavily analytical of the US Army and anything that had a connection with its reporting. It was mainly focused on the Al Jazeera news reporting agency and its attempt to provide a story through a neutral lense and by the perspective of the Arabic society and their thoughts of the war. After watching the film, we were given several prompts, including “Deception is just as bad as telling an outright lie”. For me to come to a conclusion or decision as to whether I agree or disagree with the statement should be based on the footage of the film. I say so only because before watching the documentary I was virtually undecided. During the film, it was pointed out that the Us Army was incredibly unclear over their positioning of their soldiers. Sometimes even denying where the troops were, or would hint these locations to protect themselves from the enemy having additional information. However, with this vagueness, came some slight deception of information, because the US Army could claim to be almost anywhere in Iraq, and the rest of the western world would believe them. The documentary often stated how Al Jazeera had been made out as an enemy, due to how they disagreed with the positioning of the US army. The documentary pointed out that Al Jazeera used an expert geologist of Iraq to try and determine the positioning of the US Military by the thought of them saying they had captured a bridge in a southern area. The expert indicated that there were no bridges, and that instead the US army was deceiving western media because they wanted to indicate more progress than had been produced.

Answering the prompt, I would agree with the idea that Deception is just as bad as telling a lie. Mainly because, all of those who had used this deception understood the consequences, knew that they were tricking all of the people listening and watching, and is purposely manipulating the power they have over someone else. In this case, it’s the US army and its troops. These consequences are the unfair demonizing of the Al Jazeera news agency. If an outright lie had been produced, then possibly the excuse was that it was to trick the enemy of the US Military and there would have been little to no consequences. But this use of deception also tricked the US population and other western media societies, because of their lack of evidence supporting the statements provided.

Media Bias

Baltimore police: Officers 'compelled' to chase 13-year-old with BB gun

Two detectives, one male and one female, were returning from a strategy session on how to deal with current gun violence, when they spotted a teen walking down the street with what seemed to be a firearm.

Without hesitation and questioning, they forcibly ordered the teen to drop the gun, however this frightened the 13-year-old, which caused the innocent child to run for 150 yards. Once he had noticed their pursuit, he attempted to reveal the truth about the gun, by yelling “its not real”. However due to the arrogance of the officers, this young individual ended up being shot by the male officer.

The officers question as to why the boy ran, and why he had the gun in the first place, as well as their justification for shooting the harmless child, by stating that they could not have known that the gun had been a replica.

Although the child had done a questionable action, these officers should be more at fault for the fact that they had scared the young individual, chased and shot him without questioning and proof that the gun was a real weapon or of any danger to civilians around them.

The child is expected to make a full recovery, but may end up not trusting the men and women who are meant to protect him. 

Sylvia Plath practice IOCC

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2pgsUlNJpejOGpRY0RjSU9ocG8

Coriolanus Practice IOC Outline

Coriolanus practice IOC outline

Introduction:

• ·         Introduce the play, state how it was created by William Shakespeare.
• ·         State that this passage is from Act 1 scene 3
• ·         Say that it is a conversation between Volumnia and Virgilia.

Significance:

• ·         The significance of this passage, is to present Coriolanus’s mother, characterise her, and present foreshadowing into how this play may turn out, due to her influence on her son.
• ·         Use examples found from lines 5 to 17 as evidence.

Body 1:

• ·         This passage provides a conversation between two main characters within the play, both showing opposite sides of women within society. Which is used for the indirect characterisation of Virgilia.
• ·         Use lines 1-5 to state how she thinks and would act with Corilanus as her husband.
• ·         Use lines 10-15 for what she sees as her perfect son.

Body 2:

• ·         Sate how imagery is used within this text to create a picture of this scene.
• ·         This imagery can be seen as what Volumnia sees as the perfect man within her time, and what she believes in.
• ·         Sate that this imagery can be used as indirect characterisation of Coriolanus as well, with constant remarks as two what he looks like.

Conclusion:

•  Overall, this passage introduces Volumnia and her role within the play, and her relationship to characters. Through the text, her beliefs and influence over her son can be seen, providing enough evidence for the foreshadowing of the play.