Alaa Al Aswani's novel The Yacoubian Building weaves the lives together of residents of the titular building where wealthy residents live below the ramshackle units for the destitute on the roof. Summing the novel up in one sentence, I would say its characters' lives show that the deterioration of quality of life in Egypt stems from corrupt dictatorships and the absence of democracy. Living in an oppressive society where corruption and violence characterize the ruling regime and governmental authorities seems to create corruption and brutality among Egyptian citizens in the novel. From the brutalization of Taha by Egyptian authorities, to the corruption of Haj, who seeks political position, we see that The Yacoubian Building is a story that illustrates the harsh impact of dictatorship and corruption on citizens of all classes. This analysis will discuss this theme, along with a discussion of corruption in the novel and how it impacts the lives of the characters.
There are a number of characters in The Yacoubian Building whose lives illustrate the harsh impact of a corrupt dictatorship on citizens and society in general. We see that the residents are of all classes. The wealthy Zaki is a committed bachelor living off his family's money and chasing women young enough to be his granddaughters. Zaki deals with the pain of the impact of corruption by staying drunk and chasing women to block out the past. As we are told early in the novel, his father's influence and wealth was destroyed by the Revolution, when his possessions were "confiscated and distributed among the peasants under the land reform" (Aswani 4-5). Zaki is an expert on women. Women are objectified in Egyptian society. Zaki thinks that how a woman pronounces the letter "s" is "a clue as to how ardent she will be when making love" (Aswani 6).
Zaki shows the communal nature of Egyptian society as he takes an hour to make a short trip to...