The Thief and the Dogs - stream of consciousness technique

The novel, The thief and the Dogs, written by Naguib Mahfouz, exhibits the technique of Stream of Consciousness. This technique is defined to be “a kind of selective omniscience: the presentation of thoughts and sense impressions in a lifelike fashion—not in a sequence arranged by logic, but mingled randomly.” -Psychologist William James.

 More clearly, it is characterised by a manner of:" writing in which a character's thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like."

 So in essence, stream of consciousness technique is a rather diverse writing style that attempts to capture the entity of a story's worth, its ability to branch out several ways, each specific branch creating another path for the reader to be enlightened by. This technique is clearly evident in Thief and the Dogs, which is convenient to the translator as its multiple access to voices and opinions enables the translator to bring forth prominent attributes of a character and their environment, adding depth to the story and its characters. 

In the Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz effectively uses stream of consciousness as a way to reveal Sa'id through different angles and thus give the readers some perspective on his character and how to evaluate him. By allowing Sa'ids raw thoughts to surface amongst other descriptions of a scene Mahfouz consequentially opens a door for the reader , enabling them to be exposed to a characters genuine opinions, fears and hopes. Often deviating from this technique causes the reader to judge a character based on other characters interpretations or a situation ; both of which could have bias. However, those thoughts being shown , it also may cause the reader to dislike the character as they come to know their true motives and wrongly interpret other minor characters whose only source of opinion stems from a main character as well as losing focus on the plot; clearly there are downsides to both aspects of writing style. It depends on the authors intentions , however, to find the suitable technique and approach towards how they would want to portray a character , story line or purpose of the story. In The Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz sacrifices the opportunity of adding more depth and quality to the other characters and the story line itself for the price of a critical and true character. Mahfouz keeps the story line diverse as he constantly shifts from third person to indirect narration, creating a more open path for the story , allowing the reader to experience a situation and immediately gain knowledge of Sa'id's interpretation and thus be introduced to other characters and brought back to Sa'id's inner monologue. 

 In Chapter one of the novel, Sa'id had just been released out of prison and is soon resenting his freedom as he views all the scenery around him as ungrateful, not giving him any credit for his sacrifice. We're brought in touch with his personal thoughts and concerns as he thinks:"How will he look when he first sees you? how will his eyes meet yours ? have you forgotten ilish ? How you used to rub against my legs like dog?" Here, we exhibit the technique of Soliloquy , an internal monologue that is directed at someone and we are given some insight into his anger and hatred that could've not been expressed as explicitly written in third person. Also , some of his vulnerability is exposed through direct monologue : "Through all this darkness only your face, sana, smiles." At this moment of the first chapter, Sana, his daughter appears to be his only refugee of calm, hope and good in him. 

Mahfouz provides this insight into the character to perhaps give him a chance to shape his own image, with his side of the story and his experience and circumstances that have brought him to prison and then back into his life, just to be rejected by his daughter. Ultimately, Sa'ids  rejection by his daughter and essentially life is set up as a trigger for Sa'id, to prove that Sana really was the only great left within him, his only chance to redeem himself. 

In chapter eleven Mahfouz uses indirect inner monologue wherein the author serves as a presenter, a commentator: "Leaving his hideout made him all the more conscious of being hunted. He now knew how mice and foxes feel , slipping away on the run. Alone in the dark he could see the citys lights glimmering in the distance, lying,waiting for him." In this scene, Sa'id had given in to his urge to leave the house, to leave safety for the satisfaction of doing something, for revenge. By this indirect monologue, one is presented with Sa'id's familiarity of being hunted for and how he feels about the city's regulations.

As the ending of chapter one said in indirect inner monologue:" Said leafed through them, picking up one volume after another,"yes", he remarked sadly "most of them have been lost". Here the term "most" might not only apply to his beloved books, but also the love of his daughter and the loyalty of his wife that had both betrayed him. So as the story commences, one is already presented with Sa'ids deepest fears and highest hopes through stream of consciousness ; his decisions are all based on his feelings towards his daughter and ex-wife and as such expressing them through stream of consciousness technique has a more profound effect than simply describing it in third person.

In the novel Things fall Apart , Achebe choses to describe his main character, Okonkwo in third person. We learn that Okonkwo has a troubled past and is highly dependant on his tribes opinion of him as well as the stigma of his late father who did not live up to the Igbo expectations. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo commits questionable crimes that can not necessarily be justified by the reader. If Achebe had written about Okonkwo using the stream of consciousness technique, perhaps the readers would've been able to emphasise with him to an extent as he kills his adopted son in cold blood, beats his wives and refuses to offer emotional support to anyone, thus causing a broken family. However in The Thief and the Dogs, the many unjust actions of Sa'id, trying to steal from Rauf, shooting a stranger with the intention of shooting Ilish and making his wife fear and suffer, by knowing Sa'ids true intentions, his actions can just as equally not be justified. Interestingly, both authors bring out the fact that even though they used different ways to describe a character, those techniques were tailored to the story and its purpose ; both characters ended up dead by their own deeds and for both characters little solace can be found in their actions.