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Chapter-4
Chapter - 4
THE CAIRO TRILOGY: MALE DOMINATION AND
PATRIARCHY ACROSS THREE GENERATIONS
The Cairo Trilogy traces the lives of three generations of a middle-class family
from 1917 to 1944, a period of wrenching change in Egyptian society. However, this
change has been painful, but inescapable. Contrast with Midaq Alley, (the previous
chapter), The Cairo Trilogy is set against the background of the anti-colonial upheaval
during the World Wars and documents particular political uprisings in meticulous detail.
The three volumes of The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk (PW), Palace of Desire
(PD), and Sugar Street (SS) consolidate Mahfouz's estimation as the leading novelist in
Arabic literature and make him the best Egyptian novelist who has been able to unveil the
secrets and contradictions of the Egyptian society. It is a three-part family saga "...of
modern Arabic literature and the work that enshrines middle class morality and culture."1
Each novel of The Trilogy has a different focus. Palace Walk for instance sets up
the underlying rhythms of an Egyptian Muslim family in Cairo during the British
occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century. It gives us the accurate
picture of a tyrannical patriarch father who rules his household strictly while living a
secret life of self-indulgence.
In Palace of Desire, the concerns of the book are quietly changed and become
largely personal. The world around al-Sayyid Ahmad's family opens to the currents of
modernity, political and domestic chaos, which has brought changes in traditions in the
country and in al-Sayyid Ahmad's family as well. These current of changes influence the
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rebellious children of the family to struggle and move beyond their father's domination.
However, with Sugar Street (SS), The Cairo Trilogy reaches its climactical end. It reveals
Mahfouz's gradual shifts in his treatment of women.
Therefore, this chapter will devote itself to examine the patriarchal norms of male
dominance of the public and private spheres to gain more insight into these important
social issues and to study the gradual shifts in the status of women. Therefore, it is
necessary to break up the chapter into sub-problems.
4.1. Male Domination and Patriarchy: Dual Oppression of Women
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Therefore, women
should be treated intellectually and socially equal to men. However, and due to male
authority and desire to dominate female, patriarchy has taken its shape and becomes a
major feature of the traditional society. It has been known as a set structure of social
relations based on material base that enables men to dominate women. Further, patriarchy
is originally used to describe the power of the father as the head of household, "I am a
man. I'm the one who commands and forbids..." (PW, 4).
Mahfouz explores this term of "patriarchy" to disclose the authority of male as the
head of the household that oppresses women through its social, political, and economic
institutions, based on the notions of superiority and inferiority and legalized by
differences in gender and generation.
All feminist theory is designed to define and show how male domination of
women can be ended. Liberal feminist, for instance, believes that "male dominance is
rooted in irrational prejudice and can be overcome by rational argument."2 While Marxist
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feminism defines male dominance as "an ideology by which capital divides and rules and
which will be overcome by a cultural revolution based on socialist transformation of the
economy."3 However, radical feminists "believe that male domination is grounded on
men's universal control over women's bodies and our sexual and procreative activities,
which will end only when women achieve sexual and procreative self-determination."4
Therefore, the researcher argument is close to the liberal feminism and the Marxist one,
but it does not mean that the researcher is against the radical feminists' vision, farther; it
is quite unfair for both man-woman relationships.
The expansion of The Trilogy over three generations gives the novelist an
excellent scope to inspect the theme of male dominance and patriarchy through observing
the modification of values across generations, the gap of time between different
contemporary social classes, and "the changing lifestyle" accompanying with "the
changing value system."5 Through knotty, multilayered, "multi-directional symbolic"
system, which so smoothly constructed into the realistic consistency of The Trilogy,
Mahfouz, in artistic terms, however, performs the dichotomy that our nation still lives
today that have yet to be transcended.
In the novel, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawwad (the father) is portrayed as a god
in his house because of his supreme, unquestionable, and irrevocable authority that he
brandishes over the fates of the members of his household. Therefore, compassion and
tyranny are both being attributed of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad incidentally. His
generation represents the last stronghold of the past in Egypt, the past when it reigns
supreme, unchallenged, and infallible like God.
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Hence, dealing with such a patriarch is arduous, but despite the fear of
disappointing the father, the sons assume responsibility. Everyone has a unique
personality and as they grow up, the patriarch realizes that he is deprived of the grip over
them and can only witness to their evolution powerlessly. Even he fails to understand and
accept the abstruse changes that his family, Egypt and Islam are going through. Only
al-Sayyid Ahmad's grandchildren will manage to step into the new era and browse the
wave of changes to the zenith.
Judith E. Tucker states that a study of the family has been impeded by the
untested assumptions that the Arab family, whether in Egypt or Palestine, Algeria or
Saudi Arabia, is one monolithic institution, variously termed the "oriental" family, the
"Arab" family, or the "Islamic" family. This family is generally described as the mirror
opposite of its Western European counterpart: it has remained basically unchanged,
undergoing neither the signal historical transformations of family structure that paved the
way for capitalism in Europe nor the process of "modernization" that promoted
individualism at the expense of family control.6 Moreover, she explores the vision of the
Middle Eastern society as she declares, "Standard histories of the Middle East assigned
women to the world of the household, thought to be far from the spheres of economic
production or political and social power that mattered in society."7 Mahfouz presents
Amina as a product of the patriarchal society in which she is submerged. Further, he
utilizes her character to expose Egyptian society and the mentality of the average
Egyptian male.
The Trilogy explores the way that women handle the distinct roles associated with
the two designated spheres of life: the family role in the domestic sphere and the work
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role in the public sphere. As a theme that underlies the women's concerns the way in
which women negotiate the public, private, and communal spheres of social life. Yet,
interestingly, many social theorists, gender theorists in particular, criticize the two-sphere
model of public and private domains. They argue that the public/private dichotomy is
inadequate for understanding women's lives.
The Trilogy narrates the history of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad's family, a
man of absolute contrast between his personality in and outside the home. He is a devout
believer, performing all the duties of Islam meticulously. On the contrary, al-Sayyid
Ahmad, however, conducts a second life of which his family is oblivious; "He had two
personalities. One was reserved for friends and lovers, the other presented to his family
and the world" {PD, 295). There is the face that he keeps at home and the one that is seen
in Cairo's streets and cafes at night. Strictness makes place for friendliness when he
arrives in his shop and at night, he seeks the company of friends at the house of a woman
of uncertain respectability, to gratify himself with wine, music, and women. He is a strict,
authoritarian, much-feared patriarch at home, whereas a witty, much-loved friend,
businessperson and in good spirits outside the house. Moreover, he is a true believer and
pious worshipper in daytime, but at night a devoted libertine has given to drink, women,
and merry-making. Yet, all these contradictions are amalgamated together in a
harmonious and fully admirable as a whole. Contradictory, he shows no signs of being
aware of his behaviour, pretends that he never abuses a respectable woman, and that the
prostitutes of today are nothing but the slave-girls of yesterday and therefore permitted
trade. Mahfouz intends to identify gender harassment that involves degradation of women
at the group level such as making about women as sex subjects.
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Al-Sayyid Ahmad is completely a dominating figure; nevertheless, he is loved
and respected by the entire family. As a god, he commands over the fates of the members
of his household this is shown through the episodes like the banishment of his wife from
his home after twenty-five years of total obedience, for once going out without his
permission, he addresses his wife sharply, "I just have one thing to say: Leave my house
immediately.... I don't want to find you here when I come back this noon" (PW, 193195). The children want to be in his favour, and their contraventions cause them
considerable pain, mainly because they do not want to disappoint their father. It is hard to
imagine that all would be so entirely uncritically subservient to the old man. He is
portrayed in almost superhuman terms, (PW, 8). As she has been known for her
opposition to males writings, Nawal El Saadawi8 declares, "...before Naguib Mahfouz,
male authors always brought about the perdition of their heroines through their baser
instincts, their passions (in the sense of sexual desire), their female weakness, or the fact
that they lacked a mind or a brain."9
Out of the five children, Yasin is the eldest son of a previous marriage al-Sayyid
Ahmad. He takes after his father in his desire for personal gratification: drink and sex,
however, the latter tempts him greatly. He appears to seduce everyone including the date
palm vendor, his first wife's maid, and even his second wife's mother, "His eyes began to
flutter about again, not discriminating between fine ladies and women who sold doum
palm fruit and oranges on the street. The jinni controlling him was wild about women in
general" (PW, 71). Due to his appetite for having sex with women, he loses his job
as a teacher and is transferred to "the farthest reaches of Upper Egypt", "The Ministry"
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(PD, 380-382), on the one hand, and he has been divorced by his first wife Zaynab for his
illegal sexual relation with her servant, Nur, on the other hand.
In Sugar Street, patterns of images and symbols find their fulfillment; the family
brazier, the telling of stories, and the narrative voice continues alert to every paradox of
living, but "life is full of prostitutes of various types. Some are cabinet ministers and
others authors" (SS, 102). Even the characters say wise and memorable things too: "In
our country there are men over sixty who have youthful minds and young people in the
spring of life with a mentality as antiquated as if they had lived a thousand years or more.
This is the malady of the east" (SS, 79).
Society has witnessed domestic violence and rape in marriage as the sign of
'patriarchal dividend', power of men over women in public and private institutions. Since
women have not taken expanded economic roles with reference to industrial employment,
men still assert their power over female. In other words, El Saadawi asserts that Naguib
Mahfouz, "tries to use sexual aggression against women as a symbol of aggression
against a nation or people."10
It is evident that the patriarch's children are somehow trapped by the culture and
lifestyle they have been brought up in and eventually remain on the threshold of the new
era. Referring to his father, Kamal says, "We've never known you as a friend the way
outsiders do. We've known you as a tyrannical dictator, a petulant despot", and decides
to limit the tyranny of his father, which envelops him like this "all-embracing darkness
and torments me like this cursed sleeplessness" and "I will surely leave your house as
soon as I'm able to support myself. There's plenty of room in the districts of Cairo for all
the victims of oppression" (PD, 373). Even Kamal considers his beloved (Aida) as
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another "tyrant" as being unfair to his love for long time "She oppressed me without ever
loving me", which reflects on his father as a responsible for his "love and torments" as
anyone else, "Father, you're the one who made it easy for me to accept oppression
through your continual tyranny" (PD, 374). Then he refers to his mother, saying,
"Ignorance is your crime, ignorance... ignorance... ignorance. My father's the
manifestation of ignorant harshness and you of ignorant tenderness. As long as I live, I'll
remain the victim of the two opposites," (PD, 374), where the action is left entirely to the
male characters.
It can be noticed that unwanted sexual attention involves degradation of women at
the individual level, by grabbing her inappropriately, or leering at her, as the
situation/incidences that are committed by Yasin against their housemaid, Umm Hanafi
and the black lady, Nur, his wife maid. Therefore, both, gender harassment and unwanted
sexual attention fall in to the legal category of hostile environmental sexual harassment.
So, patriarchy is behind the preclusion of women from having legal and political
rights. This exclusion of women provides the model of enslaving them. They are
exploited outside and relegated to the home; the two positions compound their
oppression. Their subservience in production is obscured by their assumed dominance in
their own world - the family. The oppression of women and the domination of nature are
fundamentally connected. This is because patriarchal dualism places women and the
concept 'Nature' in the same classification, which is deemed to be of less worth than the
'Culture/Masculine' classification.
Accordingly, a patriarchal world becomes the center of everyday life, which can
be found in the family-household where past values and present realities are reconciled. It
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is a story in which reveals the powerful role of the patriarchal father over his household.
However, the patriarchal mode of production, according to Sylvia Wally does not have
"any autonomous laws of development." Rather she assures "I would suggest that the
other mode of production with which the patriarchal mode is in articulation is particularly
important in governing the nature of change."11 Yet, the family on the other hand,
according to Tucker, "is likely to be perceived as the instrument of women's oppression,
the mediator of values and customs that circumscribe women's activities and perpetuate
an unequal distribution of power between genders." Accordingly, she assures, "Study of
the family reduces the woman to victim and obscures the multiplicity of ways in which
she did participate in her society."12
The Trilogy gives us a very simple moral regarding this patriarchal society:
women who remain financially and emotionally dependent on men decay; those able to
break the economic and emotional chains develop as independent women and as humans.
Consequently, domestic violence in The Trilogy is not only represented by psychological
or sexual but also by financial violence that takes place within a family and society. It
forms a pattern of compelling and controlling behaviour. However, the more common
view of domestic violence is that it is the behaviour of some disturbed 'sick' individuals.
4.2. Objectification and Segregation of Women
The Arab World is historically and originally a strictly male-dominated culture,
where male supremacy is the norm. Even with the advent of Islam and the recognition of
women's rights, those traditional elements of the earlier periods still remain. However, it
should not be understood that Islamic law does not guarantee women's rights and
eradicate any discrimination against them. But such traditional/cultural factors intervene
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to create a discrepancy between theory and practice and between what the law stipulates
and what the predominant cultural elements specify. Therefore, unequal treatment
between male and female reflects stereotypical assumptions about the role of female and
male in society.
Women are seen as both subjects and objects by society, yet their very bodies are
objectified by society in such a way that the demarcating line between subject and object
may be blurred for them. This image is very much exemplified in Amina's character
where "Her husband escorted her on each visit in a carriage, because he could not bear
for anyone to see his wife, either alone or accompanied by him" (PW, 35). The
objectification of women has certainly had an effect on how a woman perceives herself as
a subject. In other words, Arab women traditionally and culturally cannot have such
relationships with men without the consent of their family, because women's morals are
questioned whenever she steps outside their homes.
Palace Walk opens with al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad's gentle and oppressed
wife, Amina who awaits patiently for "her husband's return from his evening's
entertainment" till the midnight, sits with him, washes his head and feet, and helps him to
undress {PW, 1). His cloistered daughters are Khadija and Aisha. Khadija is already
twenty when the book begins, and Aisha is sixteen years-old. The daughters live in
complete isolation; they never go to school after growing up nor show their faces in
public as their father states, "no man has ever seen either of my daughters since they
stopped going to school when they were little girls" (PW, 157), and if he has any doubts
about that, his women will face a cruel punishment, even killing not enough as he asserts,
"If I did, not even murder would satisfy me" (PW, 157). In few of that, Roger Allen
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declares, "When a girl is born, they all give a smile of resignation. When she grows up,
they put her in a prison and train her in the art of living, to smile, to curtsy ... and to get
married."13
Amina is immured in her home and her daughters too due to their father' strict
rules, as Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio asserts, "These women, totally under the control of
their husbands, do not have the freedom to voice their concerns."14 Nevertheless, male
characters are permitted a modicum of freedom from the control and supervision of the
father. Although a thick wall prevents his family from taking part in this lighter side of
his personality. Even Amina "wrapped her veil about her" (JPW, 2) when she heads for
the door to the balcony "turning her face right and left while she peeked out through the
tiny, round opening of the latticework panels that protected her from being seen from the
street" (PW, 2). She and her daughters are completely isolated from the outside world.
For that reason, the roof of the house becomes the only break from the monotony of their
daily life:
This roof, with its inhabitants of chickens and pigeons and its arbor
garden, was her beautiful, beloved world and her favorite place for
relaxation... Then her eyes would fix on the minaret of the mosque of
al-Husayn...and her yearnings mingled with the sorrow that pervaded her
every time she remembered she was not allowed to visit the son of the
Prophet of God's daughter, even though she lived only minutes away from
his shrine... What could this world of which she saw nothing but the
minarets and roofs be alike? A quarter of a century had passed while she
was confined to this house, leaving it only on infrequent occasions to visit
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her mother. Her husband escorted her on each visit in a carriage, because
he could not bear for anyone to see his wife, either alone or accompanied
by him (PW, 34-35).
This reveals that the female characters in Palace Walk never stray far from their
husband's shadow. The only innocent of pleasure that Amina finds, is in sharing the
activity and freedom of other living creatures at the roof of her home. It is "the pleasure
of someone who had spent a quarter of a century imprisoned by the walls of her home,
except for a limited number of visits to her mother... Then she would not even have the
courage to steal a look at the street" (PW, 167). This seclusion of females, therefore,
affects the marital status of their daughters.
Amina appears mild and submissive next to her husband, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd
al-Jawad whereas the girls' lives revolve entirely around the family household, where
they help their mother, looking forward dreamily only to their ambition to get married.
Even there is segregation within the family, which is unthinkable that the women would
eat at the same table on the same time with the father and his sons. This state of affairs is
treated as entirely normal; they know no other lifestyle. Still, change is in the air. El
Saadawi asserts, "Segregation between the world of men and that of women is so strict
that a woman who dared to go outside the door of her home is liable to be maltreated at
the hands of men... " 15
Venerated by her children to whom she is a loving and indulgent mother, Amina
spends her days within the four walls of the three-storey building. Her husband al-Sayyid
Ahmad never allows her and their daughters to leave the premises because of his fear of
sexual harassment and rape, since the image of "women's sexual nature is a view of man,
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who also cannot control himself; if he sees a woman, by his very nature he wants her. So
she must not be seen, because the man inevitably will be tempted and she inevitably will
be unable to control her actions."16 They (the women of Palace Walk) see the world from
the openings of the cage of latticework on the balcony, from where they look at the street
vendors and admire the tops of the minarets (PW, 2). Even though Amina is permitted to
visit her mother, her husband would accompany her, traveling together in a carriage from
where Amina would only catch glimpses of the outside world. The two daughters Khadija
and Aisha are being of different personalities, but each of them sustain respect and
enunciate obedience to their father and capitulate to their status, which include no
education beyond primary school and fulfilment of women's duties such as devotion to
the family and marriage.
On the contrary, other families do allow their women to go out in public, as
Mohaamd Iffat's family whose daughter has married to al-Sayyid Ahmad's elder son
(Yasin). Nevertheless, it remains unthinkable in al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad
household; he "was extreme in his insistence on retaining traditional standards for his
family. These other men saw nothing wrong with their wives going out to visit or shop"
(PW, 219). When Yasin takes his wife for an evening walk to the town, it causes,
according to his father's perception, a major scandal to the honor of the family. Zaynab
has been astonished by her father-in-law reaction as she observes sarcastically, "I've
never seen a house like yours where what's licit is forbidden. ..." (317). she finds "her
character had been infected with the virus of submission to his well..." (313). She
realizes that she has missed her greater liberties in her father's household, but she will not
put up with absolutely everything.
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As being a tyrannical father, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad does not tolerate to
any objections. It has occurred to Amina once, during the first year she lives with him, to
venture out a polite objection to his repeated nights. This is the only one remark that she
ever made about his staying out late, is met with fury making her clear that she is there to
obey and not to meddle in his affairs, and in a loud voice, "I'm a man. I'm the one who
commands and forbids. I will not accept any criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is
to obey me. Don't force me to discipline you", (PW, 4). His wife is not allowed to leave
the house unless accompanied by him, mostly on short visits to her parents. She always
used to address him with "Sir". Even his children shiver before him and dare not even
speak to him unless invited to do so.
Amina is portrayed as an illiterate person except for an oral religion that steeps in
superstition, which she has received from her father. She lives in complete isolation from
the outside world, insulates inside the walls of her home in old Cairo where all she could
see of the outside world is the view from the roof, which consisted of nothing but "the
minarets of mosques and the roofs be alike" (PW, 35). She believes in the jinn and does
all she could to appease those of their species that live in her home; "she knew far more
about the world of the jinn than that of mankind and remained convinced that she was not
alone in the big house" (PW, 3). Al-Husayn Mosque is Amina's favourite, but she is not
allowed to leave the house. As a result, and after twenty-five years of this protected,
heedless of life, she decides to dare to go out to visit al-Husayn Mosque in the immediate
vicinity: "How it hurts me for our fine neighbor to leave her home after a long life of
seclusion and honor" (PW, 220).
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The contact with outside reality is catastrophic in its consequences; however,
Kamal tries to take advantage of this unexpected outing and leads his mother into streets
where the most delicious things are sold. She has been hit by a car and has a broken
collarbone, which confines her to bed for three weeks. Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is
influenced by his sternly traditional nature so much, so that he considers "his wife's visit
to the shrine of al-Husayn a crime deserving the gravest punishment he had meted out
during his second marriage" (PW, 219). After she has recovered completely, she faces a
cruel punishment by her husband as he declares, "I just have one thing to say: Leave my
house immediately" (PW, 193). Because if he forgives her, "he would no longer be
Ahmad Abd al-Jawad but some other person he could never agree to become" (PW, 194).
Hereinafter, Amina becomes the symbol of the embodiment of a past isolated from reality
and the true meaning of things perhaps has its fullest expression in the scenes where we
become acquainted with her political views.
In certain pictures, women are portrayed as being vulnerable and easily
overpowered especially when they assume submissive roles. Part of these images is
found in al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad's nightly music, where the focus is only a
particular body part. Moreover, Mahfouz draws attention to the paradox of the complete
absence of women from a national ceremony celebrating a work in which woman
represents the nation. For Mahfouz, this incident is symbolic of the contradiction in the
exclusion of the Egyptian women from the formal political sphere at a time when women
occupies a central place in the images of the nation. Therefore, objectification of women
acts as a barrier to the equality of women. The researcher has reached this vision that,
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however, as far as women are seen as sex objects existing solely to please men, men will
determine their status.
Together, female seclusion and the double standard lead to the extremes of
marital life realized in al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad's family. The husband spends
days and evenings out, enjoying the cheerful company with his friends and womanizing
nightly, while the wife remains for decades at home.
4.3. Social Classes and Everyday Life: Recurring Images of Gender
Despite the Islamic recognition of women's rights, Arab society is still strictly
male-dominated culture, which undoubtedly affects male-female relationships in society.
Male characters appear more conservative. This conservativeness is evident in the
novelist's comment on al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad as he declares, "He was extreme
in his insistence on retaining traditional standards for his family" (PW, 219), and "he was
influenced by his sternly nature, so much..." (PW, 219), which reveals man's desire to
control women. From his own family, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad demands a much
stricter adherence to Islam and tradition, and it is unthinkable, for example, that his wife
or daughters might go out into the street without his permission or company, even they
are fully veiled.
In Cairo Trilogy, social classes play an influential role among the people whether
in the case of marriage or relationship, "Family origin is everything", (SS, 22). This is
clearly depicted in the relationships between Fu'ad al-Hamzawi, the son of Abd alJawwad's assistant at the shop and Abd al-Jawwad's son (Kamal). They are friends and
classmates at school, but "The relationship between the two friends was influenced by the
difference in class between their families ..." (PD, 67). For that reason, Shawkat family
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hesitates to marry off their daughter to Fu'ad, because, "...if this marriage takes place,
Na'ima may find herself mixing with people who are beneath her" (SS, 22).
As schoolchildren, Fu'ad uses to have Kamal's old clothes, and when his
studiousness qualifies him to join the respectable School of Law, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd
al-Jawwad undertakes to finance his education. Fu'ad ends up in the influential office of
attorney for the prosecution and Kamal as a primary school teacher. Therefore, Shawkat
family changes their attitudes towards Fu'ad desiring that he will propose to Aisha's
daughter. In this case, they will overlook his humble origins and condescend to accept.
Nevertheless, Fu'ad does not condescend. His high office and promising career have
moved him up to the social ladder and he can now hope for a more advantageous
marriage than into the family of his old benefactor-this is what compels Khadija to say,
"It's my father who made him one. Our wealth has made him what he is" (SS, 23).
Kamal, as the youngest son of al-Sayed Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, is passionately and
platonically in love with an upper class girl, Aida, the sister of his best friend Husayn
Shaddad. It is a love without hope, but he appears to be content with it. He places her on
a pedestal and worships her unconditionally and without hope of response. Aida, on the
other hand, represents the alternative value system and lifestyle that he is dying for, but
cannot quite attain. She is the elusive present, which he cannot reach far enough to
embrace, and her rejection of him is as symbolic of his parents.
Critics have tended to regard both Kamal's fascination with Aida and her
rejection of him in terms of social class. This is undeniably one level on which the
relationship can be perceived. Kamal is a commoner, the son of a small merchant who
lives in the old popular area of Jamaliyya, whereas Aida is the daughter of Abd al-Hamid
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Shaddad, wealthy aristocrat and friend of the exiled ex-Khedive of Egypt, who lives in a
great mansion in the new Cairo suburb of Abbasiyya. She is cruel to her worshipper,
carelessly hurting his feelings by mocking his rather large head and nose, "I loved
another tyrant who was unfair to me for a long time, both to my face and behind my back.
She oppressed me without ever loving me" (PD, 373-374). Nor does she refrain from
making his love for her a subject for ridicule in the family.
The unwritten social code would permit Kamal to become Husayn Shaddad's
(Aida's brother) best friend, but marriage and the union of the families is a different
matter altogether. Another level on which the relationship can be viewed, and which is in
fact an upgrading of the class level, is the cultural one. Aida, both personally and as a
member of her class, does not belong to the traditional value system that Kamal and his
class live in accordance with it. She and her class are, or at least so appear to the
bewildered and infatuated eyes of Kamal, emancipated from the past. To him she means
modernity, Western modernity with the full plethora of associations that the term brings.
Throughout there is an insistence on her Parisian upbringing and an opposition of what
this means in terms of social behaviour to Kamal's traditional upbringing.
Unlike his mother and sisters who never step out of the house (and if they do, it is
from behind the hijab/veil that they see the world), Aida is a model of Parisian chicness
who mixes freely with her brother's friends (including Kamal). In other words, her
family is less traditional and much more Western-oriented than the family Kamal grows
up in, confronting Kamal with a different and freer way of life. While he watches
and "suffers the bewilderment of one steeped in the traditions of the Husayn Quarter"
(PD, 22), he consciously asks, "Has her breach of observed traditions brought scorn upon
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her in your eyes? ... No. Rather, it has brought scorn upon observed traditions" (PD, 23).
When he sees her parents walking towards their car, arm in arm, chatting casually like
two equal friends, "not master and servant", he wonders, "Would you ever get to see your
parents act like this?" (PD, 164).
Social classes have witnessed changes in their level; some lower classes are rising
up, while other middle classes have been falling. For instance, from the life of
destitution, Fu'ad al-Hamzawi ends up in the influential office of attorney for the
prosecution, even to ask his father to abandon his job as store assistant in al-Jawad's
store, (SS, 13). Similarly, the regression in wealth and grace of the aristocratic Shaddad
family-to such a point that Kamal (whose love is once scorned by their daughter Aida) is
later considered more than a match for her younger sister Budur (SS, 231-233 and 256).
Nevertheless, this is not the aspect from which the situation is viewed. Rather, KamaPs
meditations are centered on the tragic meaning of the fall.
In the Palace of Desire, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his wife Amina
become old, their children middle aged, and their grandchildren entering their twenties.
Therefore, the narrative shifts its focus even farther from the dominant father figure,
al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad to the new generations of the family.
In Sugar Street, the concept of social gaps is somehow met by rejection from the
point of view of some characters, like his nephew Ahmad, Kamal does not believe in the
class system, yet he states, "A person should be judged for what he is, not for his family"
(55, 22). In this novel, Mahfouz presents the two brothers to discuss the future of the
country from different points of view of their different philosophy. Abd al-Muni'm and
Ahmad are the two sons of Khadiga, "the Believer and the apostate" (SS, 261). Abd
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al-Munim is a member of the Muslim brotherhood and Ahmad is a communist. Abd
al-Munim's belief in God and in Islam is steady and strong. Ahmad is more interesting,
especially since his belief in communism is none too doctrinarian.
Among the central characters in this volume is Ahmad Shawkat, who disappoints
his family by eventually becoming a journalist. Unlike Kamal, who also writes and
publishes extensively, but on airy subjects, "he's a writer who rambles through the
wilderness of metaphysics", Ahmad is interested in politics and real-life issues. He is a
Marxist and a stark contrast to his brother, Abd al-Muni'm (a devoted Muslim who
becomes active in the Muslim Brethren). Each marries according to his personal
philosophy. Ahmad vainly tries to win an upper-class girl and to impress her with his
prospect, but his endeavors are in vain. However, this failure does not bother him;
instead, he marries beneath him to prove that he does not care about classes to the
annoyance of his mother. Ahmad marries the woman at work who commits to the same
principles of his. Whereas, his family is shocked by marring a working woman, because
women who work outside the home are seen as "an old maid, a hag, or a woman who
apes men" (55, 249). This marriage irritates his mother as she declares, "...How can you
want to marry into the family of a pressman?", and she adds, "...I found them living
in a cellar on a street... Her mother's mother differs in no respect from that of a maid ..."
(55, 248). To change the matter, Kamal asks Ahmad that if he marries according to the
prescription of God and his Prophet. For that, Ahmad replies, "Of course. We marry and
bury according to the precepts of the former religion, but we live according to the Marxist
faith" (SS, 251). However, Abd al-Muni'm leaps into marriage because he cannot accept
taking the immoral route of a sexual outlet not hallowed by marriage.
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In terms of politics, Ahmad is in different with/his elder brother. He considers
science as the new religion, which even is defended by his two friends. While Sawsan,
his wife, thinks that there is no time for philosophy and that the present time demands
action. They are the two sturdier and more interesting pillars, though Mahfouz is careful
not to delve too closely into their Marxist and Islamic activities. Not surprisingly,
it is they who are seen as the greater threat, and the final sections of the novel deal with
their arrests, "The one who worships God and the one who doesn't...You must
worship the government first and foremost if you wish your life to be free of problems"
(SS, 305-306).
In Arab societies, both genders are suffering; men, for instance, in Egypt suffer
from political repression by the authorities whereas women suffer from familial and
societal repression. Unfortunately, Egyptian women appear to be subservient in nature to
the imposed restrictions justified by traditions and customs that hinder thought and
change. According to Layla Ahmed:
Gender constructions in the lower middle class are similar, but not
identical, to those of other classes in Cairo society, and are based in part
on Islamic beliefs about male and female roles. While Islamic ideals are
certainly important, it must always be remembered that they are filtered
and altered through local needs and that they change over time.17
Yet, the patriarchal system becomes the basis of modern societies and behind the
phenomenon of violence against women as it implies male domination on women and
children in the family. This is clearly depicted in the character of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd
al-Jawad through his attitudes towards his family. Subjecting women to violence in the
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home and outside the home is, therefore, the most dangerous phenomena. Nevertheless,
we cannot deny the signs of change that have taken place in different parts of Arab
societies.
The father, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, is a strict disciplinarian at home. His
entire family loves and respects him but this kind of love and respect mix with fear of
"That stern, tyrannical, terrifying, God-fearing, reserved man who kills everyone around
him with fright?" (PW, 248). Ostensibly a devout Muslim, he nevertheless enjoys
revelling and carousing with his close friends, coming home drunk night after night,
having enjoyed wine, women, and song.
Regarding marriage, beauty becomes the main criterion of marriageable girls.
Meanwhile, Aisha receives a proposal for marriage and this intensifies Khadija's jealousy
and fears that she will remain an unmarried woman. As a skillful writer, Mahfouz gives
excellent details, particularly the complex inter-personal relationships. He presents an
awesome picture of everything from the staggeringly backwards treatment of women, and
the unbelievable ease in which marriages are entered into, to the more complex
relationships as class and sexual barriers are lowered. Mortifications are produced by the
sexual obsessions of both, the father and the sons leading to unfortunate, unruly
marriages, divorces, and mistresses that menace the confidentiality and stability of the
patriarchal household. After Aisha's marriage, Al Sayyid Ahmad discovers that his son
(Yasin) makes a pass on Umm Hanafi on the veranda. But she screams before he can
accomplish his pass much to his terror and shame. This ill behaviour serves as a catalyst
to accelerate the collapse of his first marriage after he is caught again, but this time by his
wife, Zaynab, and soon, he finds himself divorced. Amidst this, Zaynab is pregnant. But
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Yasin never learns from his faults, instead, he goes to his father's store to beg his
permission for his second marriage with Maryam, a divorcee woman.
Despite his marriage for the second time, Yasin does not stop having sex with
other women. He is back in the pleasure districts. He singles out his father's mistress, the
lute-player Zanuba, drinking together, and then he brings her home, where his wife
Maryam is seemingly asleep upstairs. Nevertheless, Maryam intrudes upon the scene of
seduction, hair-pulling and scratching goes sky-high, and she strikes her husband with a
slipper, "A whore in my house, drunk and disorderly...Go with her you have no right to
stay in my house" (PD, 277-279). In the midst of what could be a comic melee, he
shouted at her, "I never want to see you again." Then he pronounced the irreversible
triple divorce formula: "You're divorced, divorced, divorced!" (JPD, 277).
Yasin is a true son of his father as far as licentiousness is concerned, but unlike
his father, he has no sense of dignity, and a feeling for modesty. His amorous exploits
bring scandal to the family, "You have spoiled the purity of a friendship..." (PW, 408).
His religious attitude is as lax as he can afford it to be and as he drinks among his
drunken friends he says, "...We're a religious family. Yes, we're dissolute inebriates, but
we all plan to repent eventually" (SS, 273).
The family members, however, uncannily sharing all lives, those of the enclosed,
oppressed women, as well as of the men on their nightly depravation in the pleasure
districts and private houseboats on the Nile, where they drink liquor in the company of
female "entertainers". One might say, the males of the family seem frantically intent on
going to the extremes of depravity.
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In The Trilogy, gender-conflict is brought to the attention of the public in various
forms such as violence and abuse which take numerous forms as physical, moral,
economic, psychological abuse, and sexual among others. Women and children appear
defenseless to it in the previous two volumes. Further, women and girls are subjected to
sexual and psychological abuse that cut across lines of income, class, and culture. Hence,
gender based violence becomes a form of discrimination that inhabited women's ability
to enjoy rights and freedoms on basis of equality with men.
4.4. Women's Status and Their Problematic Issues
Woman's status in Islam is one of the most contentious and serious issues of our
times. It is common talk that women constitute half the society; therefore, the society
should not neglect them or leave them idle, mistreat them, nor dissolve their rights. But
unfortunately, the role of women is still definitely lower than male in these societies.
Hence, it is necessary to look at women as the foundations of future generations and must
be treated as such.
In The Trilogy, Mahfouz classifies women's lives as traditional and modern.
Traditional women are confined to household, while modern women have left the
household behind and venture out into the workplace. Women in these families portray
the past (a time when women work in the home) and the present (an era when they work
outside the home). But, the presence of women at work is limited; most of them are
young women from lower middle classes, "We're unable to see women from more than
one perspective" (SS, 193).
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During the Nasser era, reforms provided free schooling and guaranteed work in
the government bureaucracy upon gaining a degree, a policy that encouraged lower-class
families to keep their children in school with the goal of secure employment in a
government office. This policy proves particularly attractive for daughters, gives the need
for respectable employment, which would not harm family honor, and ultimately created
the overcrowding that now characterizes government offices, "All the girls study today,
just like boys" (SS, 5).
In his Trilogy, Mahfouz has created stereotypical female characters such as wife,
mother, daughter, lover, sex maker, and employer. Therefore, the novel tackles the status
of women in different aspects.
4.4.1. Family and Politics
Family, as a social institution, is considered a brewery for patriarchal practices by
socializing the young to accept sexually differentiated roles. In Arab culture, most
families still follow their old tradition where the socialization process differentiates the
girl child from boy child. Moreover, boys are taught to view themselves as heads of
households whilst girls are taught to be obedient and submissive housekeepers. The
society has also viewed women as sexual beings as being constantly defined in relation to
men due to their dependent and subordinate to them as well.
As the structure of the novel shows, males in the family rule females by right of
birth; whether the male child is the first-born or the youngest, he is automatically
considered the head of the household who should protect and look after his sisters. The
females are further discriminated in al-Jawad family, because eventually they will marry
out and joins another family whilst the males ensure the survival of the family name
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through bringing additional members into the family. On the contrary, Jamal Badawi in
his paper, "The Status of Woman in Islam", has been highlighted the concept of family
and gender equality stating:
Islam treats family, society and ultimately the whole of humankind on an
ethical basis. Differentiation in sex is neither a credit nor a drawback for
the sexes. Therefore, when we talk about status of woman in Islam it
should not lead us to think that Islam has no specific guidelines,
limitations, responsibilities, and obligations for men. What makes one
valuable and respectable in the eyes of Allah, the Creator of mankind and
the universe, is neither one's prosperity, position, intelligence, physical
strength nor beauty, but only one's Allah-consciousness and awareness.18
In The Trilogy women characters are portrayed in their linked role as wife,
mother, prostitute, and employee. Women as mothers are respected and even idolized like
Amina. Amina is portrayed as self-sacrificing, nurturing, caring, and permissive to her
children. Her duty within the home (caring for and educating her children) is not only
woman's most important responsibilities and the culmination of her linked role as wife
but also she is highly appreciated tasks in the societal context as a whole. Acting
appropriately and competently as a mother is a woman's highest ideal attainment (PW, 9
and 15). On the contrary, woman is portrayed as sexual temptress outside the family
boundaries. Female characters are discerned as having a strong sexual nature that needs
to be controlled for society to retain any order. This overpowering appetite is controlled
by various rituals, customs, and traditions to ensure those women's sexual urges and
women's power to disrupt society will be constrained.
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In The Trilogy, Mahfouz presents two types of family: traditional patriarchal
family and secular. Mahfouz presents his families as stable as unified; they only differ in
tradition. A family like al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad's would have been touched by
such changes if not, it directly affected by them. However, the family itself can be best
characterized by its adherence of tradition based in religion rather than religion itself.
Kamal is the first to display somewhat explicitly secular ideology characteristic of the
elite. This is perhaps best exemplified through Kamal's education. In studying and
writing about the philosophy of Bergson and the science of Darwin, two personalities
whose scholarship is abomination to religious faith, Kamal signals his freedom from
religion and the tradition based in it. He holds a central role between the generations. His
spiritual development from a confessing believer to a skeptical unbeliever is admirably
portrayed. However, skepticism and unbelief cannot eradicate the former belief
altogether. Kamal, as a boy, is much influenced by his mother in his belief of genies, evil
spirits, and his love for the shrine of Husayn.
Kamal appears in many scenes as the sole male companion of his mother and
sisters, preferring to sit with them even as they bake or engage in the latest gossip.
Furthermore, his untainted relationship to the family's women reveals to us the roles of
women not rather than servants and housekeepers. Most women are socialized to see
themselves as inherently domesticated and to disparage their ability to perform tasks
beyond the boundaries defined as domestic, as the case of Amina and her two daughters:
If Amina, in the upper stories, felt she was a deputy or representative of
the ruler, lacking any authority of her own, here she was the queen, with
no rival to her sovereignty. The fate of the coal and wood, piled in the
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right hand corner, rested on a word from her. The stove that occupied the
opposite corner ... Here she was the mother, wife, teacher, and artist
everyone respected... (PW, 14-15).
They are encouraged to see motherhood (within marriage) as their most valuable
and relevant social role and their source of power and status. Consequently, from early
childhood they have strived to become and to acquire the reputation for being a good
marriage partner. They are educated to avoid violating norms of gender roles as well as to
be honorable, compromising, and supportive of the male head of household. El Saadawi
asserts that there is an explicit division of women in Mahfouz's novels. In Cairo Trilogy,
she points that there is two categories: "...a woman belongs either to the category which
is composed of sacred pure mothers and frigid, chaste, respectable wives, or to that which
groups together the prostitute and the mistress, women who are warm, pulsating,
seductive, but despised."19 Thus, and by studying Mahfouz's Trilogy, the women's
stature is translated into a lack of decision-making power in the family even on the most
intimate aspects of their lives, accompanying with slight alteration in their roles: "My
opinion is the same as yours, sir. I have no opinion of my own" (PW, 157).
Quran honours woman as a human being, a feminine being, a daughter, wife,
mother, and as a full member of her society, "Islam holds men and women to be equal..."
(SS, 122). However, misinterpretation of Qur'an is behind the forms of injustice and
maltreatment towards Arab women. Mahfouz's message reveals that some Muslims have
wronged women in different ages by depriving her of her right to solid religious
knowledge and her right to work. al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad deals harshly with his
family, he has forbidden his wife and his two daughters from going to the mosque for
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worship or propensity, even he compels his younger daughter to marry someone she does
not like and confined her to her home. Horrible things are always done in the name of
religion.
Al-Sayyid Ahmad and his wife, Amina, are dominating figures, especially for
their children. The two daughters are very different types, but each acquiesces to her role,
which includes no education beyond primary school and sees marriage and devotion to
family as a woman's only duties, (PW, 32). The sons also are very different from one
another, but they share their respect and love for their parents burdensome though these
can be. One of the problems facing the family is that Khadija is not yet married, and that
it is unseemly for the younger daughter to get married first; nevertheless, in a small break
with tradition, Aisha is eventually married off first (PW, 31, 157 and 161).
However, after her marriage, Khadiga becomes a matriarchy, she governs control
of her husband and even makes him praying, and fasting as a good Muslim should. Being
bold at home, she imposes 'Jawadism' in the heartland of 'Shawkatism'. Her two sons,
Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad, are fully resemble her, unlike their father. They are brought
up along the same line of their theologian family.
Al-Sayyid Ahmad rules his family with an iron-fist and ensures that everything in
the household is running according to his instructions without anyone fluctuation from
the set ways as he states, "I decided a long time ago which order to follow" (PW, 155).
He views the children with pride outside the house but within the house, they are
annoyance and dissatisfaction to him. He will call them "their lions and the fruit of his
loins' in front of his friends while at home, the most affectionate names they can get are
'bastards and sons of bitches".
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Thus the atmosphere in the family is portrayed as stifling, especially for the
mother and her daughters. Each acquiesces to their traditional role: submission to the
father's domination and devotion to family as their only duties. The women never go out
of the house alone; they can only snatch glimpses of the street through the latticework of
the balcony screen. Mahfouz shows how, at all costs a false front must be preserved, both
within the family and in the family's face to the outside world.
By leaving the home for work, women create some changes in gender ideology,
performing a new turn in the Islamic community towards the right direction. Yet other
women, like Khadija, are discomfort with that, they feel working outside the house is
fallacious; "That's just shrewd cunning. What do you expect from a laborer's daughter ...
She has a job. How could she find time to become pregnant and have a baby?", and
"There's no way a woman who works can be a good wife..." (SS, 275), since they feel
that modern times can lead them to do things against religion.
Controversy over women's role is predominant since men are suited to go out to
the outside world thinking they are responsible for providing financial resources for the
family. While women are suited to remain within family boundaries, caring for the home,
children, and husband. However, in the third volume of The Trilogy, women and men are
of the same mind that family life is essential to develop one's nature as a complete person
within society, creating an ordered society and moral lives. Doubtfully, Abd al-Muni'm
says, "I don't know whether we praise or censure women when we call them our equals"
(SS, 122). However, Ahmad Shawkat answers him that, "If it's a question of rights and
duties, then it's praise, not blame" (SS, 122). In this regard, Hoodfar states, "Family roles
of both men and women are fundamental in maintaining the entire societal structure;
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therefore, gender constructs are highly sensitive, pointing to women's staying in the
home, strongly opposing women's working outside and abandoning their key role."20
4.4.2. Forced Marriage, Polygamy, Divorce and Domestic Servitude
Issues such as forced marriage, polygamy, divorce, and domestic servitude
become very common in Islamic and Arab societies, especially in Egypt. Many Egyptian
women are forced into marriages by their fathers/male relatives often before adulthood.
Consequently, forced marriage therefore becomes a recurring image where both bride and
bridegroom have neither met nor known each other so far. This is clearly depicted in
Yasin's first marriage with Zaynab when he is eagerly to catch a first glance of her as
"He hoped once more that he could see through the silk veil well enough to get a first
look at the face of his bride" (PW, 295). This scenario is widely common leaving many
women in trap.
Regarding polygamy in Islam, people have misused the sanction. It remains a
common practice among members of middle and upper classes Egyptians for reasons
other than those explicit in Islam, "a man like Mr. Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, so wealthy,
strong, and handsome...could have taken second, third, and fourth wives. His father had
many wives" (PW, 5). They use religion to justify additional marriages even though they
clearly do not meet the standards that are set by religion for polygamy. In this regard,
they practice polygamy for the sake of displaying wealth, or further to gratify their sexual
appetite; "What makes him marry a woman ten years older is greed for her money and
property" (PW, 108). Consequently, forced marriage and polygamy are responsible for
causing divorce and domestic violence against women.
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Regarding marriage conception, the husband can have as many wives as he wants
and can have extra-marital affairs as an additional benefit as Yasin declares, "Religion
supports my view, as shown by its permission to marry four wives ..." (PW, 37), has
forgotten that religion's conditions on polygamy and its final insistence to have only one
.21 Fahmy has observed with a smile as he responds to Yasin, "We had a grandfather who
spent the evening with one wife and the morning with another. Perhaps you're his heir"
{PW, 337).
When such a state of affairs happens, however, the wife is blamed for deficiency
to satisfy her husband or for failing to keep a tight rein on his desire to do so. This is
evident in Yasin's abasement of his wife, "Your sex is responsible. There's not a single
one of you who can keep me from wanting others. You're all powerless to conquer
boredom ..." (PD, 378). This visualizes men as an unchangeable in their attitudes
towards women. They expect their wives to be sexually passive and submissive to them
as the case with Amina. Men appear to be the initiators of sex and set the conditions for
the sexual encounter too.
Despite its increasing frequency and serious consequences, domestic violence in
Arab and Islamic countries has not yet considered a major concern. The indifference to
this type of violence stems from the attitudes that domestic violence is a private matter
and usually, a justifiable response to misbehaviour on the part of the wife. Therefore, the
victims join in a conspiracy of silence rather than exposing these offences to conserve the
importance of their family's honour. However, a fair reading of the Qur'an shows that
wife abuse, like genital mutilation and "honour killings" are a result of culture rather
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than religion. Domestic violence can take many forms, including emotional, sexual, and
physical abuse and threats of abuse.
The structure of The Cairo Trilogy therefore shows that women at home are
looked upon as "a second class citizens", subsist only to serve their husband and
the family. They neither considered equal to their husbands nor to collaborate on
decisions regarding to family matters as Amina concedes, "...I have no opinion of my
own" (PW, 156), all the decisions are left to the patriarch man of the family. In this
regard, Allegretto-Diiulio declares, "Held in a vice between religious mandates and
cultural norms created by males, the Islamic female was never in a position to negotiate
her rights and her position in society."22
In matters of finding a partner, Islam has set clear rules to arrange marriages. A
woman and a man are both free to marry whoever they choose and free to divorce one
another at any given time, although divorce is looked upon as the final resort. It shows
that Muslim women are not under the command of any human being, but under God's
command. It is more explicit as it stated in Quran, "Whoever does deeds of
righteousness, be they male or female, and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the
least injustice will be done to them."23
Mahfouz in his Trilogy discloses the unequal power of relations between male and
female, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women's rights.
He recounts vital and distressing events. On the domestic scene, there are marriages,
divorce, temporary banishment, childbirth, death, all of which we see in the context of
larger political currents and social change that will alter many things in family life, but
leave others unchanged. The father dominates his family through authoritarian rule and
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absolutist morality. Not only does he enjoy total jurisdiction over the family, but he
routinely demands acts of servility of them. His children must kiss his hands when he is
angry with them while his wife, Amina, sits by his feet each night when he returns home
from his carousing to take off his shoes and socks, (PW, 8). She remains a "loving,
obedient, and docile wife", (PW, 4), and by "hearing the tip of his walking, she held the
lamp out over the banister to light his way" (PW, 7). In this contest, Pamela AllegrettoDiiulio assures that, "Domestic servitude has historically subjected women to patriarchal
obedience rather than to a cooperative effort to build family."24
Mahfouz asserts, not only girls have any choice to select their own partners, but
also boys, "No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary
motive for marring her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me...me."
(PW, 157). They are forced to marry according to their parents' selection. Denied her
lovable officer, Aisha, the beautiful daughter, tenderly accepts marriage to another suitor
of her father's choice; whom she does not meet so far till the match is done. What makes
matters worse is that she gets married to one of the Shawkat sons who are portrayed as
the archetype of idleness. Of Turkish descent, they are without education and jobs, but
with enough income from property to provide for a decent standard of living. Their days
and nights are spent at home displaying no interest in the turmoil of public life, (PD, 34).
Even Fahmy who is crushed by his desire for Maryam, the neighbour's daughter, Al
Sayyid Ahmad, however, refuses peremptorily when Fahmy asks for his permission to
request her hand, "... He'll obey me whether he wishes to or not" (PW, 128), an action
that the Fahmy would regret for the rest of his days. Even his women cannot have their
rightful access to learning, work, responsibility, and choice in marriage. Therefore,
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Women's rights with regard to marriage, especially their opposition to arbitrary divorce
and polygamy are major concerns of Mahfouz's work.
As a civil servant and his fear of his family, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is
among those who practice polygamy in a clandestine manner. We have observed him
embarrasses and keeps a secret of the fact that he has more than one wife. Therefore, it
manifests a construction of male power as superior and a desire to dominate women.
Polygamy is considered as a violent and discriminatory practice of one group
towards another based on sex. Therefore, the government has a responsibility to protect
women from all forms of discrimination in the home and in the wider world. A man who
takes second and subsequent wives is likely to forget his obligations to first wives and
their children. Thus, polygamy creates a form of discrimination against women based on
an assumption of male superiority and male sexual concession that is hence in opposition
with principles of equality and anti-discrimination in many legal instruments. On that
account, polygamy is harmful to both first and second wives. It constitutes a form of
domestic violence, which is legitimated both by law and by custom as well "My husband
took a second wife / When wedding henna still was fresh / Upon my hands. The day he
brought / Her home, her presence seared my flesh" (SS, 273).
Marriages, birth, and death are the well-known milestones. Yasin, the eldest son,
marries three times. He proves unfaithful to his previous wives by following a life of lust.
For that reason, he is divorced twice. Yasin tries to justify his ill behaviours by saying
that he does not find the model life of freedom in both of the two wives, like his father,
he argues, "The man does what he wants and finds stability, love, and obedience when he
returns home. I wasn't able to realize this dream with Zaynab or Maryam, and it seems
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unlikely I will with Zanuba either... " (PD, 377). Finally, he gets married with Zanuba
(the lute-player and his father's mistress) with whom he feels a different situation from
his other wives, "My first wife was chosen by my father, who imposed her on me. My
second wouldn't let me touch her unless I married her. So I did. But no one imposed you
on me" (PD, 378).
Hence, Women's marginalization in marriage and sexuality occupy the center
stage in The Trilogy. It presents a woman traps in a marriage shattered by the steady
betrayals of her husband. Mahfouz has tackled the problems of marriage to the parents
who choose a husband for their girl likewise; they select a wife to their son. Other
problems are polygamy, paternal cousin marriage, and divorce laws, which favour men
over women. In addition, Mahouz has revealed to his readers another image of patriarchy,
which operates through marriage transactions and sexual relations. This is clearly
depicted in Na'ima's marriage to her cousin Abd al-Muni'm. It is called as an economic
transaction due to its assuredness that her family's property will remain in the patrilineal
line. In the words of Allegretto-Diiulio, Mahfouz in his Palace Walk, "Graphically
exposes the reader to the theme of female entrapment through oppressive and repeated
acts of domestic servitude" and she adds, The Cairo Trilogy, "represents Mahfouz's
attempt to address social realities and injustices, which had happened and continued to
happen in Egypt."25 Polygamy therefore indicates an interpretation of male power as
superior and a desire to dominate women, and biological/sexual factors influence its
standing. Both physical and psychological insinuate male partner violence is strongly
associated with personality disorder, regardless of the effects of childhood abuse.
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Nonetheless, marriage in the third volume (Sugar Street) which is represented by
the third generation is very different from that of the previous norms. This generation has
its own concepts of marriage. He/she will select his/her partner. They appear to disobey
the established norms on marriage, male-female dealings, and sexual behaviours. They do
not only eliminate their parents' choice of partner but also pursue an independent course
that put individual wants over family compulsion and social demands.
4.4.3. Loyalty and Obedience
The Trilogy opens with Amina, as an obedient wife, awaiting her husband's return
from his "evening's entertainment" (PW, 1) until dawn, sits with him, washes his head
and feet, and helps him to undress "Then she would serve him until he went to sleep"
(PW, 1). However, throughout The Trilogy, a reader can admire and sympathize with
Amina's long patience, staying with her husband through thick and thin, forgiving him
for his own wrongdoings against her, and all the things he stands for. Yet, her innocence,
ignorance and good-natured love, and religious devotion show a lovely character; one
that pities not admires any longer. Her worldview is limited. She is dutiful and always
worrying about such things, "God, I ask you to watch over my husband and children, my
mother and Yasin, and all the people: Muslims and Christians, even the English,
my Lord, but drive them from our land as a favor to Fahmy, who does not like them"
(PW, 35). She is a dutiful homemaker, modest, and lives her life for her family and her
husband. Those qualities that make her admirable make her also a source of great
sympathy. While the two daughters, Khadija and Aisha show different personalities, but
each of them sustain respect and absolute obedience to their father and give in to their
status. Regarding to the exploitation of women, El Saadawi declares:
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the exploitation to which a wife and a mother is exposed is evident from
the fact that she carries out a number of vital functions without being paid,
she is cook, sweeper, cleaner, washerwoman, domestic, servant, nurse,
governess and teacher to the children, in addition to being an instrument of
sexual satisfaction and pleasure to her husband. All this she does free of
charge, except for the expenses of her keep, in the form of food, clothing
Oft
and shelter. She is therefore the lowest-paid labourer in existence.
According to the father's rule, Amina and her daughters should stay home and
dare not leave without his permission. The daughters also should not be seen by
outsiders, observing the street life outside the house from peepholes in their latticed
balcony, and yet one is so daring to attempt it. Duplicity and strictness seems to be the
ruling traits of the all-powerful father whom the entire family worship and fear. Mary
Wollstonecraft "warned that there would be neither freedom nor peace as long as women
were barred from free and rational thought by domestic domination, because submission
to a singular command in marriage...obstructs ambition, creating instead extravagance,
vice, and uselessness."27 So, the position of women is one thing that women are secluded
and compelled to accept their husband's behavior, only "...men have an absolute right to
do anything they want and women a duty to obey and abide by the rules ..." (PW, 334).
Accordingly, Allegretto-Diiulio argues, "Mahfouz's male characters suffering from a
narcissistic fixation, react as though all others, especially females, must accommodate
them."28
Al-Sayyid Ahmad uses to go out every night and often does not return until dawn
without any consideration to time and marital life. In their first year of marriage, she
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dares to express her disagreement with his constant retard at night, thus he aggressively
replies, "I am a man. I'm the one who commands and forbids. I will not accept any
criticism of my behavior. All I ask of you is to obey me. Don't force me to discipline
you" (PW, 4). Amina then "learned from this, and from the other lessons that followed, to
adapt to everything, even living with the jinn, in order to escape the glare of his wrathful
eye. It was her duty to obey him without reservation or condition" (PW, 4). She
has normal and tender emotions deep inside herself in the name of "sincerity, virtue, and
religion ..." (PW, 311). Even with his daughters, al-Sayyid Ahmad is very harsh, wanting
them to follow the steps of their mother to be loyal and obedience to their husbands,
"May our Lord guide your steps and grant you success and peace of min. I cannot give
you any better advice than to imitate your mother in every respect, both great and small"
(PW, 319).
During dinner time, none of his sons (al-Sayyid ahmad) dare look directly at
their father's face and even look to each other, "for fear of being overcome by a smile"
(PW, 19), whereas, their mother is standing near to the table to be "ready to obey any
command" (PW, 20). The women of the household appear to accept the authority of their
father without any resistance. In this regard, Qasim Amin relates this obedience and
submissiveness of women to the "darkness of past eras" where "Women lost their
reasoning power." Moreover, he adds, "A woman's physical weakness disabled her from
acquiring it. She was therefore forced to resort to trickery, and acted toward man-her
master and guardian -as a prisoner would acted toward his prison guard."29
With a servant, and according to al-Sayyid Ahmad's rule, Amina has no need to
go out of the house, and he has forbidden her to show her veil in public. After twenty-five
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years of married life, Amina goes out only to visit her mother on rare occasions. Even in
these rare occasions, her husband accompanies her to maintain the family's good name.
While her husband goes on a business trip to Port Said, Amina is torn apart between her
desire to visit the mosque of Al-Husayn and her obedience towards her husband. On the
insistence of her children, she eventually yields to her desire to visit the shrine with her
son, Kamal. Unable to hide her disobedience, she confesses to her husband. For that
reason, he expels her from the house, sending her back to her mother's house to await his
final decision due to her disobedience, "How could you have committed such a grave
error? ... Was it because I left town for a single day? ... I just have one thing to say: leave
my house immediately ... I don't want to find you here when I come back this noon"
(PW, 193-195). With a critical smile, Amina's mother asks her, "What tempted you to
disobey him after that long life of blind obedience? ... The safest thing to do is to be
careful to obey him, for your own peace of mind and for the happiness of your children"
(PW, 202), he is "a man, and men will always have enough defects to blot out the sun"
(PW, 202).
Not only Amina, but also Yasin faces the same situation when he has taken his
wife, Zaynab, for a walk without his father's permission, "... Is this the result of the
education I've given you? ... Where's your sense of honor?" his father questions him,
(PW, 313-314), and he adds, "Don't you know that I forbid my wife to leave the house
even if only to visit al-Husayn? How could you have given in to the temptation to take
your wife to a bawdy show and stay there with her until after midnight?" (PW, 314).
However, Zaynab uses to enjoy her freedom in her house, but now she is in al-Sayyid
Ahmad's house where rules should be obeyed. This is clearly depicted in al-Sayyid
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Ahmad's sharp reaction that Zaynab "...is no longer in her father's house. She must
respect the rules of the family to which she now belongs. You're her husband and master.
It's up to you to make her see things the way you want" {PW, 314-315). Warning his son,
"This house has rules which you know. Reconcile yourself to respecting them if you wish
to remain here" {PW, 315).
In Palace Walk, according to Allegretto-Diiulio, "Mahfouz reveals the plight of
females and their entrapment in oppressive and subservient roles in relation to dominant
male characters."30 However, such a kind of this blind obedience of female characters has
been somehow faded in the second and third volumes of The Trilogy along with a slight
change in the position of women within a family and society due to the presence of
modernization on the one hand, and the emerge of communism in Arab/Egyptian society
on the other hand.
4.4.4. Rape and Sexual Hedonism
Both rape and sexual hedonism are prohibited in Islam. In this regard, Mahfouz
explores these issues to the public that might reflect society as a whole to be cured and
redeemed hopefully. Rape is defined as "an endeavour to establish, or re-establish, male
dominance through the imposed use of physical force. It is patriarchal culture, which
draws the pain-pleasure relation into the service of justifying male sexual aggression."31
This is evident in Yasin's ill behaviour when he attempts to force himself on the
household servant, Umm Hanafi, "To his greedy eyes this body appeared to be preparing
itself to receive him. ... I must get what I want even if I have to resort to force"
{PW, 277-278). It reveals an establishment of male dominance through physical force.
Soon after, he is married off to the daughter of an old friend of his father in hopes of
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finding an appropriate sexual outlet for him and to keep him from further trouble. But
marriage for Yasin is, "just a big deception" (PW, 322). As soon as he gets married as
soon he is caught in the act with his wife's personal maid. He is "blinded by lust. ... He
was like a dog that eagerly devours whatever scraps it finds" (PW, 277).
Al-Sayyid Ahmad's double life is the essential effect of which revelation is to
encourage his son (Yasin) in his own pursuit of pleasure. Yasin takes after his father in
his second life of discrimination against women, "... I must know so I can follow your
example and live according to your tradition" (PW, 251). He appears despicable and
becomes an expert in objectifying women, demotes them to a life of subservience. For
instance, his courtship with the lute player Zanuba whose appearance at the window
allows him to lust for her even before his arrival and she becomes the object of his gaze
as he easily slips into disrespecting her adulthood. It is a well-known of his characteristic
to "devote all his attention to a woman's body and neglect her personality" (PW, 243),
and he appears as "a man with no goal in the world that took precedence over women"
(PW, 243). They (the father and his son) are portrayed as men who are yield to lust and
desire, and incapable for true love or respect for women. Yasin wonders that he is "... not
accountable to any woman" (PD, 376).
Fornication is considered a grave sin in Islam whose punishment includes stoning
to death the married sinner or beating the unmarried sinner with lashes. al-Sayyid Ahmad
rejects the lures of "further matrimony", but it does not prevent him from being pleased
and proud "whenever a good opportunity came his way" (PW, 84). He is very much
fascinated by beautiful women as he wonders that, "Madam Nafusa is a lady with many
estimable qualities. Many have desired her, but she wants me. All the same, I won't take
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another wife. And she's not that kind of woman who would agree to live with a man
without getting married. This is the way I am and that's the way she is. So how can we
get together? ..." (PW, 86).
Al-Sayyid Ahmad's store is personified as a matchmaker of his start point of
adventure. When Madam Zubayda, "queen of singers", reaches his store, he rises and
examines her with a look both "astonished and thoughtful" offering his greetings saying,
"No, with henna and roses, but what can we do when good fortune arrives
unannounced?" (PW, 87). Leads by his quick instincts, he gets into the spirit and
murmurs with a smile, "The shop and al-Sayyid Ahmad are one and the same, Sultana"
(PW, 88). She raises her "eyebrows" amorously and replays with gentle inflexibility,
"But we are interested in the store, not al-Sayyid Ahmad" (PW, 88). She realizes that the
maneuver has its effect, when she says, "I want the store, and you insist on giving
yourself (PW, 89). The verbal battle is followed by a period of silence; nevertheless, the
truth is that when his eyes have first met her, he suspects that she has not made her visit
just to buy something but to develop their relationship further as her warm and responsive
conversation indicates. Thus, al-Sayyid Ahmad authorizes himself legitimately banned
pleasures, mainly drinking wine and carrying out copious extramarital affairs with
women he meets at his store or with promiscuous women/harlots who entertain parties of
men at their houses with music and dancing. Because of his authority on his household,
his wife and children are forbidden from questioning him about his nighttime activities
and comes home intoxicated, "What a strange man he was to sanction forbidden forms of
entertainment for himself while denying his family legitimate enjoyments" (PW, 298).
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Through the novel, Yasin and Fahmy steadily become aware of the accurate
nature of their father's nighttime activities. Yasin, the eldest son, shares some
characteristics of his father such as good looks, tastes for music, women, and alcohol, and
spends much time and money as he can afford on fine clothes, drink, and prostitutes.
Both father and son have similar interests as Yasin states, "Here I am with Zanuba and
my father's in a nearby room with Zubayda. Both of us in the same house" (PW, 250).
Amina, meanwhile, has long ago estimated her husband's tendencies, but
represses her antipathy and grief so intensely that she behaves almost willfully ignorant
of the whole matter (PW, 5). Thereafter, the wedding of their daughter (Aisha) reveals the
hidden face of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad when the singer Jalila (a recent former
lover of al-Sayyid Ahmad) broadly tips off to the crowd of this past relationship, and
disgracefully confronts al-Sayyid Ahmad to express her unhappiness at his taking up with
a younger competing singer, "Don't forget to give my greetings to the filthy bitch, and
I'll give you some sisterly advice. Wash yourself off with alcohol after you've been with
her, otherwise her sweat will affect your blood" (PW, 269). Moreover, she addresses his
companions, "Gentlemen, you're my witnesses. Observe how this man, who used to be
unhappy if he couldn't stick the tip of his mustache in my belly button, can't bear the
sight of me" (PW, 268). She keeps continuing to infuriate him by asking, "Why do you
pretend to be a pious around your family when you're a pool of depravity?" (PW, 268).
She does not only threaten and annoy the father, but also the entire family. This is what
makes Amina afraid of, since Jalila has declared that she knows al-Sayyid Ahmad
"before his wife herself did ..." (PW, 265), and not only her eye has strayed to al-Sayyid
Ahmad, but also faces her up by adding a flattering, "Anyone with a face as beautiful as
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Mrs. Amina's doesn't have to worry about her husband's eyes straying to another
woman" (PW, 272). Mahfouz, according to AJlegretto-Diiulio, uses "the orientalist's
point of view to objectify his female characters in Palace Walk." and she adds that Jilila
is, "the epitome of the orientalist's perspective of Egyptian women."32
By revealing the truth of their father's hedonism, Fahmy, is deeply stunned to lose
his idealized picture of his father. Unlike his brother Yasin, Fahmy takes no joy in the
realization, "My father goes to Zubayda's house to drink, sing, and play the tambourine.
... My father allows Jalila to tease him and be affectionate with him. ... My father gets
drunk and commits adultery. How could all this be true?" (PW, 271). Yet, his family
continues to have mixed feelings and thoughts about him. Whereas, Kamal reexamines
his perceptions of his father's extraordinary esteem in a new light "In the past, to his
small eyes his father's status had seemed the epitome of distinction and greatness. Now
he saw it as nothing special, at least not in comparison with his own high ideals. It was
merely the prestige enjoyed by a good-hearted, affable, and chivalrous man" (PD, 377).
Every male of the family follows through one whorehouse after another to get
their whole psychology as Zubayda grumbles, "I seek refuge with God from you men. All
you want a woman for is sex" (PD, 80). Men swivel their heads "from right to left at
prostitutes who stood or sat on either side. ..." (PD, 354). Even Kamal, the younger boy
of the Jawad family, becomes a regular customer of women, "Give me a book, a drink,
and a beautiful woman. Then throw me in the sea" (PD, 354) Kamal says. As the woman
removes her dress with a "theatrical gesture and leaped onto the bed, which creaked from
her weight. She stretched out on her back and began to caress her belly with hennaed
fingers" (PD, 356), Kamal is eager to discover the organ of women to search for "the
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truth" of his enquiries, "Was this what women really looked like. ... Are all women
alike?" (PD, 357). Without expectancy, the hedonistic son, Yasin, has met his brother
Kamal in the same brothel house for the same intention, "Can you imagine a brother
waiting outside the door? ..." (PD, 360). While Rose astonishes by hearing the truth, she
asks Kamal, "Etiquette dictates that you yield your turn to your older brother, kid" (PD,
360). Yasin is addicted to "women" and easily influences by "passion". In view of that,
he is divorced two times by his two wives as a sign of his weakness to keep his lust under
control and his night activities as well.
Mahfouz presents rape and sexual hedonism where poor women and servant have
undergone sexual entrapment. He has presented three types of violence against women.
They are direct violence in the form of physical, nonphysical in the form of
exploitation/abuse and oppression, and the third type is 'cultural violence' that is clearly
depicted in religion, traditional ideology, modernity/Western culture and imperialism.
These three forms are of course interconnected and find multiple overlapping ways of
expression in Mahfouz's works.
Disgraces have been inflicted by the sexual obsessions of the father and his sons
leading to unfortunate, unruly marriages, divorces, mistresses and (for the teen-age
Kamal) the collapse of romantic enchantment threats the private stability of the
patriarchal household. Henceforth, silence-and-voice in The Trilogy is situated within the
issues of gender.
4.4.5. Women - Passive and Docile
In the past, women truly believe they are born only to serve their fathers,
husbands, and sons. Mahfouz belongs to a generation of writers concerned with
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challenging the limitations placed on women. He has turned to increasingly complex
strategies to subvert the status quo, which silences and marginalizes women. The
portrayal of women as passive, docile, and selfless becomes popular images. These
images are being understood through the context of gender relations and gender
constructions in the Arab society, especially in Mahfouz's society. Amina, for instance,
in the Cairo Trilogy is depicted as the image of an ideal woman as passive, docile, and
selfless. However, it is crucial to assert that these characteristics of Amina are not meant
to be a negative reflection on women. Further, it is an attempt by the novelist to
demonstrate the result of the behaviours of male characters around her as a product of her
patriarchal society in which she is obscured. Indeed, women are socially treated as
inferior.
Amina's husband spends most of his days in the shop, returning home only for
lunch and a siesta. He leaves the house again in the afternoon until the midnight where he
will find Amina waiting for him on top of the stairs, holding a lamp in her hand to light
his way to his room, "Habit woke her at this hour... She had learned it along with the
other rules of married life. She woke up at the midnight to await her husband's return
from his evening's entertainment" (PW, 1). Then, she will wash his feet in silence,
speaking only if she is asked to and mainly to share the happenings of the day choosing
the words prudently to avoid enraging her master/husband. Eventually, she helps him to
undress and after folding his cloths on the chair, "then she would serve him until he went
to sleep" (PW,l).
Amina, however, is used to contemplate upon the unfamiliar world beyond the
boundaries of her life and dare not reveal her thoughts to her husband. Her world
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revolves around her children and supervises Umm Hanafi, the house servant. Amina is a
relentless woman and the soul of the house. The first one to start the day, after
performing the ablution she wakes up the maid and the children, bringing Palace Walk
back to its lively again. She has married "before she turned fourteen" and she has been
serving her husband dutifully since then, running the big house in Palace Walk
impeccably (PW, 2).
Palace Walk revolves on the Jawad family, which begins with the mother, Amina;
who is always at home. She is entirely subservient to her husband, "My opinion is the
same as yours, sir. I have no opinion of my own" (PW, 156), she dutifully tells him,
having reconciled herself "to a type of security based on surrender". Surrounded by her
family; two daughters, two sons, and a stepson, she is content with her lot, despite the
fact that her conservative husband forbids her to leave the house. She spends her entire
life within the confines of the house based on surrender. In few of that, El Saadawi states
that, "The mental and psychological development of a woman is greatly retarded, and she
is unable to free herself from passive attitudes and the habit of depending on others ...."33
Her duty as an obedient wife only to let her husband "to know everything that affects" his
"home, coming from near or far" (PW, 156). She suffers from "ignorant tenderness."
Although, Amina believes that it is her duty to bring her children up in the best possible
way, she never questions her husband's word. Consequently, she hardly ever thought for
herself. Yet, instead of praising his wife, al-Sayyid Ahmad scolds her, "... You are just a
woman, and no woman has a fully developed mind" (PW, 156). This shows how men
devalue women's intellectual ability and merely relegate them to housewives.
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Like many children, Yasin is raised by divorced mother. Everything is fine with
him except for his old memories. He gazes back into/at the past with "intense hatred and
revulsion"; since he has realized that, he and his mother are not alone at the point in his
childhood. His senses "had noted with disdain a new person who intruded on the
household from time to time" {PW, 78). His past "was like a boil he wished he could
ignore, while his hand could not keep from touching it every now and then" (PW, 79). If
the man has not visited the house, "his mother would send the boy to invite him to come
tonight" (PW, 80). Because of her immoral behaviour, he denies her as his mother, "I
don't have a mother. My stepmother, who is tender and good, is all the mother I need...I
wish a lot of men would die. He's not the only one", (PW, 80). Therefore, he has set her
down at the level to which her activity has lowered her. Hence, Yasin's old memories
have compelled him to view a woman as he declares, "A woman. Yes, she is nothing but
a woman. Every woman is a filthy curse. A woman doesn't know what virtue is, unless
she's denied all opportunity for adultery. Even my stepmother, who's a fine woman-God
only knows what she would be like if it weren't for my father" (PW, 81).
Amina's voice is notably absent, the only intimation of Amina's point of view
coming from a very distant observer. The woman's role is portrayed as an object in the
recounting of the story, the lack of a female voice, a fear of female sexuality, and the
resulting punishment and hatred of women. Similarly, as Yasin has rapped Umm Hanafi,
he rapes Nur as well, whereas Nur could not show any resistance, only repeats the words
"shame on you Master" (PW, 382), due to her fear of losing her job. Women are seen as a
commodity of low cost that, "Everything here was expensive except women, except for
human beings" (SS, 102).
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The novel reveals women as voiceless in the homely and diurnal life;
nevertheless, we cannot totally deny the representative of women as resisters in some
parts of The Trilogy. In his essay, "Gender Studies and Queer Theory," David Richter
discusses the reaction of feminist critics to "the way women have been seen as an other
by men, spoken about and spoken for, but never allowed to speak themselves."
Moreover, the representation of Mahfouz's women could be applied to Edward Said's
comment of the Orient as he suggests, "An idea that has a history and a tradition of
thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the
west."34
Hence, Mahfouz emerges to be a progressive thinker on gender issues as Mondel
assures, "Once we step through the fog of confusion we find that Mahfouz's underlying
representation of women conforms to 'traditional' patriarchal canons of femininity whilst
disguising itself as an espousal of 'modern' notions of 'womanhood'. This is precisely
symptomatic of what Sharabi calls 'neopatriarchy35'."36
To sum up, Mahfouz's women are not only defined in relation to men, but also
are defined as reliant and subordinate to them as well. As a result, women are socialized
to acquire those qualities, which place them in a relationship of reliance on men.
4.4.6. Enhancement of Women's Positions in the Family and Society
Women in Arab countries are facing a conflict regarding to the tradition of
belongings, Islamic philosophy, the communist philosophy, and western-individualism
culture. Under the influence of tradition, woman is taught to obey her father before
married, obey her husband after married, and then obey her son as a widow. Women are
belonging to the family and they should not have self-concepts as al-Sayyid Ahmad
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asserts, "She's no longer in her father's house. She must respect the rules of the family to
which she now belongs" (PW, 314-315). On the contrary, Qasim Amin in his book, The
Liberation of Women, defends women rights under Islamic law. Amin's discourse on the
restriction on women in society and the consequences is credited as being the chief
driving force for women's liberation movements in the Arab world.37
The researcher is precisely going to refer to the traditions that push women to the
margin and deem them secondary to men, non-independent entities with capabilities and
talents. The researcher writes these words bearing in mind the "superiority complex" that
characterizes the minds of men in Egypt most of whom are well educated and cultured,
regarding themselves superior to women since they have considered women as secondclass citizens. The dilemma lies in merely a "psychological wall" that is infused in the
hearts of men and women since childhood.
The lives of al-Sayyid Ahmad's daughters revolve entirely around the family
household, looking forward to get married as one of their great ambition to free
themselves from submissiveness. Allegretto-Diiulio states that, "Mahfouz's female
characters seek to step out of their parameters; they yearn for the freedom to see the
world beyond the scope of their walls."38 Moreover, they are segregated within the
house-it is unthinkable that the women would eat at the same table as al-Sayyid Ahmad.
This state of affairs is treated as entirely normal, since they do not know other lifestyle.
They are longing to escape an autocracy, which is bound to by religious codes, but the
dictatorship that they fear they also love and respect him. Aisha stares through the
latticework at a young officer and wishes for marriage as her song has reflected, "You
there with the red stripe, you who have taken me prisoner, have pity on my humiliation"
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(PW, 137-139). As a result, al-Sayyid Ahmad's women consider marriage the only hope
to escape male oppression and patriarchy, "Was Aisha's wedding the harbinger of a new
era of freedom? Would they finally be able to see the world from time to time and
breathe its fresh air?" (PW, 287).
Going out in public remains unthinkable in the al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad
household; considering it as an outrage and disgrace of the family. However, Yasin's
wife (Zaynab) uses to have greater liberties in her father's household, but in al-Sayyid
Ahmad's family she finds "her character had been infected with the virus of submission
to his well..." (PW, 313). Nevertheless, she will not put up with absolutely everything.
Zaynab precisely wants changes in her position as woman. She insists on going out in the
evening with her husband while Amina, the traditional mother, unsurprisingly leads the
opposition to this notion, otherwise her own decades of submissiveness and obedience
look washed out. More troublesome, Yasin's ill-behaviour becomes intolerable.
Therefore, Zaynab demands a divorce when she finds her husband with another woman.
However, Zaynab's action shocks Amina and she declares, "How can she claim rights for
herself that no other has ever claimed?" (PW, 391). Indeed, in Amina's opinion Zaynab is
"arrogating to herself masculine prerogatives" (PW, 311), which contrasts with the
character of Amina who is "a woman who had spent her life shut up inside her house, a
woman who had paid with her health and well-being for an innocent visit to al-Husayn,
the glory of the Prophet's family-not to Kishkish Bey [marketplace]" (PW, 311). Zaynab
thus represents an emergent female resistance to cultural anticipations for women.
This may not sound like a surprising response, but it is to al-Sayyid Ahmad, raises
in an entirely different ethic, "There was nothing strange about a man casting out a pair
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of shoes, but shoes were not supposed to throw away their owner". She observes
sarcastically, "I've never seen a house like yours where what's licit is forbidden. ..."
(PW, 317). Thus, Zaynab's marriage is the initiate point of resistance. Girls of today are
different from that of yesterday as Yasin assures that, "Girls today no longer have the
ability to get along with people" (PW, 396), and by looking at Mrs. Amina, he states,
"Where are the ladies of yesteryear?" (PW, 396).
Later, we observe that al-Sayyid Ahmad has great complexity in dealing with the
world at large, especially issues concerning his family. To him, fathering girls is "an evil
against which we are defenseless" (PW, 263). He loves his daughters, but fears having to
hand them over to others where he will not be able to protect them and controls their lives
any longer. Thus, by getting married, Aisha and Khadija experience more domestic
freedom in Shawkat family. Aisha's marriage, however, is of a great significance because
of its role in the exploration of the hidden personality of the father when he is confronted
by Jalila who infuriates him by her question, "Why do you pretend to be a pious around
your family when you're a pool of depravity?" (PW, 268). Indeed, Jalila's words might
be powerless to knock over gender inequalities, but her confrontation with male,
however, identifies metaphor as a strategy through which woman's marginality and
confinement challenges the fixity of the dominant discourse (PW, 268). In few of that,
she is considered as the revolutionary character in Mahfouz's fiction.
Despite his opposition to the colonizers, Mahfouz acknowledges that the First
World War indicates major changes in the traditional Muslim family structure; these
changes are exemplified in Fahmy's character who acts, like a modern son due to his
refusal to comply with his father's order to stop his nationalistic activities. Fahmy is not
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merely disobedient; he is inspired by moral principles that his father can neither share nor
overrule through the force of personal authority "Forgive me Papa. I'll obey every
command of yours more than willingly, but I can't do this. I can't. ... I'm no better than
those who have been killed.... " (PW, 426).
Such a conflict between generations is almost incredible in the more static society
of earlier periods, when both father and sons would have been similarly adjusted to the
traditional loyalties. Yasin too has confronted with his. father regarding to the blind
obedience, he says, "... We're nothing. You're everything. No.... There's a limit. I'm no
longer a child. I'm just as much a man as you are. I'm the one who is going to decide my
destiny. I'm the man who will grant the divorce... Muhammad Iffat, Zaynab, and your
friendship with her father can all lick the dust from my shoes" (PW, 409). However Yasin
reflects:
What a life! What a household! What a father! Scoldings, [sic], discipline,
and advice. ... Scold yourself... Have you forgotten Zubayda? Jalila? ...
After all that, you appear before us wearing the turban of the most
authoritative Muslim legal scholar,...the Commander of all Muslims....
I'm not a child anymore. Look after yourself and leave me and my affairs
alone... (PW, 410).
Amina and al-Sayyid Ahmad remain the main figures throughout The Trilogy. By
the course of time, however, changes happen in the relationship between the two.
al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is confined to the house due to his infirmity. Thus, this
sickness and weakness of the aging husband gives Amina the freedom she never been
enjoyed before. Now and then, she walks to the streets of Cairo alone to visit her
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grandchildren who live in Palace of Desire and Sugar Street and uses to go daily to visit
the shrine al-Husayn praying for her husband health and for those members of the family
who have died (PD, 163), leaving her husband alone until late, "Is it right for you to leave
me alone all this time?" her husband asks bitterly (SS, 157).. By visiting the mosques
whose minarets are the only things that for decades, Amina is able to see from the
limitedness of her balcony as Kamal points out, "You're not a prisoner in the house as
you once were. You've gained the right to visit Khadija, Aisha, and our master al-Husayn
as often as you want...." (PD, 163). Hoodfar states that the fact remains that Cairo, "like
many Third World urban areas, is undergoing tremendous change; women necessarily
face the ambiguities of negotiating a future within this ferment"39
Kamal has been in speculation about the status of women since five years have
passed, "I wonder what the women are like now? How have five years, changed them
five long years?" (PD, 11). After all, his enquiry has been answered by Muhammad Ifft
in Sugar Street as he states, "It's the fashion now. Girls crowd into the streets and men
don't trust them anymore...we see: the gentleman and the lady both at the barbershop'?"
(SS, 39). Even Amina herself is "no longer the same woman she had once been" (SS, 4),
her husband's ill health has changed her considerably. All girls also join schools today,
just "like boys" (SS, 5) and with her annoyance, Aisha comments "If only your
grandfather had let you stay in school, you would have surpassed her. But he refused"
(SS, 5).
In the third volume of The Trilogy, Sugar Street, the Independence of the country
has been announced (SS, 85) likewise the independence of Amina from the patriarchal
al-Sayyid Ahmad: "This household, which had always yielded to his authority, now
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looked askance at him, granting him pitying looks when he asked for something..."
(SIS', 182). Hence, both, the country and the family have regained their freedom. This
novel also demonstrates the continuous change of Egyptian society, politically and
religiously, seeing as women embark on to endeavour further liberty through education
and their move to public spaces. Hence, Mahfouz, according to Allegretto-Diiulio, "From
Palace Walk through Palace of Desire and Sugar Street, he masterfully illustrates the
growing dilemma of women's equality in a nation that walks a tightrope between secular
and religious factions."40
Mahfouz symbolically empowers women like Amina by giving her voice to speak
her own story. The role of narrator enables the protagonist to resist marginalization of
voice and space and to question the validity of binary logic in which women in
patriarchal society are defined in terms of lack, irrationality, and silence.
4.5. The Veil: Religion and Tradition
The veil can be adapted to various interpretations, including the benevolent one of
its voluntary use. Thus, taking off the veil has not eliminated the oppression of the Arab
women because veil (mask) in its nature is a free choice, a free choice, because the
Qur'an itself does not suggest either that all women should be veiled, or to give up. In the
Qur'an, we are told that the believing men and women should, "lower their gaze and
guard their modesty." However, according to their obsessions, men consider the
following verses in the Qur'an as an indictor to women to be veiled: "Say to the believing
men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty... " 41 , "And say to the
believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty, and should
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not display their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their
bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment except to their own husbands or fathers ,..."42
By using the word "veil", the researcher has to refer to the practice of
extraordinary covering of a woman's body, extraordinary covering, because veil is
tradition rather than religious. It is not that as the popular western notion has considered
that the veil is a symbol of Muslim women's oppression, as Katherine Bullock states in
her book, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern
Stereotypes, "the perception that the veil is a symbol of Islam's oppression of women has
different adherents who embody different assumptions and different levels of
sophistication. On the one hand there is the mainstream, pop culture view: Muslim
women are completely and utterly subjugated by men, and the veil is a symbol of that."43
But, indeed, veiling becomes the challenge for this notion. It will be a symbol of
women's oppression only when women are obliged to wear; however, not all Muslim
Arab women are coerced to veil.
When The Trilogy begins, however, the dual practices of isolation and veiling are
slight symbols of religiousness in a society where secularism is on its increase. Some
people, however, believe that veil will reduce sexual harassment against women on the
one hand, and as an indicator of a respectable woman and her class status in society on
the other hand. Thus, the veil, according to Daphne Grace is a kind of double shield
"Protecting women against society and protecting society against her."44 In other words,
middle and high classes' people insist their women to be veiled whenever they go
outdoors to differentiate them of those ordinary women, so classes are responsible for
gender differences. For instance, al-Sayyid Ahmad has never allowed his women to go
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outdoors, he even rarely to allow his wife to visit her mother. If so, she has to cover
herself from A to Z. As a result, he once orders Umm Hanafi, the house cleaner, to give
up veiling before entering the house for two reasons: first to be known to the public and
passersby as the servant of the house, and secondly to avoid peoples' backbite of false
suspicions of his women. In few of that, class becomes the most important connotation of
the veil. It is also presented as a symbol of women's segregation, "... Each one tried to
help her remove her wrap, that symbol of the loathsome separation ..." (PW, 233).
So far, Mahfouz in his Trilogy, neither defines the veil nor highlights it;
nonetheless, we have come to learn about it only through the practice of his female
characters. The only incidents that mark the significance of the veil are those, which are
represented by the character of Amina. For instance, when Amina has paid a visit to the
shrine of al-Husayn, nonetheless, her veil has failed to shield her from the resultant
disaster. Even though Amina has fully veiled, still, however, her leave of the home
breaches the law of al-Sayyid Ahmad on one hand and as a representative of a
fundamental threat to al-Sayyid Ahmad's family cultural patrimony on the other hand.
Hence, the veil in Palace Walk, as being long black burqa (veil), (which covers the body
from head to toes), is a symbol of class and tradition. Whereas the symbolism of the veil
in the second and third Volumes {Palace of Desire and Sugar Street) has become light,
white and various in colour, (which only covers the head), is of a new vision, "Qamar
was wearing a rap but not veil" (PD, 73), rather, it is a symbol of religious and cultural
authenticity-indeed, it is a personal choice, (SIS', 157). This new veil reflects an "optional
support on the part of Egyptian Muslim women of a return to the fundamentals of Islam
only reinforces its political significant."45
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The Islamic veil is not of that as many people have thought; it is, in fact, a scarf,
which women use to put on their head and wrap around their bosoms. It is not a mask but
a veil (hijab). Many Muslim women do veiling, but this is out of cultural demands on a
people, not Islamic. In a tradition, (hadith), that supports this conception, the Prophet
Muhammad is quoted as saying: "...If the woman reaches the age of puberty, no part of
her body should be seen but this ... and he pointed to his face and hands." In addition
(verified sayings of the Prophet Muhammad): First, a woman's body should be covered
such that only her face, hands, and feet are revealed. Secondly, the clothing must be loose
enough so that the shape of a woman's body is not visible.46 Nazira Zin Ad-Din states
that in enforcing the veil, society becomes a prisoner of its customs and traditions rather
than Islam.47 This is evident in that incidence of Aisha when she is told that her father is
in "the parlor". She narrates the incidence to the reader, "I raced to the bathroom and
washed my face to get off every trace of powder. Mr. Khalil asked me why I was doing
that, but I told him, 'Believe me, I can't even meet him in this summer dress, because my
arms show.' I didn't go till I wrapped myself in my cashmere shawl" (PW, 289-290).
Amina, however, brings forth a precise portrayal of aspects of veiling, the old,
and the original one. The old full black veil that Amina wears in Palace walk "... She
wondered whether her husband would consent to have her meet this man when she
was not wearing a veil, even if he was as much a new member of the family as Kalil"
(PW, 292). This is an implement of patriarchal domination, which works for to identify
upper and middle class women as their male's property. While the partial white veil,
which Amina wears toward the end of Sugar Street as a symbol of self-identity/free
choice, which comes out accompanying with Salafi movements in response to Western
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colonialism. Therefore, the use of the veil (which has continued in some quarters of this
society) is no longer constitutes a barrier to women's aspirations and entrance into the
public sphere.
As many researchers before him, Amin assures that the veil is not an Islamic
custom and have not invented by Muslims. Indeed, he clarifies that the veil is adopted
from other cultures and it is a custom in many other nations.48 The researcher agrees with
Amin's view that Muslims have overstated the use of veil and on his denunciation of it as
a source of discrimination against women. Hence, researchers should not give that much
of concern on veil, instead, there are many issues hidden behind the veil, which require
our concern due to their indispensable to the field of gender equalities.
The Trilogy has shed light on women's lack of education, marriage, divorce,
polygamy, work, seclusion and veiling with emphasis on education and the issue of
polygamy and its effect on women. These issues have marked a cultural split between
religious and secular nationalists, and have viewed women's segregation and the veil as
symbols of backwardness that has to be fought. In Palace Walk, women have appeared as
household surrogates with some exceptional of female and male resistance against
patriarchy in some parts of this novel as the researcher has elicited earlier. While in the
second and third volumes of The Trilogy {Palace of Desire and Sugar Street) we have
touched some changes in women's position by gaining more domestic freedom-changes
in family structure and process, and in female labor force participation, as possible
parameters of urban change and development. These changes have touched core values
about gender identity, gender power, and gender relations within poor households, and
anxiety about what is a "good woman" or a "good man" seems persistent. What is
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striking is that despite widespread changes in gender roles, traditional gender norms have
shown remarkable tenacity, leaving families struggling to meet the often-contradictory
demands.
Yet we cannot insist on that this change has eliminated the need for criticism,
because, and still the causes of criticism have not yet been changed in reality. The
novelist has employed gender on two levels, on one hand to discuss female identity and
on the other hand, to review the patriarchal society that denies this identity. Accordingly,
politics, religion, classism, and the role of women in society have formed the major
theme of The Trilogy.
In his Trilogy, Mahfouz has been keen to highlight three layers of which his
female characters belong to: elite class (aristocratic) which has been represented by Aida
Shadad, the highly educated who speaks many languages, and the middle class, which
has been represented by Amina, her daughters, and her granddaughters. Then the lower
class, which has been embodied by the house cleaners Umm Hanafi and Nur and the
musicians and dancers Jalila, Zubayda and Zanuba.
The Trilogy ends with three crucial and symbolic episodes: the death of Amina
which symbolizes the end of the old values, the imprisonment of her two grandchildren
Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad (the Muslim brother and the Communist), this symbolizes
the lack of democracy and free thoughts, and the birth of Yasin's granddaughter
symbolizes the new future; the unknown. The unknown, concludes the novel for Mahfouz
does not offer an obvious solution to cure these problematic issues, instead, he suggests
uncertain solution through his character Riyad as he states, "Communism might be able
to create a world free from the calamities of racial and religious friction and from class
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conflict" (SS, 139). He has merely exposed them (problematic issues) and left the
solution to his readers. Nonetheless, we cannot ignore his wave to science, communism,
and with a slight attention to religion. However, these efforts have led the Muslim brother
and the Communist to jail: "You must worship the government first and foremost if you
wish your life to be free of problems" (SS, 306).
The Cairo Trilogy has explored woman's role as an object in the recounting of a
story, the lack of a female voice in the homely and the quotidian life as well, fear of
female sexuality, and the resulting punishment and hatred of women. It has shown a slow
emancipation of women from medieval shackles. While women are depicted as weak,
passive, and ignorant-born to bear and raise children, and care for the family and the
home, men are therefore depicted as tough, aggressive, and worldly intending to rule
family, community, and nation. For that reason, Mahfouz has waved to the spread of
education and scientific thinking, which will speed women's emancipations. But still
pathetically limited lives of the spirited "entertainers" who age before our eyes as they
grind out their commodities of sex and charm for al-Sayyid Ahmad and his partners.
Since Islam has assumed that civil and political rights are equally available to all
citizens to use in mobilizing to secure greater social rights, therefore, the researcher has
reached at an outcome that gender relations are reconciled through state practices.
With few exceptions, men and women in these struggles have failed to end most
patriarchal forms of domination, to reintegrate the public and private, to emancipate the
self through equality, since and still the old values, which are represented by al-Sayyid
Ahmad, has not accepted the change as he states, "Democracy's for the people, not the
family" (PD, 398). Hence, The Trilogy has reflected a strong feminist sympathy in its
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critique of patriarchal tyrannies in the one hand, and in its depiction of the restricted
worlds of wives and daughters on the other hand. Most of the Third World women have
far less independence than men do. More precisely, they have limited freedom in the
personal, subjective spheres of their lives. Judith E. Tucker assures that domestic labor
"remains unchanged. Thus in each place, the very same problems remain unresolved and
the very same questions are left unaddressed."49
At the end of Palace of Desire, we have observed the inescapable presence of
modernization where science has taken over the traditional role of religion in reforming
human society. Hence, the patriarch's authority is crumbling and he has been forced to
"relax the rules" and allow his wife to leave the house to visit her married daughters or
the neighborhood mosque. Nevertheless, the father could not tolerate to face this
revelation. Before his death, Kamal has commented on the effect of the air raids on the
old houses of Jamaliyya, "If our houses are destroyed, they'll have the honor of being
demolished by the most advanced inventions of modern science" (SS, 203). The novelist
has symbolized the destroyable houses as that destroyable of the old values of their
occupants. Therefore, the death of the father is a symbolic ending for traditional values.50
The conflict between religion and science/socialism in this novel has paved the way for
further discussion in Children of the Alley.
Thereafter, the following chapter allocates to the Children of the Alley, in which
Mahfouz blurs the division between religion and culture in the treatment of his female
characters to achieve gender equality. The following chapter also outlines the position of
Islam regarding the status of woman in society from its various aspects of spiritually,
socially, economically, and politically.
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We have observed that the third generation in Sugar Street has raised the issue of
social change and class conflict, which become the major issue in the next chapter.
Indeed, while the Islamic religion in this chapter is interpreted by males to support their
authority over women, the next chapter will discuss how patriarchy through religious
discourse subordinates the "Other" in both terms of gender and class.
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Notes
1
Sabry Hafez, an Introduction to the Cairo Trilogy. (Cairo: The American University in
Cairo Press, 2001) viii. Print.
2
Maggie Humm, The Dictionary of Feminist Theory. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2003) 69. Print.
3
Maggie Humm 69-70.
4
Maggie Humm 70.
5
Rasheed El-Enany, NAguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning. London and New York:
Routledge Inc., 1993: 81. Print.
6
Judith E. Tucker, Arab Women: Old Boundaries, New Frontiers. Washington: Indiana
University Press, 1993: 196. Google Book Search. Web. 09 September 2010.
7
Judith E. Tucker 196.
8
Nawal El Saadawi is a leading Egyptian feminist, socialist, medical doctor, novelist,
and author of a classic work on women in Islam, The Hidden Face of Eve. She has a
distinguished career as Director of Health Education in the Ministry of Health in Cairo,
until she has dismissed summarily from her post in 1972, because of her political writing
and activities.
9
Nawal El Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, trans. Sherif
Heteta. London: Zed Books Ltd., 2007: 242. Print.
10
Nawal El Saadawi 247.
11
Sylvia Wally, "Towards a Theory of Patriarchy," The Polity Reader in Gender Studies.
Polity Press (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) 22. Print.
12
Judith E.Tucker 196.
Chapter-4
13
179
Roger Allen, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction. (New York:
Syracuse University Press, 1995) 100. Print.
14
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio, Naguib Mahfouz: A Western and Eastern Cage of Female
Entrapment. (New York: Cambria Press, 2007) 74.
15
NawalElSaadawi219.
16
Homa Hoodfar 42.
17
Homa Hoodfar qtd. 42.
18
Jamal Badawi. "The Status of Woman in Islam," Journal, Al-lttihad, Vol. 8 (Sept
1971): 2. Web. 14 September 2009.
19
Nawal El Saadawi 246-247.
20
Homa Hoodfar 45.
21
The Holy Qur'an, Nisa (The Women, 4), Verse 3. Print.
22
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 74.
23
The Holy Qur 'an Surah 4:124.
24
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 20.
25
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 80.
26
Nawal El Saadawi 214.
27
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio (qtd. 21).
28
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 138.
29
Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women. Cairo: The American University in Cairo
Press, 2000: 16. Print.
30
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 127.
31
Polity Press, "Gender, Sexuality, Power". 212.
Chapter-4
51
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 130.
33
Nawal El Saadawi 85.
34
Edward W. Said, Oriontalism 5.
35
180
Hisham Sharabi describes neopatriarchy as an elaboration of patriarchy in
Neopatriarchy. Neopatriarchy not only includes the oppression of women by men, it also
involves the various social "classes in their hierarchical relations to one another, as well
as individuals in their relations to their family, the neighbourhood, the workplace, the
public sphere, and the state..."
36
A. Mondal, "Naguib Mahfouz and His Women: The Cairo Trilogy" 1999, 4.
www.soas.ac.uk. Web. 15 November 2008.
37
QasimAmin 10 and 89.
38
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 123.
39
HomaHoodfar46.
40
Pamela Allegretto-Diiulio 145.
41
The Holy Qur'an Surah 24:30
42
The Holy Qur'an Surah 24:31
43
Katherine Bullock. Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical &
Modern Stereotypes. United Kingdom: Biddies Limited and Guildford, 2002: xv. Print.
Daphne Grace, Woman in the Muslim Mask: Veiling and Identity in post colonial
Literature. London: Pluto Press, 2004: 21. Google Book Search. Web. 04 March 2010.
Maryam El-Shall, Modern Interpretation of Gender in Mhfouz's Mahout's Cairo
Trilogy. Florida: University of Florida, 2006: 76. Web. 15 September 2009.
Chapter-4
181
6
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2008/07Arour-Hijab-Questions-
Answered.aspx#ixzzl k71c7kFu
47
Nazira Zin al-Din, Unveiling and Veiling. Beirut: Quzma Publications, 1928 : 37.
Google Book Search. Web. 04 April 2009.
48
Qasim Amin 37.
49
Judith E.Tucker 152.
50
Rasheed El-Enany 83.