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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)
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
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)
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)
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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
1
- "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 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
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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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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)
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- 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)
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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)
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
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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)
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.
WORKS CITED
Al Hawari, Ahmed, 1979. The Adventurer Protagonist in the Egyptian
Novel. Cairo: Dar Al Maaref, 1979.
Al Sharooni, Youssif, 1980. The Three Novelists: Naguib Mahfouz, Youssif
Al Sebaa’e, Mohammed Adel Haleem Abd Allah. Cairo: Egyptian
Book Organization,1980.
Badr, Abd AL Muhsin Taha, n.d. Naguib Mahfouz: The Novel and the Tool
Cairo: Dar Al Maaref, n.d.
Baron, Helen and Baron, Carl (eds), 1992. Sons and Lovers.Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0521007186
Colla, Elliott. “Multiplying Mahfouz.”[s.a.] [online]. [Cit. 2004-2-25].
Available at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-1/text/toc.html.
Gary J, McManus. 2003. The Father’s Place. PsyD (Published Dissertation)
The Wright Institute. [online]. [Cit. 2003-10-10]. Available at:
www.lib.umi.com
Geday, Mary. 2003. Forming the hero in four modernist novels (E. M.
Forster, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene) PhD.
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