Stream of consciousness

The stream of consciousness style of narration has many impacts on a piece of text leading to impact the plot to be less engaging due to it being written in third person.Hence, less emphasis is shown in the structure of the literary work as the focus of the text would be unwinding the main characters thoughts and beliefs along with developing his psyche.As a result in could be noted that there is a contrast between the standard conventions of writing and the stream of consciousness narration. when taking a look at a text it could be noted that bias could be evident as the reader is only exposed with only one perspective rather than multiple ones.leading readers to formulate judgments based on information transferred from the main character. However, this technique leads to destroy common archetypes found in literature as when you get to know the main character in depth it becomes difficult to classify id they have a good will or are “evil”.

When taking a look at Naguib Mahfouz's novel The Thief and the Dogs the main character is driven by his emotions and sense of betrayal to his downfall.However in the novel we have access to Said Maharan’s main thoughts and emotions the reader is more than capable of establishing a link with him and starts to feel empathetic towards him.

In The Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz joins the concept of realism and stream of consciousness together. The aim of this blog post is to explore and examine the reasons behind the use of the stream of consciousness narrative technique. As the purpose behind Mahfouz’s writing is to shape his beliefs and ideologies, the novel was written on the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution in which the revolution overthrew the Nasser regime.When taking a look at the impact caused by the government being overthrown the individuals had suffered from censorship and even punished when speaking against government. The stream of consciousness which was introduced for the first time to arabic literature by Mahfouz portrays how civilians coped with life after the revolution.As there are people who became bureaucrats like Rauf Ilwan,who left their dignity and ideals for wealth or stand up and be rebellious and fight for their rights. Mahran's grisly fate may be Mahfouz's hidden message of what happens to dissidents. As mentioned previously when accessing the protagonists mind a link is established making the reader be empathetic towards him.

Taking a look at the novel from the start different stylistic features presented that vary form direct and indirect internal monologue, third person narration, and a soliloquy is present. However, each technique has a purpose to be served as the novel begins with an indirect interior monologue.

"Once more he breathed the air of freedom. But there was stifling dust in the air, almost unbearable heat, and no one was waiting for him; nothing but his blue suit and gym shoes.” 

Along with that as mentioned previously direct monologue is found in chapter nine 

"You might perhaps be thinking you've got rid of me forever now, Rauf! But with this revolver, if I have any luck, I can do wonderful things. With this revolver, I can awaken those who are asleep.” 

The techniques used are used to make events more intimate as it shows and represent allow in the characters beliefs and ideologies leading to have an impact on the audience.This type of narration may lead to greater empathy from the reader for Said Mahran.

Lastly, Said frequently gives soliloquies. The nuanced difference between this and the direct interior monologue is that a soliloquy carries the assumption of an audience and no narrator. (A narrator may sometimes be present in direct narration, and no audience thought to be is present). An example can be found in Chapter 11.

last but not least the novel also explores soliloquies in which the reader is required to create assumption without have narrated events as in which an example of a soliloquy is found in chapter 11

"Where have all your principles gone now, Rauf? Dead, no doubt, like my father and my mother, and like my wife's fidelity...All those graves out there, immersed in the gloom, don't jeer at my memories!"  

On the whole, Mahfouz accomplishes political objectives, establishes strong ties between the reader and the protagonist, and paints a complex portrait of the haunted thief Said Mahran. The stream of consciousness narrative technique is one of the many tools he used to portray such ideologies.

literature translation

“Literature in translation” is a reading that I have read that tends to explore the nature of English native speakers and their dreary attitude towards reading a translated piece of literature. Language in general is a form of communication amongst many nations worldwide and when taking a look at each language separately you could notice certain characteristics that make it standout than the other languages. As an example when taking a look at Arabic there are certain phrases when translated to English they don’t seem to make sense, there is a phrase in Arabic when literally translated to Arabic it translates to “on top of my head” which doesn’t seem right yet in Arabic it has a different meaning other than translated phrase mentioned. As this is a form of translation where the words are translated but the meaning isn’t. however, this doesn’t prevent form texts being translated and being interpreted in different languages it’s just that its more than translating word for word as there are multiple approaches to translation. 

When taking a look at English it could be noted that it is the most spoken language in the world and is considered to be an international language in which many educational systems incorporate it in their syllabuses. Hence when taking a look at the idea of translating literary work it could be viewed as a challenge and as a conflict as it might be the idea of interpreting the text n a different manner or not finding exact words to describe what’s actually happening leading to a loss in meaning and value of the literary work. Some might argue that due to English being an international language there seems to be lots of literary work written hence there doesn’t tend for translators to translate other literary works in different languages. As mentioned previously literary work written in a foreign language may include sayings or figurative language that can’t be translated or incorporated into English hence resulting in a difficulty in translating it or even knowing the meaning behind it. 

There are also some advantages of translating literary text such as knowing more about certain cultures as an example when reading the translated text, the thief and the dogs we had the opportunity to experience the Arabian culture which used to be previously known only to be about the Arabian desert along with genies and lamps.

Control room

Control room was a documentary that gave an insight towards the international conflict of Iraq based upon broadcasting groups of media specially Al Jazeera well known media group in the middle east. The broadcast company was criticised by the american government for delivering biased information bout the war in Iraq , as they gave the audience a different perspective about the bush administration that they didn’t want to reveal. As the media group has shown the difference in delivering information depending on the audience that they target hence manipulating the news.

Taking a look at the documentary control room and reflecting upon it I agree with the following proposed statement “Deception is just as bad as telling an outright lie”. Taking a look at the statement it could be viewed that deception might be used in a positive manner yet if you think about it it is still a lie that may lead to affect a person or a whole community in a negative manner. Taking a look at this perspective it could be viewed that  the Iraq war was a reference of direct perception in which the government used propaganda as a form of deceiving their citizens into believing it was a ‘good’ war in order to gain support and allow for the public to agree with its own government.

The information about the situation occurring in Iraq at the moment was all released from the Centcom in which media broadcast.Josh Rushing, had provided bias information regarding the war to several news organizations when interviewing him in Doha. This allowed for the news media to develop and present information on rushing’s perspective in order to show the audience he US the way Bush had perceived or perhaps wished it to be or become. Hence this makes organisations to portray a positive image about the US stance in the war. Although there might biased one sided reports from the spokesman, no one would no because reporters weren’t allowed in the scene or on ground. This leads to cause a gap in information leading to question the credibility of the present ideologies. Before the introduction of Arab news organisations like Al Jazeera the war was only broadcasted from one perspective which is the Us rather than Iraqi perspective. Due to Al Jazeera’s balance of perspectives, the headquarters had been bombarded due to its non-conformation towards the US side/perspective.

Essentially, deception was taken into consideration in this context causing to impact the view of US - Iraq war as it had caused to alter the thoughts of people around the world. Taking a look at it in this context it could be noted that an outright lie is simply as bad as deception because the ideologies and perspectives were change due to media delivered to them. This would potentially lead to disturbance amongst the nation once they understand they have been deceived or lied to. Hence in my opinion I think that governments should place and deliver the information to the public to avoid riots or oppositions. 

media bias

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/middleeast/palestinian-driver-suspected-of-deliberately-hitting-jerusalem-bus-stop.html?_r=0

Palestinian driver accidentally hits two citizens at a bus stop

The 37 year old citizen of Palestine named Khaled koutineh accidentally was forced to drive his car causing the unfortunate death of two citizens waiting at a local bus stop. despite all the deliberate  accusations that had been made against him interpreting him as a extremist holding a haters towards the Israeli jews. As we had spoken to his brother he says “ he is a gentle man that had accepted change, he wouldn’t have committed such action to the innocent” he further on goes to show that he doesn’t belong to any conventions that demonstrate anti zionist ideologies or beliefs. 

According to the police claim “ he doesn’t posses any criminal record and has worked close with them to help and solve cases”. The police chief goes on and justifies that the undesirable and uncontrollable incident may had occurred due to the weather conditions that hit the city early this week. 

Moreover, he also states in an official press release that due to the  crowds on the street that day, he couldn’t have been able to commit this action of killing them two citizens.  As according to the weather statistics the streets were 70% causing the roads to be slippery. 

Khaled koutineh syas “ I would have never intended to kill those innocent citizens, despite the conflict both our communities have, I’m not that type of a person.”  he goes on and adds “ I couldn’t handle the car …. (starts crying) I just couldn’t”. 

Once again while taking a look at the Palestinian officers press release, they had stated that despite the conflict both communities suffer from he didn’t kill them on purpose. 

IOC outline

practice IOC #2

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzk0oHfxeh8KSURxektIenZfOFk

Wallace's theory of education and Alice Munro

This is water by David foster is an essay that he had developed to discuss the ideal of achieving ultimate freedom through education, as throughout the entire essay he talks about that ideology through different perspectives and lenses as he believes that there should be a balance in between what you choose and how do you choose it.  As it could be noted that the author favours literary fiction over popular fiction through the points that he mentions while I was reading his creative essay, he stated that throughout reading literary fiction imagination could step in in order for the reader to fill in detail about the characters to make the readers visualize the character in a different scene or scope rather that it being just there. As emotional intelligence is a concept that is easily interpreted by just a few words, as it tends to have a broader view that tends to link with literature to enhance it. As according to David foster reading literary fiction helps you develop a more creative, powerful mind. As at the begging of his essay his tends to describe the man a s the center of the universe and him being the center of the world as everything revolves around him although I don’t agree with that concept as there tends to be a others influencing and impacting your decisions. Moreover the author tends to develop another argument about listening to yourself rather than other by doing whatever you tend to desire no matter what society thinks or preaches you as. He mentions throughout his essay the concept of “teaching you how to think” is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: “Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. This concept tends to show the importance of how something’s tends to evolve over time and how that you shouldn’t disregard your thoughts and opinions for someone else’s thoughts. In my opinion I do believe that emotional intelligence has a bond with literature, as in “this is water” we had the opportunity to discover the impact of literary fiction n the individuals life and how it makes him develop a larger sense of realizing and looking at things in a different perspective. By looking at Alice Munro and Wallace's theory it could be stated that her work of fiction has lead the reader to continue on and reflect upon ideas. As by examining her characters we are granted access to know how to deal with certain implication because by examining a situation you could think about your actions.