Characters Narrate Their Own Tragic Ends:
A study of the endings of five novels by Najib Mahfuz
One of the ways to understand Najib Mahfuz`s development as a writer is to examine the crucial role played by the endings in many of his novels. In this paper, I have chosen to examine the dramatic endings of five stories, each of which deals with a character who finds himself confronted with an extremely difficult situation. The novels to be discussed here are:
Bidaya wa-Nihaya (Mahfuz, 1967), Bayn al-Qasrayn (Mahfuz, (1979a), al-Liss wa`l-Kilab (Mahfuz, 1961), al-Shahhadh (Mahfuz, 1978) and Miramar (Mahfuz, 1979b).