Half a Day

Compare and contrast the work’s final paragraph with its first two. How do their similarities and differences contribute to the story’s overall meaning?

Compare and contrast the sections of the story narrated in first-person singular (“I”) with those narrated in first-person plural (“we”). Why might Mahfouz have chosen first-person plural for the sections of the story set at school?

How does Mahfouz characterize the school the narrator attends? How does his depiction of the school contribute to the work’s symbolic meaning?

Discuss the various figures the narrator encounters over the course of his day (the lady, the middle-aged man, the young lad, etc.). What role do these characters play in the narrator’s own journey?

Read the following passages in the Qur’an involving humanity’s expulsion from paradise: 2:29-39 and 20:115-24. Using these passages for reference, analyze “Half a Day” as religious allegory.

Describe the setting of “Half a Day.” To what extent is it a story about Egypt in particular, and to what extent is it about humanity as a whole?

Which elements of the narrator’s story does Mahfouz devote the most narrative time to? Which does he skim over? How do these choices reflect the work’s depiction of time?

What elements of “Half a Day” are typical of literary realism? Is the story as a whole realistic? In what sense?