Introduction
In 1989 Mahfouz published a collection entitled âThe False Dawnâ with nearly thirty short stories. âHalf a dayâ (âNif Yawmâ) is one of the stories. The story is set in Egypt. It begins with a father taking his son on his first day of school. While the boy is somewhat proud about wearing his new school uniform, he doubts whether being sent off to school is a kind of punishment for taking him away from his mother and home.
The father tries to explain to him as they walk along a garden-lined street that school is not a punishment but a place where boys are transformed into useful men. The school is the metaphor for the world outside the home. “Today you truly begin life,” the father says. The school seems like a grim fortress to the boy. He is encouraged to enter school by his father, who promises to wait for him at the gate to take him home at the end of the day. The experiences of the speaker in this story begin to resemble life from here on.
School day
The boy goes through the gate, feeling lost and unknown. Any person entering a new phase in life is likely to feel so lost. One of his new acquaintances tells him his father is dead. This is the first exposure for the boy. He realizes that people carry greater sorrows than his own. The woman in the school spells the metaphor for life clearly when she tells the children that this is their new home and that they will find mothers and fathers here, as well as good things related to knowledge and religion. She also encourages them to face their experiences joyfully without tears â so much like the moral education, we receive in real life.
The boy describes school day as a period of submitting to facts, with the act of submission bringing a kind of happiness. Life is truly driven by realities and only by accepting these realities, we can acquire happiness. The school day, like a miniature form of life, buzzes with activities such as forming relationships, playing games, learning music, acquiring knowledge, and developing religious beliefs.. As the day wears on, there is change and unpleasant incidents happen.
Even the loving woman, who spoke to the children initially, turns angry, scolds them, and punishes them physically. This reminds us that change happens continuously in life â and people do change during life, sometimes being hardened by their experiences. Realizing that he cannot go back home, the boy begins to view life as a period of struggle and perseverance. This indicates that individuals who feel trapped in their lives cannot enjoy life. Itâs all a question of attitude. The boy also notes that there are students who can take advantage of opportunities for success and happiness that present themselves throughout the day. In life, there are opportunities for all but only those who are positive-minded can convert them to their advantage.
When the school day finally ends, the boy does not find his father waiting at the gates as promised. He walks alone. So often in life, people whom we depend on suddenly leave us due to death, or transfers, or sickness. We are then forced to walk alone.
Life on the lonely track is different. This is metaphorically shown by the fact that the boy sees the world changed. He is confused and yearns to reach home. The home metaphorically refers to the comfort zone for each person. Taken out of that comfort zone, one gets confused and longs for familiar things in life. The boy is unable to cross the busy road and as he stands waiting, a young man, addressing him as grandpa helps him to cross. The boy has aged metaphorically, without his realization of the aging, due to the numerous experiences he had faced in so short a time as âhalf a day.
Conclusion
Thus, the story emerges, in one moment, the consciousness of the protagonist both as a child passing his first day at school and as an old man unable to cross a busy road. It is a powerfully used verbal technique. Brief as it is, the story is the author’s most powerful rendering of the dilemma of the gulf between observable time and mnemonic time. The author’s agony caused by the huge gap between actual time/ space and recollected time/space is captured brilliantly in this short story.