Thief and the Dogs
is a very fast paced novel, especially in the way it was written. Throughout
the book there are abrupt shifts in narration between third person and the
thoughts of the main character, Said. Being able to be so connected to a
character, is another way of writing called Stream of Consciousness. It is a
concept in writing that allows the reader to be so in tune with the character,
that the reader is fully invested in the character’s life and how they view the
world. This is a very prominent concept in the novel “The Thief and the Dogs”
because of the direct link between Said and the reader.
The thing that I
found most interesting about this novel was that although I felt a connection
to Said, near the end I felt distanced. This, one could say was due to the
Stream of Consciousness, because as the novel progresses it is hard not to
question Said’s sanity. In addition, throughout the extension of the novel I
started to move further and further away from Said, and became to be more aware
of how his mind works, and if his fueled revenge and bottled up anger are really
the right direction that Said should take. Overall, a very complex, yet
interesting way of writing a novel, but I believe Mahfouz did it justice,
giving a different outlook on a controversial topic.
When the reader is
able to understand all the complexities of the narration and begin to question the
mind of the protagonist, they begin to understand why the author chose to write
the novel the way he did. In the novel a lot of Said’s internal struggle was drawn
out of his external experiences. For instance: when his best friend and wife
betray him, he is fueled with a lot of anger internally. The reason this idea of external implications to one’s internal struggle is important to the plot of
the novel is because the same can be said about the author, and Said’s hardship
could be debated as to being a parallel to Mahfouz’s reality.
Being able to grasp
this concept it becomes clear in the reader’s mind as to why Mahfouz chose to
write the novel the way that he did, and it was because of the post-revolutionary
censorship that constricted Mahfouz’s writing. Therefore, Mahfouz had to find a
way to explain the corruptness of his country without being caught through “The
Thief and the Dogs”, but more explicitly through Said’s thoughts about the
world he lived in. This in turn, I believe, is another reason why the author
took the reader on a journey from viewing Said as a sane character to a more
corrupt one. And the reason I, as a reader, began to feel distanced from the
protagonist through the use of Stream of Consciousness; because it became clear
to me that Mahfouz used Said and his fictional life in a way to depict his own
cultural adversities that led to his own internal struggle that took place in
his country at the time.
Lastly, although Stream of
Consciousness does have a lot of advantages and does play a crucial role in the
development of the plot in this novel, there are limitations to the technique
as well. When an author decides to use this technique it is very easy to
continue the plot but keep the characters thoughts linear, which is incorrect
because the beauty in writing with this technique is the realism of it. But
humans do not think linearly, we think in a jumbled fashion, not one thought at
a time. Thus, using stream of consciousness the author has to be aware of more
than one thought at time to keep the complex realism of it, or else the main
purpose of the technique is gone, and the reader begins to lose interest. Another
obvious disadvantage in using this way of writing is that the readers are only
subject to one character’s thoughts at all times and are not able to make their own judgements on situations themselves, but are forced to have the same opinion as
that character because it is the only option available to them.
In conclusion, Mahfouz was able to
create a controversial novel at a very difficult time, using an extremely
complex style whilst still maintaining to keep the interest of the reader.
Word Count: 733
