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D.H. LAWRENCE’S ( 1885-1930) SONS AND LOVERS &


NAGUIB MAHFOUZ’S (1911- ) THE MIRAGE (AL
SARAB) A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Yasser Khamees Ragab AMAN

This study aims to investigate the representation of the Oedipal


protagonist, in the above mentioned novels, from a modernist perspective.
Modernism marks a radical change from aesthetic and cultural sensibilities
of the nineteenth century where optimism turns into pessimism in a
fragmented society. Various modernist tactics and devices are introduced in
many literary works which are associated with modernism including those
by Eliot, James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and Franz Kafka. Of these
tactics and devices are those quoted from Barth’s “Literature of
Replenishment”, page 68 :
the radical disruption of linear flow of narrative; the frustration of
conventional expectations concerning unity and coherence of plot
and character and the cause and effect development thereof; the
deployment of ironic and ambiguous juxtapositions to call into
question the moral and philosophical meaning of literary action;
the adoption of a tone of epistemological self-mockery aimed at
naive pretensions of bourgeois rationality; the opposition of
inward consciousness to rational, public, objective discourse; and
an inclination to subjective distortion to point up the evanescence
of the social world of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. (Keep) 1

The dilemma of the modernist protagonist is marked by a detachment from


his society. He is no longer able to contain the society within himself.
Therefore, he cannot express its wishes or hopes.
In the late nineteenth century and at the turn of the twentieth century,
individual isolation appeared to be inseparably associated with the subject
of modernism. The representation of such a state of isolation, often termed
Nietzschean nihilism, is threefold. It consists of:

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Whenever there is no pagination this means it is a website.
a struggle between chaos and creativity, fatigue induced by
historical consciousness, and man’s vision of himself as the
reflexive dimension of being. ( Geday, 2003, p.2)
As a result of the retreat of a macrocosm of epic literature, modern
subjectivity emerges and individual relationships shape human experience.
Thus society is seen as an agency.
The Victorian era’s spiritual exploration was abandoned for the
sake of modernist experience. Modern fragmentation is located in the idea
and artistic representation of the face. The modernist face, with its
secularized expression, falls short of representing the soul and therefore the
experience depicted is a limited rather than a transcendental one. Isolated,
the modern individual cannot fulfill his supposed duty of representing his
society. Rather, he falls on self-representation. Moreover, and according to
Orwell’s essay “ Inside the Whale” (1940), the novel is affected by this idea
of the protagonist’s resignation and passivity:
the novel, ideally the bed of freedom and creativity, becomes an
impossibility or even a prison: the novel, at the turn of the
twentieth century, according to Orwell, is en route to becoming
the whale, a cozy and comfortable home in which the hero idles
exposing the “imbecilities of the inner mind”, and more
importantly, a passive political existence (Geday, 2003, p. 6)

Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913) and Mahfouz’s Al Sarab


(1976) show strong affinities since both are patterned on Oedipus complex.
However, a modernist reading of both reveals cultural differences. Sons
and Lovers expresses the historical form of the modern protagonist,
conceived in the English novel at the turn of the twentieth century. On the
other hand, Al Sarab, clearly influenced by the latter, shows a crude and
almost unique attempt at featuring a modernist hero in the Arabic novel. In
a book review entitled “Multiplying Mahfouz” based on Rasheed El-
Enany’s book Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning (New York:
Routledge, 1993) Elliott Colla disapprovingly quotes El Enany:
Mahfouz felt that since the novel was still a nascent form in
Arabic without an established tradition in realism, he could not
move straight away from romanticism to modernism: the Arabic
novel and his own experience as a novelist in the making had to go
through the natural stages of evolution. This contention of
Mahfouz's can withstand inquiry. We can indeed see modernist
influences in the heart of his realistic phase, such as the occasional
use of the stream of consciousness technique and his early
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experiment with the psychological novel in Mirage. Another piece


of evidence that supports this contention is the fact that the
moment Mahfouz felt that he had mastered the techniques of
realism and exhausted their potential, that is by writing The
Trilogy, he was to cast realism behind him and plunge into the
deep and turbulent waters of modernism (18-19). ( Colla)

The two novels trace a masculine experience, shedding light on the


protsagonist’s private and public limitations. Two forces appear to control
the protagonist: home and the outer society. The struggle with the outer
society finally culminates into self-confrontation after which Lawrence’s
protagonist’s genealogical self, whose nucleus is the Morel home, is
sacrificed for a distinct individual perspective. However, Mahfouz’s enjoys
passivity and can not get rid of his genealogical self.
The concept of the protagonist’s resignation and passivity is
perfectly formulated and eloquently represented through Oedipus complex.
Handled by two different writers and thus revealing cultural differences, yet
Oedipus complex intensifies Wellek’s meaningful statement: “ Yet
literature is one, as art and humanity as one; and in this conception lies the
future of historical literary studies.” (Wellek and Warren, 1973, p.50)
However social and cultural differences show themselves in the two writers’
representation of the modernist hero. Freud believes that Oedipus complex
is a sexual attraction to one of the parents accompanied by jealousy to the
other. Dependency on or hostility against the father leads to anxiety in a
child. Hostility in a child emerges from the parents lack of respect for him:
Morel in Sons and Lovers and Ro’baa in Al Sarab are very rough with their
children, Paul and Kamel. However:
The father’s place is one designated for the child by the mother
whose place becomes the child’s natural link to culture. Therefore,
the father is a metaphor whose name signifies our place in society.
Society (culture), however, imposes limits to the satisfaction in
coexistence. The authority of the paternal figure represents the
limit ( loss) imposed by the law of civility. (Gary, 2003, p. 3)

On the other hand, the mothers misuse their relationships with their
children to fulfill their ambition or prestige. Therefore, the mother figure is
partly disliked by Paul and Kamel. To escape or allay the sense of anxiety,
the child clings to one of the parents ( Paul and Kamel cling to their
mothers). Hence a dire need for affection, as well as a forced isolation from
the outer world, ensues. The Freudian/modernist hero can not contact with
the outer world and anyone who might interfere (as Miriam/Rabab or
Clara/Eniat) faces dependency, instability, possessiveness and jealousy.
The two mothers suffer from “penis envy”. All woman’s ambitious
deeds, all her hopes including the particular feminine ones—as to be the
most beautiful woman—are due to and considered a compensation for her
lack of the penis. Since nature prevents her a deeply-rooted desire, viz., to
be the boss of man, she wishes to have a son. To this effect Karen Horney
writes:
The only thing that brings a mother undiluted satisfaction is her
relation to a son; the mother can transfer to her son all the ambition
which she had to suppress in herself and she can hope to get from
him the satisfaction of all that has remained to her of her
masculinity complex. (Horney, 1939, p.201)

On the other hand, the two sons unconsciously embrace the Freudian
concept known as “fixation on the mother”. The mother figure represents
two images for the son: one he admires and reveres( Miriam and Rabab),
the other he sexually desires ( Clara and Eniat). The inability of having
sexual intercourse with the former is an immediate result of the superego’s
dominance exercised over the son
The primary function of the Superego, as elaborated by Freud, is
to inhibit original libidinal desires by transforming (sublimating)
their aim and protecting the Ego from the return of the sexualized
nature of Oedipal feelings. (Gary, 2003, p.7)

The two novels use the Oedipus complex as their base for exploring the
protagonists' relationship with their respective mothers. They are
hopelessly devoted to their mothers, and that love often borders on romantic
desire. Many scenes go beyond the bounds of conventional mother-son
love. Completing the Oedipal equation, the protagonists murderously hate
their respective fathers and often fantasize about their deaths.
They assuages their guilty, incestuous feelings by transferring them
elsewhere, and the greatest receivers are Miriam/Rabab and Clara/Eniat.
However, they cannot love either woman nearly as much as they do their
mothers, though they do not always realize that this is an impediment to
their romantic life. Clara/Eniat can be seen as a failed maternal substitute
for the protagonists. However, Mahfouz does not provide Kamel a Baxter
Dawes, the supposedly imposing father figure, whose savage beating of
Paul accounts for the latter’s unconscious desired punishment for his guilt.
Moreover, at the end of the novel, Kamel does not release himself from his
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Oedipus complex. On the other hand, Paul subverts his Oedipal fate by
intentionally overdosing his dying mother with morphia.
Despite cultural differences the two novels reveal family
disturbance, symbolically referring to the society, and deepens the
protagonist sense of isolation. Al Sarab depicts a typical Egyptian family of
the 1940s: a weak wife (Zaynab) and a domineering husband (Ro’ba laz).
On the other hand, Sons and Lovers portrays the marriage of an
ontologically strong female figure, Gertrude Coppard, to an ordinary miner,
Walter Morel. Therefore, their married life inevitably becomes: “a conflict
between husband and wife, terrible in its concentration and expenditure of
energy”. ( Hobsbaum, 1981, p. 47)
Disturbance in husband-wife relationship is a harbinger of the
ominous circumstances looming in the family atmosphere. In both novels
the interpretation of male authority takes a physical form. Kamel recalls the
first week of his parent’s married life:
Weeping and heartbroken my mother returned to mygrandfather’s
house. He became so upset that he could not believe his eyes. He
knew that the husband took to his old drinking habit though he
was still a new groom in his first married week. He used to return
home with sunshine and at the day of her quitting his palace he
gave her a sound beating. (Mahfouz, 1976,p. 12-3)1

They reconciled only to break again. She returned to her father’s


house and delivered her second child. Seven years later, they
reconciled for one week after which he took to drink again and she
went to her father’s house where she begot her third child, the
protagonist. By that time the family life reached a deadlock and ended
in divorce. The husband took the two old children leaving Kamel

alone to suffer his Oedipal fate.

1
All quotations from Al Sarab, as well as from Arabic references, are translated
by me. Equivalent Arabic quotations from Al Sarab, as well as from Holy
Qur’an, are always written in the footnote.
- ‫ ولم يكن‬،‫ وانزعج جدي انزعاجًا شديدا‬.!‫عادت أمى الى بيت جدي دامعة العينين كسيرة الفوأد‬
‫ثم علم ان الشاب فد عاود سيرته الماضية في الحانات ولما يمض السبوع الول من‬،‫يصدق عينية‬
‫ وانه اوسعها ضربا في ذلك اليوم الذي‬،‫وانه كان يرجع إلى بيته عند مشرق الشمس‬،‫زواجه‬
((13-12 ‫ غادرت فيه قصره السراب‬.
In Sons and Lovers the husband and wife lead a cat-and-dog life,
recognizable only through a series of quarrels. Mr. Morel, in a brunt of a
battle, follows Ro’ba’s example and kicks his wife outdoors:
He came up to her, his red face, with its bloodshot eyes, thrust
forward, and gripped her arms. She cried in fear of him, struggled
to be free. Coming slightly to himself, panting, he pushed her
roughly to the outer door, and thrust her forth, slotting the bolt
behind her with a bang. (Baron, 1992, p. 33)

In a violent scene, Mr. Morel, depressed by his wife’s society, gets drunk
and arrives home angry. He inquires about food and she coldly answers
him. Trying to open the drawer, he makes much fuss to which she replies
scathingly:
“What are you doing, clumsy, drunken fool?” the mother cried.
“Then tha should get the flamin’ thin thysen. Tha should get up,
like other women have to an’ wait on a man.”…
“Never, milord. I’d wait on a dog at that door first.”
“What—what?”
He was trying to fit in the drawer… It fell, cut sharply on his shin,
and on the reflex he flung it at her. (Baron, 1992, p. 53)

Mrs. Morel hates her husband and the miner life. Her hatred is manifested
in her wish to be a man. Such a wish turns into longing to have a male child
to dominate, thus satisfying her desire. So much is the case with Zaynab.
The above mentioned circumstances account for the Oedipal
representation of the two protagonists whose desperate attempts to break
away from the maternal tie that was strangling them show modernist
features. The two protagonists hate their fathers while they are young:
Paul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private
religion. “Make him stop drinking,” he prayed every night.“Lord,
let my father die,” he prayed very often. (Baron, 1992, p. 85)

Kamel echoes Paul’s wish to undermine the symbol of authority when he


tears his father’s picture:
One day I entered our bedroom…my eyes were fixed on a picture
of a man and I realized that he was my father … unwittingly I tore
it to pieces. My mother tried to save it but angrily I got hold of
it…She said “ What a naughty child! You thoughtlessly tore your
mother’s picture…Thus she lost the picture of her early youth, for
which I am really sorry now! But, does not such sorrow stir
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laughter after I caused the death of the owner of the picture


herself! (Mahfouz, 1976, p.10) 1

The above passage suggests two contradictory possibilities: resignation and


isolation of the modernist protagonist reflected in the Oedipal atmosphere
and in the sense of initiation and individuality sustained by the Orestean
image.
The crisis is one of a clash between the protagonist’s desire for
freedom and his mother’s control, viz., a clash between the supposed duty
the society demands from the modernist hero and his resignation and
limitations. Lawrence summarizes the dilemma of the Oedipal protagonist:
Being sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather
brutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themselves
too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than
incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their
mother, and they were full of the sense of their mother. They
preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy, rather than
risk the other person.
(Baron, 1992, p. 323)

The two protagonists are kept tied to their mothers’ apron string. The
maternal sway, which partly symbolizes anarchy and disarray in the modern
society, fosters a crippling inability into the modernist hero so that he
succumbs to resignation and passivity resting “inside the whale”.
The Oedipal protagonist falters between resignation and initiation.
His relationship with other females is a necessary catalyst in the process of
liberating himself:
Paul’s Oedipal drive requires both purity and incest [Miriam and
Clara] [as well as Rabab and Enaiat], Paul’s [as well as Kamel’s]
alternative choices, also represents a composite figure. Miriam
[Rabab] is the ‘virginal madonna’, whom he finally shakes loose
as a mother surrogate and replaces Clara Dawes[Enaiat], a harlot
figure who is opposite of Mrs. Morel and Miriam [Zaynab and

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- ‫ثم لم أدر‬... ‫ وتعلقت عيناي بصورة الرجل فأدركت أنه أبى‬. ...‫فقد دخلت حجرة نومنا ذات يوم‬
:‫ وقالت‬...‫ ولكنى تغلبت عليها فى حنق وهياج‬،‫ومدت لى يدا تحاول استنقاذها‬،‫إلويداى تمزقانها أربا‬
،‫ هكذا فقدت صورة الشباب الول‬...‫ لقد مزقت صورة أمك وأنت لتدرى‬...!‫يالك من طفل مشاكس‬-
‫ ولكن أليس ذلك أسفا مضحكا بعد أن امتدت يدى الى‬،‫وأننى لسف على فقدنها–الن– أسفا خلصا‬
10 ‫)صاحبة الصورة نفسها فقضت عليها؟! )السراب‬
Rabab], and with whom he is established finally to make the
incestuous identification with his mother. ( Harvey, n.d., p. 22-3)

Unlike Paul, who is ultimately released, Kamel is stuck in his ‘incestuous


identification’.
Both novelists use physical images which intensify the maternal
spiritual control over the Oedipal son. The body is very symbolic of the son-
mother intimacy. Kamel’s fondling with his mother’s body while having a
bath together echoes the Lawrentian metaphor of intimacy reflected in the
‘navel string’ which connects the baby’s body with Mrs. Morel’s. Such an
intimacy divides the protagonist’s world into two: one indoors where he
suffers maternal domination and the other outdoors represented in his
relationships with all people especially females. As Paul indulges into the
industrial environment outside the house, his perspective becomes textually
distinct from his mother’s. However, Kamel’s exaggerated introversion may
symbolize the sociopolitical conditions of an occupied society. At a deeper
level, Mahfouz’s modernist hero, who can not contain or change the world,
prefers resignation and passivity despite niggardly attempts at initiation.
The struggle between Kamel and society is seen through a series of
experiences revealing the complexity lurking at the deep reaches of his soul.
His fixation, fear and inability are the principal elements crystallizing the
essence of the tragedy of freedom and of death in juxtaposition. In his first
experience he creeps furtively to play with the children turning a deaf ear to
his mother’s shouting. He engages in a quarrel which ends with the children
beating him soundly. Psychological defeat results in a deep sense of
mortification at the protagonist first attempt at attaining his individuality.
He painfully calls this to mind:
My defeat in front of her was much more painful than the beating.
I kept telling her that I was the first to get up to mischief.
(Mahfouz, 1976, p.23)1

His second experience takes place in the presence of his aunt


and her children. Alone with his mother, she tells him: “ return to me
as of old, never to part again.”2 (Mahfouz, 1976, p 25). The primary
school witnesses his third experience. From the first day, he decides
never to go again. He even mistakes the teacher calling him “mum”
instead of “sir”. In the period of religious studies the teacher reads the

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‫ ورحت اؤكد لها كذبا أن الحق كان علي وانى‬،‫آلمتنى هزيمتي أمامها أضعاف ما آلمني الضرب‬
23 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)كنت المعتدى‬
2
25 ‫عد الي كما كنت لتفارقنى ولافارقك )السراب‬
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two verses from the chapter entitled “Abasa” “when one flees from his
brother; and mother and father…”1 (Mahfouz, 1976, p 39). He is
deeply moved by such an ominous premonition of the tragedy of life.
The pupils make him their pet aversion and organize Kamel-hunt. This
intensifies his sense of isolation and tightens his mother’s grip on him.
To this effect Ragheb writes: “Indeed she devotes her life to him.
However, he is completely isolated outside the house and this is his
tragedy.” (Ragheb, 1975, p.211). In fact Kamel’s three experiences
symbolize his Oedipal relation to the world. The blindness of Oedipus
refers to the return to the dark womb of the mother. By proxy, Kamel
loses his insight and becomes psychologically handicapped. He
passively returns to Orwell’s “whale”.
Kamel’s fourth experience, a sexual one, is the most excruciating
of all. When his sister eloped with a man, whom she married, and begot a
child, Kamel raised a lot of questions to which he received no answers.
However, he stealthily got the answers through a lived experience with the
maid but his mother caught them red-handed. Kamel recalls his mother’s
devastating reproach which causes his sexual impotence later:
My mother looked daggers at me and I realized that I committed a
fatal mistake. I never set an eye on the girl
After my mother seized her hair and took her away… She talked
about the punishment that would befall me while alive and in the
doomsday. (Mahfouz, 1976, p 49)2

Owing to long standing traditions, Kamel’s mother gives him a distorted


notion of sexual relationships. On the contrary, Mrs. Morel who represents
the progressive industrial society, accepts Paul-Clara relationship because a
married woman does not stand in rivalry with her:
So she encourages the affair with Clara: the adulterous relation
serves the son’s physical need, while the mother retains the son’s
deeper love and loyalty. ( Jackson, 1988, p. 56)

Cultural differences play a devastating role in the development of


the Oedipal protagonist. While Mrs. Morel lets Paul satisfy his physical

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- "39 ‫ وأمه وأخيه" ) السراب‬،‫)يوم يفر المرء من أبيه‬
2
-‫ وقبضت على شعر‬.‫ورأيت في عين أمي نظرة باردة قاسية فأدركت أني أخطأت خطأ فاحشا‬
‫ وحدثتني عما يستوجبه من عقاب في الدنيا وعذاب‬...‫الفتاة ومضت بها فلم تقع عليها عيناى بعد ذلك‬
49 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)في الخرة‬
needs, Zaynab unwittingly worsens the matters for Kamel. Shukri
comments:
From that moment the ugly maid becomes an unconscious
substitute for the mother: a substitute for fear, inability and
undeveloped childhood. If he hears about a suitor for his mother,
he remembers what happened to his sister and what happened
between him and the maid. Then he hugs his mother passionately
and she refuses the new suitor. ( Shukri, 1969, p.192 )

Kamel, as well as Paul, is shy and inarticulate in front of people. At


university, he suffers a lot when he is asked to deliver a speech. Paul
undergoes the same experience when he goes to fetch his father’s wages.
However, Paul gets over his shyness when he applies for a job.
The development of the protagonist is governed by two dualities:
one of the male and female world and the other of Platonic and physical
love: the former he feels for his mother and the latter is made to the ugly
maid and through masturbation:
This duality is between the world of the father and that of the
mother, between hostility and pacifism, between the libidinous
drive and Platonic love, between the mother figure and the maid’s,
guilty-ridden masturbation and clean relationship to a woman. He
cannot withstand these long standing dualities which tore his life
to pieces. (See: Badr, n.d., 120)

Kamel is torn between his mother and Rabab. He yearns for other
relationships to achieve his individuality, yet he is controlled by a crippling
resignation and an indescribable turn for going back to the his mother’s dark
womb. He illustrates this conflict:
My mother’s ghost haunts me while I am with my beloved, and
my beloved’s while with my mother. As a result, a deadening
worry and an inner remorse cause a sense of irrevocable gloom
which overwhelms me. (Mahfouz, 1976, p.107-8)1

Similarly Paul suffers from this sense of being torn asunder:


His new young life, so strong and imperious, was urged towards
something else. It made him mad with restlessness…. He fought

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- ‫ وتولد من ذلك قلق‬.‫ وعند أمى كان يخيفني طيف حبيبتي‬،‫فعند حبيبتي كان يطاردني طيف أمى‬
108-107 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)محير امتزج في نفسي بما يئن بها من ندم فشملني بكآبة ل تريم‬
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against his mother almost as he fought against Miriam. (Baron,


1992, p.262)

Tension, which results from this sense of duality, hastens the


inevitable confrontation between the son and the mother. This represents the
modernist’s crippling inabilities which he wants to liberate himself from. In
both novels marriage discussion represents the climax. In AL Sarab
Zaynab tries to convince Kamel that the time does not come for marriage, to
which weak argument he can not object:
- “They do not care for your happiness, but for their daughters’!...
Marriage is a Suna, and one should not attempt it before one is
man enough.”
- I wondered reluctantly: if I am not man enough at the age of
twenty six, when then?.. I wished I had spoken my mind but I did
not have the guts, so I kept silent. (Mahfouz, 1976, p.109)1

Unlike Kamel, Paul summons his courage and faces his mother who tries to
distract his attention from the idea of marriage. Mrs. Morel desperately
argues:
“Ay, my lad, it’s easy to talk. We’ll see when the time comes.”
“What time? I’m nearly twenty-three.”
“Yes, you’re not one that would marry young. But in three years’
time—”…
“But you don’t want me to marry?” (Baron, 1992, p.285)

Mrs. Morel always harps on her unhappy married life to get Paul
attached to her and to make him despise Miriam. Once he tries to defend the
latter from the former’s attack, his mother’s jealousy becomes naked. She
speaks as if she were an injured beloved:
Yes, I know it well—I am old. And therefore I may standaside; I
have nothing more to do with you. You only want me to wait on
you—the rest is for Miriam.” (Baron, 1992, p 251)

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- ‫ وليجوز ان يتزوج‬،‫الزواج سنة‬...!‫انهن ليرمن سعادتك ولكنهن يردنك مطية لسعادة بناتهن‬
‫الشخص قبل ان تكتمل رجولته‬
‫ وودت لو‬.‫ اذا لم تكتمل رجولتي في السادسة والعشرين فمتى تكتمل اذن؟‬:‫فتساءلت في امتعاض‬
109 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)صرحت بأفكارى ولكن شجاعتي لم تسعفني فواصلت الصمت‬
This instance and many others disturb Paul-Miriam relationship and
ultimately lead to Paul’s succumbing to his mother’s domination. Actually:
“his bursts of anger and “hate”, his feeling that Miriam is pulling
the soul out of his body, are only his own tormented reactions to
the agony he feels in being pulled so strongly away from his
mother.” ( Jackson, 1988, p. 59)

Zaynab echoes Mrs. Morel’s technique of domination and chants


the same dirge of unhappy married life and filial ingratitude:
“Nothing occupies my thoughts except your utter happiness... But
marriage is no game… You, kids, are our lives whether we are
young or old. However, you love us when you are young and hate
us at our old age. Or you love us when you do not have anyone
else to love.” ( Mahfouz, 1976, p.112-3) 1

The isolation of the ego is highlighted and stressed by such statements


uttered by the mother who surely feels insecure after her married life has
collapsed. “Cut off from any contact, Kamel can not affect or play a
positive role due to his passive isolation.” ( See: Al Hawari, 1979, p.149)
Marriage, an important chance for socializing, is a twofold symbol:
it refers to the end of the Oedipal dilemma, and as a matter of course to the
mother’s life, and marks a decisive step towards attaining individuality. In
one of his day dreams Kamel holds an imaginary dialogue with his
grandfather:
How life will be like if this kind mother dies?... I suggested to my
grandfather that I should marry so that we can have someone to
care for us. I imagined my beloved, graceful, lovely and
respectful, taking care of home kindly and lovingly. Then I saw all
of us-I, my wife and grandfather-standing with eyes full of tears in
front of a dear grave. 2(Mahfouz, 1976, p.114-5)

1
-‫ أنتم‬...‫ولكن ليس الزواج لهوا ولعبا‬..‫ليس بخاطرى إل فوق ماتحب لنفسك من السعادة والهناء‬
‫ أو أنكم تحبوننا‬،‫ أما نحن فتحبوننا صغارا وتكرهوننا كبارا‬،‫حياتنا فى صغرنا وكبرنا على السواء‬
113-112 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)حين ل تجدون من تحبونه غيرنا‬
2
- ‫ فاقترحت على جدي ان اتزوج لنجد من يكلنا‬...‫كيف تكون الحياة لو خلت من هذه الم الحنون؟‬
‫ ثم رأيت حبيبتي بقامتها الرشيقة ووقارها المحبوب تتعهد البيت وآله بعطف سابغ وحب‬.‫برعايته‬
‫ )السراب‬.‫ ثم رأيتنا جميعا– انا وزوجي وجدي– واقفين على قبر عزيز نرويه بدموعنا‬.‫شامل‬
115-114)
13

The desire of getting rid of the mother leaps to consciousness


expressing itself in a daydream. “He loves his mother so much that
life is unbearable without her. Yet thinking of her death indicates a
dormant wish which he can not face.” (Ismail, 1963, p.261) Compared
to Kamel, Paul is so strong that he throws it in his mother’s face “And
I shall never meet the right woman while you live.” (Baron, 1992,
p.395)
All the modernist protagonist’s attempts to escape isolation and
resignation, viz., his Oedipal fate, are doomed. Therefore Kamel’s marriage
to Rabab proves a failure. She symbolizes his complete sexual
incompetence. He loves her, yet he can not copulate. He says:
I passionately clasped her. This is love, but I instinctively realized
that I had to make it physical so that marriage would be effective.
But how could I do it? She was a pure cloud-like shadow and I a
spirit devoid of body. How could I start an intercourse?!1
(Mahfouz, 1976, p.226)

Similarly, Paul finds it almost impossible to copulate. In a moment of


heated tension, he shouts at Miriam: “you never will! You’ll never
believe that I can’t —can’t physically, any more than I can fly like a
skylark—” (Baron, 1992, p.261)
Paul’s/ Kamel’s relationship with Miriam/Rabab dramatizes the
situation of the modernist protagonist who finds it difficult to get into a real
contact with the outer society, despite exerting tremendous efforts. The two
women who are substitutes for the mother figure stress the protagonists’
inability. The chapter entitled “Test on Miriam” is in fact a test on Paul’s
ability or, to be accurate, on his inability.
Kamel thinks that marriage is the first step on his way to freedom.
However, he does not realize that marriage, and to Rabab in particular,
simply provides a substitute for the mother. Therefore, copulation means
gratifying a long depressed incestuous desire for the mother herself:
His love for Rabab is nothing but a reflection of his love for his
mother. Before engagement, he casts her aside his fancies while
doing masturbation…When he marries her, he is not satisfied with
her. ( Al Sharooni, 1980, p. 29-30)

1
- ‫ ولكننى أدركت بغريزتي أنه ينبغي أن‬،‫ انه الحب‬.‫وضممتها الى صدري في حنان وهيام‬
‫ أنها تسكن الى صدري كأنها‬.!‫ ولكن كيف؟‬..!‫أستنزله من السماء كثيرا كى أقوم بواجبى‬
‫ وانى أبدو كروح خالصة ليحيط بها جسد فكيف أجد جسدى!؟‬.‫طيف من نسج السحاب الطاهر‬
(226 ‫)السراب‬
In her turn, the mother fights back to keep her son in chains. Mrs.
Morel hates Miriam, measures herself against her and finds that the girl is of
a better quality than she. Jealous, she describes Miriam saying: “She is one
of those who will suck a man’s soul out till he has none of his own left…
She will never let him become a man.” (Baron, 1992, p.196) Ironically
enough, Mrs. Morel gives an accurate description of her relationship to her
son. To the same effect, Jackson writes:
“The mother’s view of Miriam is everywhere shown to be
motivated by the mother’s own possessiveness. The mother has
described only herself in the above quotation.”
(Jackson, 1988,p. 55)

Similarly, Zaynab declares her hatred of Rabab. She shouts at Kamel:


Your wife hates me and therefore she does not want me to stay at
home. You must approve of her likes!… My wife does not hate
you. Rather she thinks that she is your pet aversion because you
always give her a cold shoulder.1
(Mahfouz, 1976, p.247)

As a matter of course, the sons break up their relationships with


their lovers. They seek sexual identification with a harlot-figure of the
mother. However, they still suffer a sense of loss and perdition. Kamel
expresses his ordeal because of the division of body (symbolized in his
relationship with Eniat) and spirit (illustrated in his marriage to Rabab):
One satisfies my spirit, the other my body. My torture is one of
inability to make both an inseparable whole. What is my life for
without this angelic face? But how can I prove my manhood if I
lose the other woman? 2
( Mahfouz, 1976, p.309-10)

1
- ‫ وقد ظننت ان ما توده زوجك ل بد ان‬،‫ وبالتالى فهى لتود بقائي في البيت‬،‫ان زوجك تكرهنى‬
‫توده انت‬.
-‫ وهى على العكس من هذا تظن انها موضع كرهك لها لما تبدين نحوها من‬،‫أن زوجى ل تكرهك‬
247 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)تحفظ وجفاء‬

2
--.‫ وما عذبى ال عذاب من ل يستطيع أن يزاوج بين روحه وجسده‬،‫فهذه روحى وتلك جسدى‬
‫ماذا تكون قيمة الدنيا بغير هذا الوجه الجميل المتسم بالطهر والكمال؟ ولكن ماذا يبقى لى من لذة‬
310-309 ‫ )السراب‬.‫)ورجولة اذا فقدت المرأة الخرى‬
15

Similarly, Paul “Loved Miriam with his soul. He grew warm at the thought
of Clara…Miriam was his old friend, lover, and she belonged to Bestwood
and home and his youth. Clara belonged to Nottingham, to life, to the
world.” (Baron, 1992, p.319) Commenting on the suffering ensuing from
the separation of the spirit and body, Ragheb writes:
His dilemma increases when he deeply feels that he can not do
without both. Moreover, he can not compare between them: one is
his spirit and the other his body, exactly as Elham and Karima
stand for Saber in the novel entitled The Search. This is a dramatic
representation of the internal struggle similar to that represented
by Miriam and Clara in relation to Paul in Sons and Lovers. The
torture felt by Saber, Paul Morel and Kamel Ro’ba Laz is one of
an inability to attempt a catholic marriage between body and
spirit. (Ragheb, 1975, p.217-8)

Sex plays an essential role in stressing the protagonist feeling of


his isolation. Since sex causes a deep split in the ego which is naturally
bisexual, the protagonist’s attempts at having sex may not dissolve his
isolation. Therefore, Kamel insists on maintaining his spiritual relation to
Rabab and so does Paul to Miriam.
Paul-Miriam-Clara affair stresses Paul’s psychological perdition
through which he strives to attain his identity. The resolution comes with
Mrs. Morel’s death. As a matter of course, his affair with Clara comes to an
end since he needs no guidance. He is utterly freed:
He would not take that direction, to the darkness, to follow her. He
walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.
(Baron, 1992, p.464)

The protagonist’s ego mixes with the society after getting rid of his
passivity and isolation.
On the other hand, Kamel, after his mother’s death, falls seriously
ill. Tension arises between spiritual and physical drives which ends with the
latter getting the best of him. He can not end his affair with Eniat:
I heard footsteps approaching. The visitor’s face looks at me
passionately and pitifully. I cried as if I was calling for help and
my voice showed my excitement: “You!”1
(Mahfouz, 1976, p.367)
1
-‫ فهتفت فيما يشبه‬،‫ وأطل على وجه القادم يبتسم فى شوق وإشفاق‬،‫ثم سمعت وقع أقدام تقترب‬
‫الستغاثة وقد وشى صوتى بما شاع فى صدرى من النفعال‬:
- 367 ‫ )السراب‬.!‫)أنت‬.
Unlike Paul, Kamel falls back on sex and is satisfied with his personal
gratification. As a modernist protagonist he prefers passivity and
resignation, to rest, as Orwell illustrates, “inside the whale”.
The two novels vary in their presentation of a slice of life, a
chapter of society. Mahfouz let the protagonist narrate the story, however,
he interferes rendering the whole situation illogical. Ignorant and
psychologically ill as he is, the narrator tells such a carefully worded story
without even missing a single incident and in such an honest objective way.
He seems fully aware of his illness, logical in demonstrating its reasons
beginning with family disturbance and ending with his tragedy. He even
seems objective in his appreciation of himself and others without finding
excuses for his behaviour. Moreover the narrator, whose ignorance and
inarticulateness the author tries to stress, uses classical language!
Sons and Lovers shows more life than Al Sarab. The story is
convincing since it truly reflects the life of the miners and that of the middle
class. Mr. Morel speaks a dialect while Mrs. Morel speaks standard English.
Paul is a reflection of both languages: he speaks standard English and uses
his father’s dialect when irritated. Throughout the novel, Paul journeys
between forms which shapes the protagonist and pushes him forward in his
search for a role to play in the society. On the other hand, Kamel’s
representation is one of immovable and rigidly shaped form through which
he experiences his personal and social life.

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17

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