Free Will and Fate: An Existential Marxist Analysis of Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54938/ijemdss.2026.05.2.711Keywords:
Existential Marxism, Jean- Paul Sartre, Free will, Fate, Social DeterminismAbstract
The article explores the relationship between free will and fate in Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley through Jean-Paul Sartre's Existential Marxism. Wartime Cairo during World War II is the setting, and the alley’s lower-middle-class residents with their hopes and fears are the locus. Sartre’s concepts of praxis, scarcity, practico-inert, seriality, freedom and responsibility are used to closely analyze the text through qualitative research methodology. The analysis shows that the characters practice personal agency, but material and social conditions are constantly affecting the choices that Hamida, Abbas and Hussain Kirsha make. The research adds to the existing knowledge as it provides existential marxist interpretation of Midaq Alley suggesting that free will and fate are not presented as conflicting realities, rather as interrelated; it further suggests an inclusion of gender, class consciousness, colonial influence, and social mobility to existential Marxism for a comprehensive understanding of human agency and social determinism in the text.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Samavia Zahid, Saima Bashir
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