Title: Identity, Morality and Social Critique at the Crossroads of Othering: a Study of Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley
Authors: Alkasim Harisu Alkasim and Kabiru Sani Musa
Volume: 9
Issue: 7
Pages: 211-218
Publication Date: 2025/07/28
Abstract:
This paper investigates othering in Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley through the intersection of identity, morality and social critique. Also trademarked otherness or the politics of the other, othering is a complex phenomenon that cuts across different fields such as literary studies, sociology, politics, cultural studies, anthropology, etc. As a pervasive and multidimensional recurrence, othering is a versatile concept that traverses the spheres of the superior and inferior individuals across cultures, elucidating the power politics between them. This paper, using postcolonial theory, hopes to unearth the marginalisation, silencing and exclusion the concerned characters in the novel under study experience in their own community for, among other reasons, failing to conform themselves to the mainstream conventions of their social milieu. The paper reveals that the characters receive a cancerous, multilayered othering on the grounds of identity, morality, class and gender.