Mahfouz’s The Beggar, Mirror of a Changing Society : Analysis of a Cinematic Adaptation
Keywords:
Naguib Mahfouz, The Beggar, Egyptian cinema, existentialism, nihilism, film adaptation, Egyptian society, modernity, symbolism, female characters.Abstract
This article presents an in-depth analysis of the cinematic adaptation of Naguib Mahfouz’s
novel "The Beggar" (Al-Shahhat), directed by Houssam Eddine Mostafa in 1973. The study examines
the artistic challenges of translating a philosophically introspective literary work into film, highlighting the narrative and thematic transformations from novel to screen. It explores how
existential and nihilistic themes evolve in the adaptation process, with the film introducing explicit
sociopolitical dimensions absent from the original novel. The article also focuses on the symbolic
representation of female characters and their role in reflecting the tension between tradition and
modernity in Egyptian society. Ultimately, the film is shown to offer a visually compelling interpretation of the protagonist’s existential crisis, mirroring the complexities of identity and the search for meaning in post-revolutionary Egypt.
