Upward mobility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Upward mobility - Essay ExampleThis third time-level represents one facet of several(prenominal) possible comparisons between the narrator and Saeed, all urged by the construction of the novel around this pair of characters.At the very beginning of the novel, the narrator refers to his time in England as seven years of longing and describes the place as a land whose fishes die of the cold. The narrators characterizations of his studies abroad are typically vague and completely lacking in detail (as in the preceding example) or uninterested. The narrative of Mustafa Saeeds experiences as a student, intellectual and Sudanese expatriate in England. This time-level first appears relatively late in comparison with the other time-levels, (Tayeb , 183)After offering this optimistic cross-cultural comparison, the narrator notes the ominously silent Mustafa Saeed, who said nothing. Saeeds silence parallels the narrators own reticence to parcel all his thoughts with the villagers, a reticen ce which possibly reflects deeper misgivings about the truth of his upbeat observation. The narrator thinks to himself that in England, just as in the Sudan.Some are powerful and some arc weak that some have been given more than they deserve by life, while others have been deprived by it, but that the differences are narrowing and most of the weak are no longer weak.This comparison begs the question, however, of whether the same can be said of the relationship between England and the Sudan, rather than at bottom both England and the Sudan.30 For Saeed, as both we and the narrator learn in subsequent chapters, a chasm separates East/South from North/West, a gulf reflecting powerlessness and power, respectively, in response to which he embarks on his personal program of violent revenge.Even before Saeeds story is begun, however, Saeed questions the relevance of the narrators experiences abroad. Saeed introduces himself to the narrator and remarks, in a vaguely dismissive manner, on the latters achievements. (Tayeb , 183) Solid and unproblematic values, the humanistic act of studying another cultures literature, and the virtue of humility, all appear in conjunction with the narrators experiences in Europe. Yet the magic calls into question the values implicit in the narrators very general description of his experiences abroad. Saeed responds by attacking the narrators choice of subject We have no need of numbers here. Saeeds blunt criticism reflects the unviability of the naive model offered by the narrator for a possible relationship between England and the Sudan. The eager Sudanese student assiduously applying himself to the acquisition of the higher (in both senses) European literary culture offers, for Saeed, a pathetic reflex of the rapaciousness of European Orientalism (including philology) a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having consent over the Orient.Even though it is Mustafa Saeed who is speaking, the narrators own experiences in an idealise England populated by poets, humanists, and doctoral candidates render English poetry intelligible to him. Ironically, precisely those idealized experiences allow him to perceive Mustafa Saeed as an interloper in the otherwise (also highly idealized) cultural homogeneity and simplicity of the village.The narrators