Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, set in Cairo during the late years of World War II, was revolutionary and avant-garde not only structurally in the sense that it came to define a paradigm for the modern Arab novel, but also culturally given that it openly addresses issues of marriage and sexuality in Egyptian society. Through relationships between male and female characters, Mahfouz heavily criticizes traditional societal views on the role of women and homosexuality. The characters Salim Alwan and Kirsha are male archetypes whose violent dysfunctional relationships with their wives serve to criticize the greater societal issue of subjugation of women. Meanwhile, Hamida’s various engagements with Abbas, then Salim Alwan, then Ibrahim Faraj, reveal attitudes of extreme disrespect toward women and even unequal treatment for women before the law. Finally, though difficult to sympathize with, Kirsha nonetheless draws the reader’s pity as he is victimized by an anti-homosexual society that prevents him and his family from living fulfilled lives. Kirsha and Salim’s domineering treatment of their wives sheds light on the plight of married women in Egyptian society. Throughout the novel marriage is presented as an emotionless contract rather than a loving mutual relationship. The blunt causal structure of Kirsha’s reasoning in the statement, “I am a man. I am free.” implies that women are inferior to men (Mahfouz 103). Kirsha believes that, almost like a dog, it is his wife’s “duty to obey” so long as her basic needs are met (76) while Salim becomes annoyed simply by his wife’s leaving the home without his permission. Both men consistently resort to physical abuse during arguments and Kirsha openly voices the opinion that men in general ought to “use a stuck” on their wives (102). Furthermore, sexual problems are blamed solely on the wife. Salim seeks to marry Hamida on the pretense of his wife’s “frigidity” and “sexual exhaustion (137). Kirsha even goes so far as to imply that his homosexuality stems from his wife’s failure to excite him sexually (79). Finally, the fact that these women are referred to in relation to their husbands, for example, “Ms. Kirsha” or so and so’s “wife”, rather than by first names, further reinforces the author’s portrayal of their inequality relative to men. This same dynamic of inequality is also present between Hamida and her various male counterparts. In general, Hamida is portrayed as an abandoned directionless girl who becomes highly self-conscious of her opportunity robbing social position. This insecurity transforms into a materialistic, envious obsession with clothing and appearances. She dwells on the clothes worn by the Jewish factory girls and envies their social and financial freedom, almost implying the author’s specific criticism of Muslim Egyptian views toward women (27, 40). She despises every material manifestation of her poverty from the lentils she eats to the rags she wears, and comes to idealize happiness as the absence of these marks of poverty (203). Furthermore, she feels that marriage is “chasing” her but states that she will “give it a good run”, as though love were just a game, a social formality (26). Therefore, her “firebrand” personality that so differs from the social concept of the perfect submissive wife, which Umm Hamida criticizes as counterproductive to finding a husband, is perhaps in reality a conscious attempt to thwart marriage (24). However, her defenses are no match when Abbas and Ibrahim objectify and seduce her with strategies that play on her deepest fears of a squalid future as a poor housewife. Although of all Hamida’s encounters with men her relationship with Abbas is perhaps the most sincere and hopeful, the author nonetheless suggests deeper issues by presenting a disconnect between the way that Hamida feels about their relationship, and the way that it is received by the community. In effect, their engagement is sealed like a business deal with tasty sweet pastries and readings from the Quran, while Hamida is promised like an object and without the slightest mention of her feelings or opinions (106). Though this tradition would have been viewed as normal and correct in Egyptian society at the time, it takes on negative connotations in the greater critical context of the novel. The engagement is short-lived as temptations of Salim’s wealth and ostensibly true love for Ibrahim easily shatter what prove to be superficial ties, driving Abbas to expresses the desire to physically harm Hamida upon learning of her elopement (243). Because social customs of propriety never allowed him to form a real relationship with Hamida, he ironically refers first and foremost to her supposed sexual disloyalty calling her a whore, and later, upon learning that this is indeed the case, attempts to take revenge on Ibrahim more to defend his own honor than that of Hamida, with whom he explicitly expresses no desire to renew the engagement anyway (238). All of these factors imply that true love never existed between Abbas and Hamida and serve to point out that arranged marriages create problems for two individuals who are incompatible and still strangers to one another, yet contractually bound to marry. The second man who briefly comes into Hamida’s life through a second arranged marriage is Salim Alwan. The wealthy Salim views Hamida as nothing more than an object that can be purchased. Pouncing on the opportunity to be rid of a financial burden, Hamida’s foster mother assures Salim that Hamida “had nothing to do with” the decision to go through with the engagement to Abbas (139). Salim’s chauvinistic vanity knows no bounds. He feels that he would be doing Hamida a favor by marrying her and pulling her out of poverty (141). It is difficult, however, to sympathize with Hamida given the rapidity with which she agrees to marry a disgusting old man only interested in sex for his money. One could even argue that her downhill slide into prostitution begins here. Thankfully for the misguided Hamida, what would appear to be an act of divine intervention occurs when Salim suffers a heart attack following the engagement. Since no real love existed, Hamida quickly forgets him and, in his deteriorated physical state, Salim admits that he has forgotten the longings of the flesh and Hamida with them (179). These events serve to reinforce a negative portrayal of arranged marriage as an instrument of men’s’ sexual and economic power over women. Hamida’s third and final suitor, Ibrahim Faraj, is the devil incarnate in his treatment of Hamida, and also opens the reader’s eyes to the inner workings of a society that turns a cold blind eye to the sexual exploitation of women. From their first encounter the reader becomes wary of Ibrahim’s intentions when he brazenly approaches and practically stalks Hamida. His speeches are far too cliché and disconcerting to be taken seriously by readers, however, Hamida quickly falls under his spell given the prospect of a lifestyle of material luxury. She fully recognizes that he treats her as a “common streetwalker” and holds the chauvinistic view that she is “on this earth to be taken”, yet in the absence of self-respect this only enflames her curiosity (161, 183). Ibrahim’s strategy is twofold. First he plays on her materialistic desire to impress the Jewish factory girls and her obsession with her own shabby appearance, calling her a “princess in a shabby cloak” (167). Second, like Abbas he again draws out her fears of continued poverty, invoking images of “household drudgery, pregnancy, children, and filth”, while simultaneously promising her an alternative lifestyle of riches and glamour (196). Yet none of Ibrahim’s deprecating remarks instill so much disgust in the reader at the state of Egyptian society as his actual exploitation of Hamida as a prostitute.
Above all, the situation reveals the degree to which traditional social structures are undermined by colonial influence and endemic corruption. Most shocking is Ibrahim’s brazen remark that “American Officers will gladly pay fifty pounds for virgins” (223). It stands to reason, therefore, that the war and the British military presence in Egypt has created unsustainable opportunities not only for men like Hussein and Abbas who join the British army for a high salary, but also for poor women for whom society has failed to provide either financial assistance or job opportunities. Mahfouz hereby criticizes the weakness of Egyptian society, in which traditional gender roles become invalid when the government fails to protect its people from Western influence, and men fail to protect the women over whom they claim dominance from predatory individuals like Ibrahim. Furthermore, we learn that Hamida is trapped in a lifestyle of prostitution when Ibrahim threatens to turn her into the police if she tries to flee (256). This raises the disturbing point that the police would, in effect, punish a prostitute for licentious behavior because she is a woman, rather than punish the man who exploits and makes a profit off of her. This is perhaps one of the most poignant criticisms of bureaucratic inefficacy and corruption that Mahfouz employs in the entire novel.
The author also addresses the issue of Egyptian societal misconceptions and persecution of homosexuals through Kirsha’s character. Other characters, specifically Kirsha’s wife, paint him as delinquent or immature, telling him to grow up and act intelligently (78) while homosexuality itself is misunderstood as a “filthy disease”, a “dirty habit” (72), and a “sin” to be repented (74). Sheik Darwish refers to homosexuality as an “old evil”, creating a mutually exclusive dichotomy between homosexuals and pious Muslims (104). Homosexuality is further confused with female identity when Ms. Kirsha refers to her husband as a “woman in the clothes of a man” (100). Though Kirsha himself is a mean, unsympathetic character, a rational reader can nonetheless pity the fact that he is the victim of a society that has reduced him to hiding in a marriage with a woman with whom he is unable to share a healthy sexual relationship. The entire situation returns to the topic of marriage and how little attention is paid to female sexual pleasure when even the respected Radwan Hussainy suggests that a “good wife acts as a close-fitting veil” to cover up her husband’s possibly scandalous behavior at the expense of her own happiness (92). Mahfouz therefore presents the reader with a profoundly sick Egyptian society in which even supposedly wise and good-willed individuals have no concern for a woman’s happiness and value maintaining appearances over proactively addressing social issues.
Overall, the reader is presented with a disturbing view of an Egyptian society in which citizens, and women above all, no longer derive any benefit from the rule of a corrupt puppet government, and in which the only means of social mobility are war profiteering, prostitution, or in a beggar’s case, physical disfigurement. Nevertheless, it is paramount to view Mahfouz’s criticism of society’s treatment of women and homosexuals through the lens of time and cultural relativism. While a modern liberal western reader easily picks up on the injustices that Mahfouz describes, a conservative Egyptian reader at the time of publication would have been scandalized by such a critical portrayal of the social traditions he held dear, even if this anger is in itself an affirmation of the author’s criticisms. Regardless of the reader’s reaction, Mahfouz remains undeniably courageous for taking on serious social issues in his writing at a time when society turned a blind eye.
