The Thief and the Dogs - Narration

Over the course of time, literature has changed, or perhaps it could be said that it has adapted to our lives, authors trying to find new ways to effectively explore the main issues and aspects regarding human experience. 

One example can be seen in the perspective adopted by different novels. While literature works from the Victorian era tend to emphasize different elements surrounding individuals such as religion or society as a whole, modern literature focuses more on the importance of human experience, the individual being ‘explored’ in more detail. This idea can be exemplified by looking at two pieces of literature, The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz (1961) and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958). 

Although published only 3 years apart, we can notice significant differences in terms of the way the story and plot are approached by the two authors as a result of the different aims or purposes. In The Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz makes use of both third person narration but also stream of consciousness through the protagonist’s internal monologues and soliloquies. This is an important aspect conferring the novel its complexity. Through the use of these techniques, Mahfouz is able to explore the character of Said Mahran in great detail during one important period of his life. One example of this could be found even from the first chapter of the book, the narrator switching between third person narration used for describing Said’s surroundings and stream of consciousness which allows us to understand Said’s as a person along with his life story. Third person narration is used when the author mentions that “once more he breathed the air of freedom” telling us that Said was finally out of prison and that “there was stifling dust in the air” which describes as mentioned Said’s surroundings. A switch to direct internal monologue can then be noticed, which signals the use of stream of consciousness, when Said starts thinking about “Nabawyiyya. Ilish. [Their] two names [merging] in [his] mind”. Furthermore, this direct monologue is combined with indirect monologue where the author describes his other thoughts, Said thinking whether luck will “give him some decent place to live, where such love could be equally shared”. Here Said’s thoughts seem to be overlapping, half of him thinking about his home and half thinking about revenge on his enemies. This highlights the author’s purpose of presenting Said as confused which is important since we know that the purpose of the author was to present his own confusion relating to the changing Egyptian society after the revolution through the character of Said. 

Another important instant when the author makes use of the stream of consciousness is the beginning of chapter four, when Said thinks about Rauf Ilwan. The use of this technique here is helpful in understanding both Said’s character, again seeing that the novel is focused on the individual an therefore being an example of modern literature, but also to portray Said’s past as seen through his own perspective. Here it is possible to notice one limitation of the technique as we are being presented only one version of the story, the one of Said, which might as well be biased. Moreover, despite the possible bias, this passage does help as well in characterizing Rauf Ilwan through his actions or at least the way they are presented by Said. For example he is presented as “[trying] to deceive others” and it is mentioned that he has betrayed Said. 

Lastly, another important moment in the novel could be considered Said’s days in Nur’s house. Here, Mahfouz begins to portray Said as slowly losing control over his life, the silence and darkness slowly driving him insane.  In chapter fifteen, the stream of consciousness is used with the id of soliloquy, Said starting to imagine a conversation with the judges, saying that “whoever kills me will be killing the millions. I am the hope, and the dream, the redemption of cowards”.  Apart from the characterization of Said simply though his act of speaking to the walls as if they were judges, we can also see his own perception of himself, his self confidence and appreciation. We have also witnessed this in the previous chapters of the book when he describes himself as a great shooter, saying that his shots never miss. 

Overall, it is possible to see that the author’s use of stream of consciousness throughout the novel is very useful in terms of portraying in detail the elements of the protagonist’s life, including his past and present decisions. 

On the other hand, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe seems to be a novel that shares elements of modern literature and literature from the Victorian era. The reason is that the novel is revolving around the life of one character, Okonkwo, yet overall it seems that he is sometimes only a tool used by Achebe for portraying more important elements in the novel such as the Igbo culture, including their religion, values and beliefs and therefore the focus not being predominantly one individual’s experience. 

From the point of view of narration, Things Fall Apart is written using third person narration, having an omniscient narrator. This eliminates any suspicion of the events being presented in a biased manner, whereas this question could always be asked when talking about stream of consciousness in Said’s case. 

Within a novel, characterization plays an important role as it helps us understand not only the characters but the story as a whole. While looking at the description of characters in both novels we can distinguish both similarities and differences that arise as a result of the different techniques of narration used, this again highlighting the difference between a more modern novel and one that is sharing characteristics of the novels from the Victorian era.  If in The Thief and the Dogs we could see that characterization was made mostly through character’s actions along with Said’s description of characters within his monologues, in Things Fall Apart the characterizations are mostly realized by the narrator. Yet, a similarity can be found as well here because the characterization in Things Fall Apart can also be made by using character’s actions. 

Overall, we can see how the narrative style can vary from one novel to another depending on the goal that the author has in mind. While the Thief and the Dogs is a novel whose aim seems to be focusing on an individual and one moment in his life, Things Fall Apart is a novel that focuses more on an individual’s culture, presenting his entire life and development in the process.