Said’s Characterization in TATD

In the novel “The thief and the dogs” written by Naguib Mahfouz shows the stream of consciousness narration style which delivers psychological shift of the protagonist Said Mahran effectively; best suits with the rapid pace of the novel in order to convey much information throughout the short text. Also, due to usage of the stream of consciousness narrative style, the author shows Said Mahran’s characteristic effectively.

For example, in the chapter 18 of the “The theif and the dogs”, there is such line, “A little out of breath, he came up to the door. _I love you, Nur. With all my heart I do love you, twice as much as you have loved me. In your breast I will bury all my misery, the treachery of those scoundrels and my daughter's alarm._ He knocked on the door.”, which is Said’s psychological thoughts he had in his mind. It shows his characteristic that he did not recognize his love of Nur until the ending chapter of the novel, and he faces the realization of his true love in the later of the story.  One of the reason why he did not recognize his love until the last chapter of the novel is connected with his experience in the early of the novel; where he gets betrayed by his ex-wife Nabawiyya, which could have made him resolute and heartless with his own minds throughout the novel. 

As he recognizes his love in the ending chapter of the novel, it maximizes the tension of the novel as he faces death, and it can cause empathy from the readers as they are seeing Said’s mood shift from the omniscient point of view alongside with the stream of consciousness narrative style. Usage of the stream of consciousness further developed the psychological shift of the protagonist Said Mahran, and it successfully caused empathy throughout the novel.

Stream of consciousness - TATD

In the novel “The theft and the dogs” written by Naguib Mahfouz, it plainly expresses the stream of consciousness that Mahfouz intended to use throughout the novel in order to further explain the emotional shift of the protagonist, Said Mahran. 

First of all, the stream of consciousness means that “the human’s consciousness doesn’t consist of static patterns, but the flow of dynamic images and ideology.”, and Naguib Mahfouz uses this stream of consciousness in order to create empathy with the protagonist Said Mahran. Naguib Mahfouz decided to use the stream of consciousness in the novel as he prioritized the deliverance of the protagonist’s monologue to the readers by using the stream of consciousness. Due to the action, it was successful to fully deliver and allow the readers to understand about Said’s emotional shift in the novel, where he faces burden, despair, and the sense of betrayal. Different from other types of the novel that doesn’t use the stream of consciousness, “The theft and the dogs” successfully deliver the emotional shift of the protagonist Said Mahran and furthermore creates empathy of the dislikable character. 
The stream of consciousness was way more beneficial for the texts like “The theft and the dogs”, as it is containing the fast pace of the novel, it was necessary to put supporting aspects for a better understanding of the plot, and I think it was a nice choice of using the stream of consciousness.

When the readers can understand the psychological shift of Said’s experiences, finally the readers can also understand his actions of external problems that contributed to his internal struggle- which helps the readers to understand the revolutionary counter-narrative and the society that Naguib Mahfouz is talking about.

My thoughts about Literature translation

When I read any of the articles or novels in English, I still prefer to referring to Korean translated version of the text. It is simply because I am too lazy to translate the language that I am less comfortable with to the language that I use fluently- and I also pay more attention and read carefully when it is written in my language. I would say I prefer texts written in my language even though I can speak both of the languages evenly fluent. 

Sometimes I read texts that were written in English and was translated to Korean or the opposite way around. However, like myself as a bi-lingual, it is quite impossible to fully translate the whole text from one language to another; if the historical background of the text differs, should the translator add the additional information explaining about the typical culture to help the reader? But in that case, can we still say the new text as a “translated version” or “a very new text”? Or it could be the other way around; if the translator doesn’t add the explanation and it was delivered to another side of the planet, it won’t deliver as much as feelings and mood that the original text could have in the original country. 

In Korean, there is way more variety of expressing adjectives compared to other languages, and it is based on its sound; mostly, when the sound is harsh and aggressive, it is more often to express harder, deeper, or more sensitive even though it is telling the exact same situation. From your view of my speaking, you won’t understand what am I talking about, because the translation doesn’t provide an appropriate amount of understanding to the context. There’s a lack of diversity that the text could deliver to the viewers throughout the translation.

Of course, the translation could be improved in various ways; like improved language skills of the translator, or by additional information supply(such as how we use appendix?). However it is always difficult to fully translate the original text to other language and I think that is the challenge of the current study of literature translation.