Half A Day
I quite enjoyed writing this essay for my english class. I'm sure that it could be improved; but it was fun writing.
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There are many questions to be answered in analyzing the short story, _Half A Day,_ which was written by Naguib Mahfouz, a contemporary writer living in Cairo, Egypt. The title itself gives us a significant clue as to what the most important theme is in this tale. The main idea in this story is that all of the experiences in material life compose only half of an allegorical day ...the time between early morning and sunset. Such a day concludes with a spiritual after-life, which completes this diurnal cycle. Just as this tale only covers one metaphorical day, there would be many such tales in a metaphorical year. So, during such a year, there are many other people who experience a similar story.
The protagonist in this tale begins the day as a boy who is reluctant to attend his first day of school, which is described as "the factory that makes useful men out of boys" (702). He eventually learns to appreciate how education can open his horizons. Much of his day is exciting, new, and pleasant; but he also learns that there are dangerous, boring and painful times, as well. When he leaves school, he finds that the city has overtaken the village of his youth. He mentions that he will be glad to see the fire destroying the awful urban sprawl. However, his strongest desire is to get home to his father.
When the boy first arrives at school, he meets a classmate whose father is dead. When the children are released from school, the main character's father is not waiting at the gate, as he had been promised. So, the boy sets out towards home, to find his father. Although, one might consider this to be a commentary on the absence of fathers in the lives of their children in the modern world, this is not the most pertinent conclusion to be drawn from considering all of the evidence provided in the writing as a whole. The most crucial interpretation of this scenario is that it is an allegory representing the quest for divine illumination.
Another question to be answered about this story is whether or not the subject is an actual person, or whether or not the main character is a metaphor for all of Africa itself. The boy is sent to school dressed in the African colors of green, red, and black. This story could be interpreted as symbolic of the colonization of Africa by Europeans ("The White Man's Burden"). Yet, this interpretation is not as compelling as that which considers the main character to be an actual individual human. In fact, this character could really be from any country. These experiences are common to everyone in modern cultures, everywhere.
In many cultures all over the world (and certainly throughout Africa), the crossroads has traditionally been a symbol of the meeting-place between the divine and the material planes of existence. So, it is appropriate that the main character in this story would end up waiting in the crossroads, until a compassionate figure comes to assist him in his journey. The author is obviously making a reference to an angel taking the main character from Earth to Heaven. There are more comparisons to be made between this story and the ritual observances of stations of the sun (such as morning, and sunset) in Ancient Egyptian adorations, as well as in the practices of Islam, and also throughout many other ancient cultures across the planet. This kind of analogy made in the main idea of this story has been made throughout history and geography -- that each of our individual lives are but a microcosm (a holon) reflected in the macrocosm of the divine collective (the holarchy), just as each day is but a single cycle in the great wheel of the year, unto eternity.
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There are many questions to be answered in analyzing the short story, _Half A Day,_ which was written by Naguib Mahfouz, a contemporary writer living in Cairo, Egypt. The title itself gives us a significant clue as to what the most important theme is in this tale. The main idea in this story is that all of the experiences in material life compose only half of an allegorical day ...the time between early morning and sunset. Such a day concludes with a spiritual after-life, which completes this diurnal cycle. Just as this tale only covers one metaphorical day, there would be many such tales in a metaphorical year. So, during such a year, there are many other people who experience a similar story.
The protagonist in this tale begins the day as a boy who is reluctant to attend his first day of school, which is described as "the factory that makes useful men out of boys" (702). He eventually learns to appreciate how education can open his horizons. Much of his day is exciting, new, and pleasant; but he also learns that there are dangerous, boring and painful times, as well. When he leaves school, he finds that the city has overtaken the village of his youth. He mentions that he will be glad to see the fire destroying the awful urban sprawl. However, his strongest desire is to get home to his father.
When the boy first arrives at school, he meets a classmate whose father is dead. When the children are released from school, the main character's father is not waiting at the gate, as he had been promised. So, the boy sets out towards home, to find his father. Although, one might consider this to be a commentary on the absence of fathers in the lives of their children in the modern world, this is not the most pertinent conclusion to be drawn from considering all of the evidence provided in the writing as a whole. The most crucial interpretation of this scenario is that it is an allegory representing the quest for divine illumination.
Another question to be answered about this story is whether or not the subject is an actual person, or whether or not the main character is a metaphor for all of Africa itself. The boy is sent to school dressed in the African colors of green, red, and black. This story could be interpreted as symbolic of the colonization of Africa by Europeans ("The White Man's Burden"). Yet, this interpretation is not as compelling as that which considers the main character to be an actual individual human. In fact, this character could really be from any country. These experiences are common to everyone in modern cultures, everywhere.
In many cultures all over the world (and certainly throughout Africa), the crossroads has traditionally been a symbol of the meeting-place between the divine and the material planes of existence. So, it is appropriate that the main character in this story would end up waiting in the crossroads, until a compassionate figure comes to assist him in his journey. The author is obviously making a reference to an angel taking the main character from Earth to Heaven. There are more comparisons to be made between this story and the ritual observances of stations of the sun (such as morning, and sunset) in Ancient Egyptian adorations, as well as in the practices of Islam, and also throughout many other ancient cultures across the planet. This kind of analogy made in the main idea of this story has been made throughout history and geography -- that each of our individual lives are but a microcosm (a holon) reflected in the macrocosm of the divine collective (the holarchy), just as each day is but a single cycle in the great wheel of the year, unto eternity.