The Thief and the Dogs: Narration

Why does Mahfouz employ stream of consciousness narration in the novel and to what effect?

In his novella, the Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz breaks away from the old technique of meticulous detail and panoramic narration and employed stream of consciousness narration. Much like 20^th century modernist writers, rather than creating a life story, Mahfouz chose to explore psychological complexity in his novella. Through stream of consciousness narration, the readers were able to experience the world through the protagonist’s eyes and feel the world through the protagonist’s mind. Mahfouz wanted the readers to experience the mental state of Said Mehran, he wanted to capture the sense of paranoia. In doing so, Mahfouz was able to recreate the psychological trauma that he felt under the Nasser regime with its heavy censorship and oppression of opposition. Therefore, the stream of consciousness narration enabled Mahfouz to portray the reality of Egypt at the time from a personal perspective, rather than a superficially ‘realistic’ description if what 1960’s Egypt was like.

Mahfouz’s narration in the novella shifted from third person omnipresent to first person narration as he seamlessly weaved his stream of consciousness narration between his traditional narrations. In choosing his narrative point of view, Mahfouz has manipulated the distance between the novel’s characters and the reader. Through third person narration, Mahfouz is able to provide his intended audience, Arab readers, with the traditional form of story telling which they crave. However, he has also implemented stream of consciousness narration to give the Arab readers a taste of modern literature. Stream of consciousness narration has also allowed him to step away from creating a superficial panoramic view of Egypt under Nasser’s regime and to delve into the mind of the suppressed Egyptian individuals. Mahfouz was able to mend the wounds of the silenced Egyptians through his words; he transcended the level of being a writer and became the conscious of the nation.

Mahfouz’s narration shifts between direct internal monologue, indirect internal monologue, third person narration, and soliloquy.

Direct internal monologue: “Bring in her mother, you mean. How I wish our eyes could meet, so I might behold one of the secrets of hell! O, for the axe and the sledge hammer!”

Indirect internal monologue: “To kill them both--Nabawiyya and Ilish--at the same time, would be a triumph. Even better would be to settle with Rauf Ilwan, too, then escape, go abroad if possible.”

Third person narration: “Once more he breathed the air of freedom. But there was stifling dust in the air, almost unbearable heat, and no one was waiting for him; nothing but his blue suit and gym shoes.

As the prison gate and its unconfessable miseries receded, the world--streets belabored by the sun, careening cars, crowds of people moving or still--returned.”

Soliloquy: Can be seen in chapter fifteen when Said Mehran speaks to the court and claims he is innocent.

"Hey, all you judges out there, listen well to me. I've decided to offer my own defense for myself…I'm not like the others 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."

The beautiful thing about stream of consciousness narration is that it allows the author to create the illusion that the reader is privy to sensations and uncensored thoughts within a character’s mind, it allows readers to feel as though they are in the character’s mind. Stream of consciousness narration ensures that readers understand the protagonist’s internal experience in order to then fathom his external reality. Furthermore, the unity of time and place is neglected in this technique, creating a surreal atmosphere in which the reader feels as though time has been stopped through the power of words from the moment in which they step into the protagonist’s subconscious mind. To me, this is truly a craft because stream of consciousness writers, such as Mahfouz, are able to recreate the slow passing of time in the human mind through their words.

However, stream of consciousness narration has its limitations. The most significant limitation being that as the narrator disappears and the character’s emotions take over, we no longer have the ability to authentically engage with reality that exists somewhere, that vivid experience is taken away from us and it is replaced with a hallucinatory trip into the protagonists mind. Furthermore, there may be a lack of comprehension of the novel particularly when the novel is so convoluted. We loose a realistic sense of character because we no longer have a narrator providing us with an honest depiction of characters or events, we become reliant on how the individual is portraying himself/herself or their own reality.

Stream of consciousness writing elevates novels from being mere stories to becoming almost a psychologically healing medium. Authors stop creating one-dimensional characters and travel into the subconscious and unconscious mind of the character in order to reveal the internal war which the character faces. Traditional novels built their characters by their actions, physical appearance, moral character and what other characters say about them. Modernist writers abolished this technique as it only led to a superficial understanding of a non-realistic character. Modernist writers introduced dynamic, complex, three-dimensional characters. As we saw with Said Mehran, he was a thief and a murderer, yet the reader was able to sympathize with him and see him as a human. Mehran’s psychological projection of Said Mehran is the perfect example of how modern novels are the death of the traditional hero and villain archetypes. Another dynamic character that we have studied is Okonkwo from the novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo was a tragic hero, unlike the traditional hero, Okonkwo was a character with all the masculine traits he needed in order to qualify as a ‘hero’ in the traditional sense, yet his psychological conflict and his fears plagued his life and caused his life to end tragically.

All in all, Mahfouz has combined realism and stream of consciousness writing to a great effect in his novella. Mahfouz broke away from the old technique of meticulous detail and panoramic narration in order to create an emotional connection with his readers.