Motivations

     How are priorities decided?  What drives people to make certain choices?   In Introduction to Psychology, we recently discussed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  These are a ranking of priorities, off of which many of life’s decisions are based.  First comes the need to meet the physical requirements for survival, or the need for food, water, and shelter.  Once these basic needs are met, the need for safety and organization takes priority.  After this, people tend to seek love and belongingness.  After love comes the need for esteem, including self-esteem, achievement, independence, and respect and recognition from others.  The next level is self-actualization, or the need to live up to one’s fullest potential.  The highest level is self-transcendence, or the need to find meaning or purpose in life.  Throughout The Thief and the Dogs, Said Mahran seeks to meet needs on all of these levels in an action-packed adventure by Naguib Mahfouz.
      The story opens when Said Mahran is released from jail after serving a two-year sentence for robbery.  During this time, a revolution has occurred in Egypt, and while his former associates have adjusted to a new social order, Said has not.  His first thoughts are of his ex-wife, Nabawiyya, and his former partner in crime, Ilish.  Also paramount in Said’s thoughts is his desire to see Sana, his young daughter.  Through the past two years, thoughts of Sana have been like a light in the darkness.  He quickly arranges a meeting, only to have his high hopes dashed to pieces.  Sana, whose precious memory had comforted him through two long and lonely years in an Egyptian jail, rejects him completely.  Said discovers that his ex-wife and former partner love each other and had informed the police of his activities two years previously, leading to his arrest.  Finding no place in the home or hearts of his former family, Said resentfully moves on.
       Hatred and revenge cloud Said’s vision.  Hatred and revenge against his cheating wife, Nabawiyya, his double-crossing partner, Ilish, and against Rauf Ilwan, a former teacher who also rejects Said due to a drastic change in social circumstances since the revolution.  After committing further crimes and failing in his revenge, Said takes refuge in the home of the Sheik, his father’s spiritual leader.  Said had not seen the Sheik for ten years, and was not as religious as his father had been.  But the Sheik welcomes him and provides him with food and shelter.  Said also seeks safety in the house of the Sheik, and though the Sheik assures him of this safety, Said is unsatisfied.  The Sheik has achieved the final goal, self-transcendence, and his tendency to focus on higher spiritual goals leaves Said feeling distanced.  While the Sheik’s spiritual values had been familiar to Said since childhood, they no longer coincide with his own personal goals.  As Said said to himself, “I am alone with my freedom, or rather I’m in the company of the Sheik, who is lost in heaven, repeating words that cannot be understood by someone approaching hell” (33).
       Again moving on, Said finds food, shelter, safety, and also love in the home of a former girlfriend, Nur.  Nur provides for his needs and brings him news.  She also helps him to acquire a soldier’s uniform, adding to his feelings of security.  He again strives to accomplish his revenge, meeting with further failures.  Failure to accomplish his purpose creates a state of frustration-induced stress, a condition which Said intends to rectify at the earliest possible moment. 
     Said inflates certain news to imply that “everyone – all the people except the real robbers – are on my side…” (122).  By the ‘real robbers’, Said refers to the police, his ex-wife, Ilish, and Rauf.  However, even negative newspaper reports condemning Said’s crime fulfill his desire for recognition. 
       In his crusade for revenge, Said has committed two murders.  His bullets did not find their intended marks, however; two innocent people happened to get in the way.  Said does find this regrettable, but “the worst of it is that despite this support from millions of people I find myself driven into dismal isolation…” (123). Despite perceived support for his cause, Said lacks close personal relationships.  His desire for revenge has driven him to forsake even his need for love and self-preservation. 
      Even in committing crimes, Said considered himself to be innocent and his cause to be just.  As Said said to the Sheik after his unsuccessful attempt at revenge, “It’s the guilty who succeed and the innocent who fail” (145).  And also, “I’m confident that I’m in the right” (147). 
     Said looked to revenge to fulfill his need for self-transcendence.  He said of himself, “Does your ruined life have any meaning at all unless it is to kill your enemies?” (112). While he perceives his goals as righteous, he finds himself doubting his eternal future and yet feels incapable of changing it.  He asked the Sheik, in reference to his own life, “Can you straighten the shadow of something crooked?” (146).  And yet Said fully believed that murder was his ultimate destiny. 
     “I won’t die before I kill you,” Said declares towards his enemies (114).  “If there is to be any meaning in life – or in death – I simply have to kill you.  My last outburst of rage at the evil of the world” (114).  This was to be the fulfillment of his highest potential.  Contemplation of completing his revenge gave Said’s life meaning and purpose, fulfilling Maslow’s highest need. 
    And did Said fulfill his purpose?  I won’t spoil the ending of the book for you.