Midaq Alley Essay

George Gershwin George Gershwin was an American composer that was born in 1898 in Brooklyn, New York. He began his musical career in music stores as a “song plugger”; working for music publishing companies by playing piano to promote and try to sell the new sheet music that the store had. Shortly after, Gershwin began to write and publish his own songs. He had his first song published in 1916 at the age of 17. The song was called "When You Want 'Em, You Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You

Obsession is one of the greatest obstacles for mankind to overcome. In Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, the motif of obsession helps to both characterize and even foreshadow the fates of the characters. Both novels illustrate that obsessions with an object or person leads to demise, but the novels differ in how they portray the effects of these obsessions on humanity. Before continuing this analysis, obsession will be clearly defined.

life is supposed to look like. Though there are differences between cultures, oftentimes the similarities are overlooked in pursuit of the differences. The novels of Midaq Alley and Chronicle of a Death Foretold may have originated from opposite sides of the world, but they are alike in multiple ways. In both the novels Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the elements of situational irony, diction, and dialogue are utilized to develop characters

The early 20th century saw major changes in Arabic societies, which initiated a new cultural order that changed the lives of men and women alike. The sweeping changes associated with this period were catalyzed by a massive immigration from the countryside into the rapidly expanding urban centers of the region. There exist a variety of contributing factors to this migration: systems of land inheritance that fragmented land into smaller parcels (decreasing an already declining income per capita);

Today we very often see great American writers recognized worldwide, but we don’t always see a great Arabic writer recognized worldwide. Naguib Mahfouz was an amazing writer and he brought great pride to the Arabic people. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1988 Mahfouz gained a great number of admirers, not only in Egypt but worldwide. Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most famous writers of the Arabic speaking language. Mahfouz is also one of the most widely read and respected authors in Egypt. While

hopefully find common ground and universal truths. I hope to use characters in Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building as lens for exploring the relationship between resistance and romantic love. Midaq Alley, published in 1947 and released in English in 1966, was written by the prolific Nobel prize-winning author, Naguib Mahfouz. The novel is set in Cairo during the Second World War and follows the inhabitants of the titular alley. One of the inhabitants is the young and beautiful Hamida, who lives in an