Zaabalawi

Mahfouz's short story Zaabalawi is about a man who seeks to find the Zaabalawi, which is a healer, in order to cure an illness which possesses no remedy. The narrator searches high and low for the Zaabalawi and is practically sent on a wild goose chase. The main point of the story is that "Once you love  Zaabalawi, you will be healed." The cure for his illness is not in a physical form but more in a spiritual form. It never quite states exactly what the narrator's disease is but I believe it is something as simple as boredom with life. In the first book of The Hunger Games, it states that "Hope is the only thing stronger than fear." A person without hope or faith in something has nothing to live for. By encountering people that have had contact with Zaabalawi, the narrator begins to have hope that one day he will personally find him and the Zaabalawi even makes an appearance while the narrator is asleep in order to encourage him to continue to seek. The irony of the story is that the narrator is being cured just by simply seeking the Zaabalawi. Many people become unhappy with their lives and strive for a greater being. In the modern world God can be compared to the Zaabalawi. Although we can not physically meet him, people continuously seek to be in his presence. Just like the Zaabalawi, God urges people to seek him, and when they do he blesses them beyond what they could have ever imagined.

The Secret Sharer

Josef Conrad's short story The Secret Sharer is a tale about a young ship captain that takes in a fugitive from another ship secretly onto his boat. I use the term fugitive lightly because although the man, Leggatt, did indeed kill one of his ship mates, I don't think that it was on purpose or with ill intent. Yet either way the Captain hides Leggatt in  his room until he finally steers close enough to an island so that Leggatt is able to escape. The Secret Sharer portrays the theme of friendship between two men during a time of crisis. It is uncertain as to why the Captain risks so much in order to protect a man he barely even knows, but it is thought that the Captain see's a side of himself in Leggatt. In class it was brought up that the Captain and Leggatt might have had relations with each other, but I never caught that from reading the story. The  Captain did indeed have a certain attachment to him, but I think that the Captain merely wanted to get his mind off of the stress he was enduring as a new captain with a new crew. As the title implies each of the men secretly share something with one another. The Captain offers Leggatt a place to hide and his eventual means of escape, while Leggatt provides the Captain with a chance to prove his seamanship in the eyes of the crew. When Leggatt escapes to the island of  Koh-ring, the Captain see's his white hat floating in the sea and he exclaims that Leggatt is  "striking out for a new destiny." Leggatt receives his so called "new destiny" by starting over at a new place, yet the Captain also begins a "new destiny" with his crew.