The document provides a literary analysis of the short story "The Happy Man" by Naguib Mahfouz. It summarizes the key elements of the story, including the characters, settings, plot, conflict, point of view, and theme. The protagonist is a man who is inexplicably happy, which causes him internal conflict as he seeks medical help to understand his emotions. He eventually accepts his happiness after finding a specialist who has treated similar cases. The analysis also interprets the title and discusses insights into what it means to be human gained from the story.

1. Nove Joy L. Deleña
Title: The Happy Man
Author: Naguib Mahfouz
Literary Type and form: Prose Fiction/Short Story
Literary Approach: Psychological Criticism
I - Elements of the story
a. Characters and characterization
The happy man
 He is the protagonist.
 He is on the state of mind of being stressed in work until he realizes
that he is happy.
Happiness
 The happy man’s antagonist.
Bashir
 The man’s servant
 He is low-class, and not closed with his master.
 He gets embarrassed when the man asked him if he considered a
happy man, because it was the first time addressing him as a
companion or friend.
 He is a static character because his personality remains the same
throughout the story.
The Doctors/therapists/psychiatrists
 These are the professional individuals that the man sought for help.
 They are too static characters, for they are nothing more than what
their job was.
b. Settings
The settings change throughout the story since it is in the view of his daily
life.
 Home
 Office
 Many different medical clinics
 Meeting hall of the newspaper building (where he works)
 Set in Egypt

2.  The main setting of this story is in the clinic.
c. Plot (Traditional Structure)
 Introduction/Exposition
The story begins the “Happy Man” is introduced and shows how
unbelievably happy he is. His usual mood is the opposite, “for he usually got up
with a terrible headache from working late hours or with a hangover from too
much drinking in wild parties”. He explains this abrupt happiness as if his organs
were” functioning in perfect harmony with an overwhelming feeling
 Rising Action
The rising action of this story is when the man starts to seeks explanation
of his overbearing happiness. Because of too much confusion towards his
emotion cause him to start loosing sleep and miss work.
 Climax
The climax in the story is when he realizes that he can no longer continue
his life being this happy so he decides that there is something wrong with him,
his emotions and he goes to different clinics to seek help from the psychiatrist.
 Falling Action
The falling action occurs when the man visits many different clinics to find
explanations and answers to his overbearing happiness and tries to figure out his
internal conflict. Until he found a specialist that encounters similar cases and
recommends him to go to session twice a week.
 Resolution
The story ends with him at last he found a specialist that
encounters similar cases and recommends him to go to session twice a week. In
the end he decided to finally accept his happiness.
d. Conflict
Person vs. Self
The man’s conflict takes place within himself. He is fighting with himself
and feels like the life he used to live is faraway from the reality.

3. e. Point of View
In the story “the happy man”, the point of view is third person or
omniscient. The narrator is telling the story.
f. Theme
The theme of the short story portrays what “happiness” and how this
contributes to being human. Normal human feel various emotions; happiness,
anger, excitement, sadness, madness and etc. That having overbearing
happiness is impossible; this story also looks at self-identity, his outlook on life
and pressures as well as values.
II - Interpretation of the Title
The short story entitled “The Happy Man”, the title itself emphasize the
fact that the happiness he feels became everything for him, because he could
only feel happiness and no other emotions. To be human needs to feel various
emotions and face different phases of life and gain experiences to feel that the
life that you live is worth living. The word “happy”, was the definite word that
would describe him.
III - Gained Insights
A philosophy of life that emphasizes personal choice and subjectivity,
which is the idea that our everyday choices, actions and reactions determine who
and what we are. In the happy man the significant theme is what it means to be
human. It could be explained by three aspects. The pressure and reality derived
from this world is waiting us to face, the sentiments we experienced enrich our
life and add flavor to the outlook of life and the most importantly, to create self-
identity.
His short term goal is to get an answer to why he is so happy.
“ I haven’t come to see you because I’m ill but because I’m happy!” “Happiness is
not the key to life”. We need to capable feel of various emotions to feel that we’re
human and in order to have a balanced life. In the story definitely shows us that
without experiencing various emotions; happiness, anger, excitement, sadness,
madness and etc., we can’t have a balanced life.

4. Nove Joy L. Deleña
Title: The Peasant who became King
Author/Reference: Baldonado, R.S. Franco. A.O.,et al. (2013), Readings From
World Literature. Great Books Publishing:
Quezon City
Literary Type and form: Prose Fiction/Folktale
Literary Approach: Mythological Criticism
I - Elements of the story
a. Characters and characterization
Main Characters
 Anubis/Anpu
 Elder brother of Bata
 Bata
 Protagonist
 Younger brother of Anpu
 Have a good heart (divine heart)
Minor Character
 Wife of Anpu
 Who attempt to seduce Bata
 Antagonis
 Pharaoh
 Wife of Bata
 God Ra
 The gracious God who helped Bata.
b. Settings
 In the house
 Field
 Near the river and valley of Acacia
 Egypt
c. Plot (Traditional structure)
 Introduction/Exposition
In this Egyptian myth there were once two brothers the eldest named
Anpu and the younger one named Bata. The younger one Bata lived with his
eldest brother and his wife, were Bata lived with Anpu as he were his own son.

5. Bata was the person who drove the oxen to the field, it was he who also
ploughed the field, and who harvested the grain.
 Rising Action
Anpu’s wife got jealous of Bata and decided to destroy him to his brother.
She made an evil plan, where she made a romantic gesture and asked the
younger brother Bata to lay with her in which Bata denied. Upon Anpu’s return he
found his wife laying on the floor in total darkness and asked what was wrong.
The Anpu’s wife lied by accusing the younger brother Bata of attempting to hurt
her and lay with her.
 Climax
Anubis/Anpu the eldest brother attempts to kill his younger brother Bata,
who flees and prays to Re-Harakhti to save him from his brother. The god
creates a crocodile-infested lake between the two brothers, across which Bata is
finally able to appeal to his brother and share his side of the events.
 Falling Action
The brother discussed the whole story behind the matter and found out
the truth. Anpu went home and found his wife washing the paint off. Anpu killed
his wife.
 Resolution
The resolution in the story is when Anpu realized the mistake he had done to
his brother while his brother found peace living in the valley of the Acacia.
d. Conflict
Man vs. Man
(Bata vs. Anpu’s wife)
e. Point of View
The point of view of the story is third person or omniscient, because the story
talks about the experience of Bata.
f. Theme
The theme of the story is life process where it tells the experience of the two
brothers.

6. II - Interpretation of the Title
The story of "The Peasant who became King" describes how a farmer or a
laborer who had been experienced and passed the wrath of his brother Anpu
restore himself goes adventures and became king. Good traits, faith and efforts
bring him to the peek. The tale also has traits peculiar to ancient Egypt, notably
that the main characters are gods as well as kings. Bata and Anubis are both
divine figures connected with Egypt’s mortuary cults, and their story is replete
with religious symbols of rebirth.
III - Gained Insights
The Egyptian myth “The Peasant Who Became King” informs individuals
that what goes around comes around or more likely known by individual’s in
society today as karma. In the case of brothers Anpu and Bata not only do they
display how they inflict harm themselves, but how their lives as peasants or
farmers change out of spite of cruel and villain women, the Anpu’s wife. The
karma hunts Anpus wife’s dies by her husband’s hands. Her death displays that
karma takes no pity and that the penalty for the foul action came just as bad as
her intention was. The truth deliberately always comes out sooner than
anticipated in an easy form or a rather difficult one as this story. For the wife, due
to her foul actions taken and also the older brother for judging without knowing
both parts of the story.
The villain women not only caused disruption in the lives of the brothers
but also put them in the lowest positions of their lives. These two share similar
qualities to those of past myths where women use their looks primarily to
undermine men. Yet, in the end the both Anpu and Bata had a great ending
despite their journey despite the villainous women they married caused strife and
chaos in their lives. This tale gives insight on how the women (antagonist)
destroyed the main characters, and how Karma does exist and everything from
the past will catch up to each individual at any period.
In the story there are lots of valuable lesson that we can get. We can learn
how to give importance and appreciate the value of relationship of a family and
how evil plans fails against good, specially in the family because there is a saying
that “blood is thicker than water.” The are valuable lesson portrays in the story,
lessons to the Egyptians in those years the lessons that can be pass through
written and orally to the next generation.

7. Nove Joy L. Deleña
Title: The Myth of Osiris and Isis
Author: Anonymous
Literary Type and form: Folktales/ Myth
Literary Approach: Mythological Criticism
I - Elements of the story
a. Characters and characterization
 Ra
 King of the gods.
 Nut
 Sky goddess, mother of Osiris.
 Geb
 Earth God, father of Osiris.
 Osiris
 Egyptian Pharoah who rigned over Egypt in the very early
beginings
 King of the dead
 Isis
 Sister & wife of Osiris
 Thoth
 God of wisdom.
 Silene
 Moon goddess.
 Horus
 Brother of Osiris.
 Seth
 Evil brother of Osiris.
 Cruel and jealous of Osiris
 Harpocrates
 Horus the infant, son of Osiris
 Nephthys
 Sister of Osiris
g. Settings
 Land of Babylos

8.  Phoenicia
 Set in Egypt
h. Plot (Traditional structure)
 Introduction/Exposition
The story begins first son of Geb and Nut, Osiris was tall, slender, and
handsome, with jet black hair. When his father, Geb, gave up the reigning power
over Egypt and retired into the heavens, Osiris took over the kingship and
married his sister, the beautiful Isis. Under his wise authority the Egyptians were
persuaded to renounce cannibalism. He taught them farming and the pleasures
of music, and he framed a just legal code for them. Egypt flourished peacefully
under his rule. Meanwhile, Osiris, Isis husband went off to civilize the rest of the
world and brought the same blessings to Europe
 Rising Action
The rising action of this story is when Osiris had an ugly and evil brother
with red, coarse hair like an ass's pelt. This was Set, a born plotter who envied
the power and attractiveness of his elder brother. Set had another reason for
hating Osiris: His own wife, Nephthys, had conceived a child by Osiris — the
jackal-headed Anubis. By bribery and cunning Set gained many allies during
Osiris' absence, and together they devised a plan for the king's death.
 Climax
The climax of the story is when Isis learned of her husband's death she
traveled along the Nile in the deepest grief, searching for the chest containing
Osiris. She found Anubis, who had been abandoned by Nephthys, and she
nursed and educated him. Isis continued looking for Osiris through repeated
discouragements, until one day she learned the chest had sailed to Phoenicia,
where a tamarisk tree had enveloped it within its trunk.
Falling Action
Aided by Nephthys, Isis revived Osiris through magic and conceived a son
by him. And Set then put her in prison, from which she escaped with the help of
Anubis. Isis fled to the swamps of the Nile delta and, living like a peasant, she
gave birth to Osiris' son, Horus the hawk, born to avenge his father's murder.
Horus suffered intense pains throughout his childhood, and only his mother's
witchcraft managed to save him. Horus grew to manhood as a valiant.

9.  Resolution
The story Together Horus and Isis pursued Set, and when they met the
fighting was even more intense. Set managed to grab Horus' eye and tear it out,
but Horus wrested it back and finally drove Set into the Red Sea forever.
Conflict
Man vs. Man
i. Point of View
In this story the point of view is third person or omniscient. The narrator is
telling the story.
j. Theme
The theme that being portrayed to this short story is “Happiness” and what
it means to be human. That perfect happiness is impossible; this story also looks
at self-identity, his outlook on life and pressures as well as values.
II - Interpretation of the Title
The title, being “The Happy Man”, just goes to further emphasize the fact
that the happiness became everything for him. Because he could no longer feel
other emotions, happy, was the word that would continue to describe him.
III - Gained Insights
One point worth remarking about some Egyptian gods, such as Ra, Shu,
and Geb, is that they suffer the same vicissitudes as earthly monarchs. They
reign for a while in Egypt, their power begins to dwindle, and they retire into the
sky, leaving their kingdom to a son. Moreover, Osiris has a mortal body and dies
like any man. And he must be restored to life through magic and love. One can
link this to the annual death and rebirth of vegetation, but it has more to do with
the idea of the soul's immortality and a regeneration beyond the grave.