Analysis Of The Happy Man By Naguib Mahfouz

What makes a man feel unreasonably happy and eventually collapsed? The short story "The Happy Man" written by the author Naguib Mafouz provided a significant philosophic theme of what it means to be human. It could be explained by three aspects. The pressure and reality derived from this world is waiting us to face, the sentiments we experienced enrich our life and add flavor to the outlook of life and the most importantly, to create self-identity. Together, the impact of the philosophical value behind this short story is tremendous and significant.

In Naguib Mahfouz;s 70 year career, 34 novels, more than 350 short stories, five plays and many movie scripts were published. As a productive and one of the greatest writers in Arabic literature, he won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. Most of his work style characterizes history and culture of Cairo, Egypt. Due to deeply influenced by the literary development in Europe, Mahfouz's works exercise realism which depicts many basic aspects of life and society. "The Happy Man" depicts the reality that is not always ideal but ruthless, the emotions dominate how we feel and the focus on individual create self-value. The unforeseen denouement led us to rethink what stream of consciousness Mahfouz is trying to express. And what else?

Work Cited:

Aboul-Ela, Hosam. "The Writer Becomes Text: Naguib Mahfouz and State Nationalism in Egypt." Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 27:2 (2004 Spring), pp. 339-56.

Naguib Mahfouz. "The Happy Man" ONE WORLD OF LITERATURE Shirley Geok-Lin Kim and Norman A. Spencer. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993. p.46-p.53

The Happy Man. Trans. Akef Abadir and Roger Allen. In God's World: An Anthology of Short Stories. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca

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