One
of the most overlooked characters throughout The Thief And The Dogs has been
Sheikh Al Junaydi. Sheikh is the person who Said immediately goes to for
spiritual purposes and he represents the complete opposite of what Said is.
Sheikh's characteristics represent optimism and positive, if there is anyone
who Said should be like or should try to emulate, he should look no further to
the Sheikh as he represents the clean mindset and the harmless creature that
Said Mahran should be like. Mahfouz integrates Sheikh in his novel in order to
showcase a nice contrast between his personality and Said's personality with
the Sheikh portraying the morally correct mindset one should have as he doesn't
believe in taking revenge and striking back at others. As readers, we
consistently see Said's action as being morally incorrect and envisioning Said
as a person who really needs a mental intervention therefore with the way
Sheikh is characterizes it adds a nice dimension to show living proof of what
Said Mahran should be like. Sheikh offers Said food to eat and a roof to love
under, he consistently aims to resuscitate Said and give Said a better
understanding of what he has done than what Said even realizes himself. Sheikh
is consistently looked upon highly throughout the story and is always looked at
by Mahfouz as a possible “higher power” and Said’s superior as he is
consistently a problem solver and one who always makes sure to help those
around him. Sheikh is a rather flat character as there aren’t so many points in
the story involving him nor is there any mentions of him having a darker side
but the flat levels that Mahfouz uses to portray him are really able to
showcase the good side of people throughout this story while provide another
perspective on the behavior of a person with decent morals at the time of the
Egyptian revolution.
The
positive characterization of Sheikh really helps make the negative and greedy behavior
of Said Mahran stand out. Said is desperately wanting to seek revenge and
condemn the people who have done him wrong in the past and through showing the
differences in the beliefs and ideologies of Said Mahran and Sheikh, Mahfouz
really brings out the morally incorrect behavior of Said and lets the readers
really dig into the wrong things that Said is focusing on. Said is continued to
be characterized as vengeful and blinded into his own pride as he strongly
believes what he is doing is correct and through using a very positive and
intelligent character like Sheikh by integrating him in moments where he
consistently helps out Said Mahran. Mahfouz enlarges the effect of what Said is
doing even more and further helps the readers realize that he isn’t going to
get anywhere with his attitude and will only get somewhere in life with a
positive attitude like Sheikh’s. Sheikh’s positive attitude indirectly sheds
more light on the negative characteristics of Said Mahran. Overall, the work of
Mahfouz through contrasting 2 different people help in illustrate the theme of
revenge throughout the story. Sheikh is highly against revenge and we see
throughout the book that he persistently reminds Said about not taking revenge
and moving on with life. Said however with his ignorant ego completely cuts off
Said’s words and he decides to continue to try to take revenge which in the end
leads to his ultimate downfall as he dies at the end of the story. Mahfouz
tackles the revenge theme to portray Said as a tragic hero and uses Sheikh as a
key piece in the novel to showcase the peaks and troughs of the story while
help show the journey of Said Mahran from his release from jail to his death. Sheikh helps assist Said’s ignorance which is
one of the main reasons why he dies in the end.
