Corruption, Poverty and Immorality: An Analytical Study of New Cairo and Middaq Alley

الملخص

This research paper aims at giving a realistic image of the exploitation and suffering of the low middle class in the realistic novels of Naguib Mahfouz Al-Qahira al-Jadida (New Cairo, 1945) and Zudaq al-Midaq (Midaq Alley, 1947). The two novels within their multipart of thematic formation and methodology invite huge possibilities of insights and investigations. Mahfouz focuses attention on the triple threats facing Egypt at that time, poverty, corruption, and unemployment. The study tries to show how Mahfouz argues through these novels that the existence of poverty and corruption in a society violates widely shared moral values and affects the poor people’s dignity as human beings. Using specific examples from the novels, the researcher points out that poverty often does serious harm to poor people’s bodies, relationships, morality, and social relationships. The themes dealt with in these two novels are still valid in today Egypt and the Arab World.