Sample Assignment 4

Brian Page
220:12 Principles of Literary Study
Fall 2001

Paper 2 - Midaq Alley
5 - 7 pages, Due Monday, November 5, 2001
Number your pages, either with software, or by hand if needed.

"In the crevices of disasters," Radwan Hussainy espouses in Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley, "happiness lies like a diamond in a mine, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love." However, this image of Hussainy as an adherent to the path of Islam, spiritual and religious enlightenment is contradicted by other images in which he beats his wife. As we've discussed it in class, most of the characters in Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley are complicated by contradictions that show their otherwise creditable selves to be monstrous, and make some of the monstrous characters appear to be not only within the boundaries of acceptable society, but even wise. Apply your knowledge of the structure and functions of stories and discourse in an examination of some specific aspect of Midaq Alley in light of Anthony Cascardi, Leo Bersani, George Bataille, or Michel Foucault's discussions of contradictions in the subject-self, and life paths and projects (pages 7 and 8 in our packet). You should focus on specific sentences from these critics as well as a specific episode or passages from Midaq Alley in your analysis in an effort to produce as close a reading of them as possible. In what ways do these critics and philosophers' remarks on life paths reveal the way that a given character's project, or lack of a sense of project (any character you want to choose) might be perceived as within the limits of acceptable behavior or be grounds for banishment from the society of Midaq Alley?

It seems that anything goes in the "trap between [the] three walls" of Midaq Alley. Some characters' are brutally condemned for their choice of escape routes or their pathless rebellion, and others, brutes in their own ways, are lauded as enlightened for preaching devotion and warn against rebellion. Given that, it could be worthwhile to take on a discussion of the narratological term "focalizor" in your analysis of why some character's life choices aren't tolerated, or even understood by other characters. Some of the other questions you might address include the following: Rachel Blau Duplessis' description of the community as protagonist could be extremely useful in an analysis of Midaq Alley. How does Midaq Alley serve to illustrate some of the claims she makes? Within this community, what kinds of life paths and projects do the different discourses that circulate in Midaq Alley trace out, block off, condone, or condemn? What are some of the communal symptoms these characters react to, attempt to heal, or altogether evade? How does a given character's movements, motivations, and desires reflect a preference for "multiplicity," "difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems" in the kind of "societies of promiscuity" that Foucault discusses? How does Abbas, or Hamida, or any other character show how, in Cascardi's terms, "the autonomy of the various discourses in the modern age inevitably shows up as contradictions within the subject self"? Genre, too, is subject to contradictions in this novel: What can we do with the "t-r-a-g-e-d-y" in a novel that is also a comedy of manners?

At this stage in the semester it will be worthwhile for some of you who are less familiar with the conventions of the essay, or who just want some revision, to practice structuring your writing. Here, then are some suggestions intended as a guide to better develop the structure and sense of argumentation in your writing.

" Always limit the scope of your writing. Choose specific passages and sentences to examine.

" In your introduction, spend some time detailing the conceptual frame you are working within, and the episode and character(s) in the novel you are going to turn to as a place to test the usefulness of those concepts. You should include the title and author of the novel, and the author(s) of whatever conceptual writing you employ in your paper. Ultimately you will want to include a thesis statement in which you make a claim about how the relationship between the conceptual material and the work of literature. (Because we don't always know our position on a given issue at the outset, an introductory thesis may be the last thing you write).

" Try to show the connection between the conceptual material and the specific part of the novel you are examining in every paragraph. Sometimes it's enough to merely set a phrase from the conceptual writing, say in the last sentences of a paragraph, as the idea that is illustrated in a specific passage that you've analyzed in that paragraph. Sometimes you will want to tackle another separate sentence from the same critic or philosopher in a new paragraph, detailing it and showing how a character, situation, or dialogue illustrates the concepts.

" For those who need structure at the level of the paragraph: State a claim about the relationship between some aspect of the conceptual material and the novel that you are using at the beginning of the paragraph. Let that claim be your guide. Cite some evidence from either the novel of the conceptual writing in the form of a quote (and reference the page number and author). Analyze that evidence - break it down into details, details, details. Write a sentence in which you make a connection between those details to the details of the other material (either conceptual or the novel). Round out the paragraph by somehow reiterating the claim you've proven or rendered null. End with a transition statement that leads into your next paragraph, or begin the next paragraph with such a transition sentence drawing off of the ideas from the paragraph that proceeds. Have a banana, or a pound of caramel, or just clean something as a way to procrastinate. Your choice! But, remember:

" Always analyze! A summary or a retelling of an episode in the story we've just read doesn't cut the cake. Summary is needed here and there; it's unavoidable, but it shouldn't dictate your writing. Analysis, on the other hand, structures and divides your writing so that your reader can get a distinctive taste from every paragraph you set on their rectangular plate. Its modality is one of solving the problems of examining literary texts. Analysis reveals the recipe, if you will, that the author hasn't already written in the conceptual terms we are discussing. It may, however, mutually support the claims those terms presuppose without prior knowledge of them, in its own distinctive codes.