HALF A DAY
Summary The short story Half a Day by Naguib Mahfouz tells the experience of a young boy on his first day in school. The boy is afraid of going to school, as he has to spend the day away from home. At the end of the day in school, the boy goes through change and matures from a child to an adult. The author of the story shows how change occurs in the course of a human being’s life. The author had gone through changes and many sufferings in the course of his life such as an attempted assassination that left him with an injured hand. His works depict that human sufferings are inevitable. Although the narrator is excited about the new clothes he has to wear to school, he resists going to school because he thinks that school is punishment. He asks his father, “Why school” (Mahfouz 1). His father tells him that school is not a pu...