5/30/2023 0 Comments Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz![]() A potent unfulfilled lust informs her dreams and empowers her fantasies. She never perceived genuine love between the residents of the filth-laden alley. A beautiful, well built, brown-skinned and an orphan who is raised by a foster mother and who is slowly drawn into a life of prostitution. ![]() Of all the people in the neighborhood who are yearning for an escape from tradition and the poverty that seems to be its permanent handmaiden, none stands out more than the young and beautiful Hamida who is the novel’s central character. It is ironic that by disavowing the source of Freedom we are losing our passion for life as well as our authenticity as free individuals (Hasmi, n.d.) ![]() To a society that has forfeited the joys and challenges of romantic courtship for “recreational sex” as a youthful pastime, the idea that life can be enriched by exposure to the history, philosophy, and art of human culture no longer seems meaningful. ![]() We live by proxy on the fringe of a man-made reality, deluding ourselves in the notion that our mission in life is to measure up to its standards. ![]() As a consequence, our lives are largely wasted in meaningless pursuits that enable us to exchange freedom for a lifetime of dependency-whether monetary, moral, or psychic. The tragedy of life in our “liberated” society is not that freedom is denied us but that we don’t know how to deal with it (Hashmi, n.d.), Rather than accept what is our natural birthright, we defer to external authority and seek out distractions in order to avoid the responsibilities implicit in the exercise of free will. ![]()
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