How do the actions of the protagonists in 'Broken April', and 'The Thief and the Dogs' lead to their inevitable deaths? Did either of them have the freedom of choice?

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World Literature Assignment 1        Rishit Temkar

Candidate Number: 1425-051

Dhirubhai Ambani International School

May 2005

Both Ismail Kadare’s ‘Broken April’ and Naguib Mahfouz’s ‘The Thief and the Dogs’ have two different protagonists whose similar quest for revenge leads to their deaths. Both stories revolve around revenge and the choices made by the protagonists to extract this revenge. For Gjorg, the law makes revenge a legal compulsion with the only other option being alienation and death, whereas for Said, revenge is his chosen path. Both, placed in similar situations, react very differently. The question is whether they had the freedom of choice to prevent the inevitable finality.

Gjorg Berisha, the central character in Broken April, is a captive. He is forced to follow an age-old Law, more like a tradition, which he constantly questions. The ‘Kanun’, or governing law, states that if two families begin a feud, they must continue until one of them is completely wiped out, or until they come to a settlement. Gjorg kills Zef, not out of hatred for him, but due to the compulsion that society has imposed upon him. ‘What am I doing?’ ‘Why am I doing this?‘ These questions are evidence of the fact that Gjorg questions his choice from the very beginning, one that has been thrust upon him by society. Once he has taken the ‘revenge’, he knows that he is doomed and has only one month until his ‘Bessa’ runs out and he must die. Gjorg relegates this thought to the back of his mind and clings to ‘his own unfinished April He must pay off the ‘blood tax’ and he journeys to the Kulla of Orosh to do so. In the process of paying the tax, he encounters a choice of paths to be walked, although they might lead to the same destination.

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Said Mahran, the protagonist of The Thief and the Dogs, has made his own choices. He is not forced to take his chosen path, as in the case of Gjorg. He is an ex-thief who was betrayed by his own minions. He has just been released and has two choices - first, to forget his past and start his life afresh, and the other, to avenge himself against people who had betrayed him. In a fit of anger, he decides that he ‘must pull together all the cunning he possesses to culminate in a blow as powerful as his endurance ...

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