The Thief and the Dogs

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-18

Character Analysis

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary

The next evening, Said visits a café. The staff and the customers welcome him warmly, including the owner Tarzan who sits with Said. Tarzan and Said complain about the state of the world and reminisce. Said asks Tarzan for a gun, admitting that he has no money to pay for it. Tarzan tells him not to worry. As Said stares out the window, he overhears two young men discussing security, courage, and death. Said is intrigued by their abstract conversation and thinks about his own youth, when he was ready to take up arms in the name of "the national cause" (25). Tarzan brings a revolver for Said.

In the café, Said reunites with an old friend named Nur. He remembers her fondly: she loved him once, but he was already in love with Nabawiyya. Nur is a prostitute and Said notices that she has grown old and thinks that her revealing clothes suggest that she has "given up all claims to self-respect" (26). Nur greets him with a smile and tells him that she will go to the Martyr's Tomb later with a rich client. Said decides to rob Nur’s client. Nur is worried because her client is the son of a powerful family, but Said tells her to act naturally so that no one will suspect that she is involved.

Chapter 6 Summary

Said searches for Nur and her client at the Martyr's tomb. He finds the car, opens the door, and points his gun at the couple inside. After he takes the man's money, Said tells him to run away as fast as he can. As the man runs, Said drives away with the car, the money, and Nur. Nur and Said drink alcohol and drive back toward Cairo as Said compliments Nur for acting her part. She confesses that she was sad when Said went to prison and invites him to stay with her for the night. Said says that he will visit her later. First, he tells her, she must report the robbery to the police. Said wants Nur to give a false description of the thief and tell the police that this supposed thief raped her. Nur agrees and Said promises to visit her.

Chapter 7 Summary

Said relishes the idea of killing Ilish, Nabawiyya, and Ilwan and then fleeing abroad. However, he worries about Sana. Said still loves his daughter, even though she rejected him. He resolves to be more careful in his approach. Late at night, Said approaches the house where Ilish and Nabawiyya live. With the revolver in hand, Said smashes the glass window in the door and waits. When a man comes to investigate the sound, Said fires his gun. He hears Nabawiyya scream and he shouts a threat as he runs away from the house. Said returns to the stolen car and ducks inside to hide from a police officer. As he drives away, he thinks about killing Ilwan. He decides that he has spared Nabawiyya for now but assures himself that her "turn will come" (32). He is happy that Nabawiyya will now be scared for her life. He abandons the car and decides not to go to Nur's house.

Chapter 8 Summary

Said returns to the Sheikh's house. The Sheikh mumbles prayers to himself and does not notice Said laying in the corner of the room. Said's mind is ablaze with the memory of the shooting. Dawn arrives and the Sheikh rises to pray. Said is so exhausted that he cannot greet the Sheikh or even hide his revolver. When the Sheikh asks whether Said will pray, Said falls asleep. After a complicated, confusing dream, Said wakes up and finds the Sheikh watching over him. They have a cryptic conversation in which the Sheikh criticizes Said, who resents the criticism but responds politely. Afterward, Said reads about the murder in the newspaper. To his surprise, he discovers that he did not kill Ilish. Instead, he killed a random stranger, Shaban Husayn, who now lives in Ilish's house. A neighbor saw Said at the scene of the crime and Said’s entire history is now in the newspaper. Said realizes that he will be recognized, arrested, and hanged. He bickers with the Sheikh, who offers him nothing but more cryptic phrases.

Chapter 9 Summary

That night, Said sits alone in Nur's apartment and thinks about killing Ilwan. Nur returns home and is surprised to find Said sitting in the dark. She is pleased to see him but complains that the police "nearly killed" her with their questions. When Said reveals that he plans to stay with Nur for a while, she welcomes him. Nur criticizes Nabawiyya for leaving Said, who is torn between defending and insulting his ex-wife. Nur refrains from chastising Said and offers to make him food while he takes a shower. She says that they can eat together in the bedroom, looking out over the cemetery which is next to her home.

Chapters 5-9 Analysis

As the narrative in The Thief and the Dogs develops, Said begins to realize that Nur is his only real ally. Though Tarzan is a helpful friend and crucially provides Said with the revolver, it is Nur who offers Said the greatest emotional and material support. She collaborates in his crime, takes him into her apartment and gives him a place to hide when he wants to avoid the police. She nurtures him and loves him, feeding and housing him with her own money. Nur's treatment of Said reveals a deeper tragedy. She still loves him, but the love is unrequited. Said is so obsessed with revenge that he cannot recognize the sincerity of Nur's emotions, meaning that she is squandering her love on someone who cannot return her feelings. Nur's love for Said is doomed to fail. For Said, love has become only a prelude to betrayal. He refuses to open himself up and acknowledge her love and care because he is completely consumed with the idea of revenge. Nur may be Said's only ally, but he is almost incapable of recognizing this fact, beyond how it facilitates his plan for revenge.

Mahfouz undermines Said's reliability as a narrator by revealing that Said is not a particularly good criminal. Said spent many years refining his skills as a thief, but was caught and sent to jail. He is also caught the first night he is released from jail, after failing to break into Ilwan's home, and soon after fails to kill Ilish. Said may imagine himself to be an emotionless and ruthless killer, but this self-perception shows his delusion. Said is not a skilled criminal; he never plans beyond the immediate moment and is guided mostly by a sense of grievance that he never fully understands. He acts on impulse and emotion, allowing himself to be carried along by events outside of his control. The newspapers indulge Said's ego, portraying him as an expert assassin who may strike at any time. In truth, Said is a passive, reactionary force in the narrative whose crimes are spontaneous, reckless, and personal.

The reckless and spontaneous nature of Said's crimes carries a tragic implication. Said tries to kill Ilish but instead he murders an innocent man named Shaban Husayn. The death of Husayn is meaningless and unsatisfying for Said. He achieves nothing and feels no real guilt about his actions. The only emotional reaction he has to the death is regret that Ilish has been able to escape. The death of an innocent man reveals the nihilism at the heart of The Thief and the Dogs. Death is sudden and unexpected; it has no real significance and no real impact. To Said, bereft of his identity and uncertain of his place in the world, life has become cheap and inconsequential. Husayn may have had a life, a family, and dreams of his own, but his death becomes a sidenote in the story of a misguided, paranoid man. The tragedy of Husayn's death is that it reveals the unimportance of the individual, even as it is Said’s personal vendetta which claims Husayn’s life. Mahfouz posits a kind of paradox of the insignificance of the individual, who nonetheless wields great power to affect the lives of other individuals.