Analysis of fate of a cockroach

Analysis of fate of a cockroach Fate of a Cockroach is one of Al-Hakim’s plays that conform to the theatre of the absurd in Egypt. The play which was published in 1966 consists of two shorter, connected plays. The first was published in Al-Ahram newspaper in 1964 and consists of the second and the third acts spoken by humans under the same title, Fate of Cockroach. The second play, which is spoken by the cockroaches, appeared in the same newspaper in 1965 under the title The King cockroach sakhsookh,A (2002 P. 143). In Fate of a Cockroach Al-Hakim satirically creates the cockroach characters to symbolize the political disillusionment with the socialist revolutionary regime under Nasser’s. He later criticized this period in his account entitled ‘Awdat Alwa’ey’ (the return of consciousness) Badawi, M, M (1987: p.82). The parallelism in the play runs at the level of the cockroaches and humans. The King and the Queen Cockroaches have a similar issue as the human couple Samia and Adil who woke up and began to have an argument. In both instances in the play, though the topic of argument is different, the female has the upper hand. The discourse in both cases alludes to conflictive roles between the sexes which could be taken as a reflection on the case of the roles of women and men in Egyptian society at that time. To illustrate further, the King blames the Queen for trying to underestimate his power and worth. He also blames her for asking him to find a solution to the problem of the ants which is as old as time. Similarly, Adil blames Samia for putting her interests and herself before her husband. He is angry with the fact that she always asks him to do extra chores at home. Samia, who is a round character in the play, is represented as a domineering wife to her husband Adil. Her personality is stronger than his; yet he refuses to accept the fact, pretending that he tolerates her and puts up with her orders as she is of the ‘weaker sex’. Her attitud e towards Adil changes to that of a caring wife after the Doctor tells her that Adil has psychological problems because of the pressures of home, work and study, which led him to identify himself with the cockroach in the bath tub. However, at the end of the play, she is back to the role of the domineering wife after she finds out that the Doctor’s diagnosis is not accurate and that her husband’s desire to protect the cockroach is only because he admires the cockroach’s endless persistence to save his life; an attitude which is shared by the Doctor. Going back to the other cockroach characters such as the Minister, Savant, and Priest; we learn that these characters play secondary roles to the development of the events in the play. Their role is played because each of them has an odd talent to qualify them for the positions they hold. The Minister’s talent of bringing bad news to the King is what qualified him for his position. It is also the completely in comprehensible things that the priest says that made him suitable for his position. As for the Savant, it is the strange information about things that he presents to the king that made him good for his post.