subject: "a Ghost In Our Home" [print this page] All of us have gone through the experience of hearing ghost stories from our parents, elder family relatives or even read about them in books. The more one grows, the more one builds an understanding of different perceptions about the meaning of ghosts. By time, ghosts have come to stand for various meanings in peoples minds; fear of the unknown, a distant enemy, and at other times, a threat to their existence.
Leneen El Ramly, a dazzling Egyptian script writer, characterized the idea of the ghost from several perspectives in a simple play, and introduced many faces of the ghost that could be haunting our minds. In addition, the way in which actors performance was merged with that brilliance of the director Essam El Sayed, helped to crystallize the plot to the audience. The storyline of the play revolves around a family, a group of relatives who rejoiced after a long time at their late grandfathers mansion, each coming to take his/her fair and legal share of the inheritance . The will left behind by the grandfather stipulated that the returning relatives have the right to spend their inheritance money as they deem fit, on condition that they all jointly agree to accept to live together in the mansion, and to love one another. As such, the main purpose of the will was to ensure that all family members lived together, cooperated, loved one another and became united, especially after the grandfather himself lived an isolated life away from his family and land. The will also requested that the relatives return the body of their deceased grandfather to be buried in Egypt. As the play evolved and events unfolded, the relatives realized that their grandfather was indebted and that his debts need to be repaid to their rightful owners. The familys lawyer shared the debt expense report with the relatives, which revealed that almost the entire value of the cash inheritance left behind according to the will needed to go towards fulfilling the grandfathers debt repayment obligations, thereby leaving the family nothing else, save for the Mansion. The dilemma is thus created at this point of the plot, as soon as the family began to argue on whether or not to keep the house or sell or rent it. They started to forget their grandfathers will and each one of them focused on his/her own self interest, except for one member, Mansour. While the family was busy arguing about the house and about what they will do with it, the play took a turning point when a ghost suddenly appeared to Fakhr, one of the relatives, for the first time. He heard a voice talking to him and revealing other secrets to him only.
In order to understand more of El Ramlys message of the play, I need to illustrate L. El Ramlys choice of the characters names and what each name stood for. The smart choice of names allowed the audience to understand the different phases that Egypt is passing through before and after the revolution, as well as the different forms of the ghost we all could fear. Starting with Mansour, the main character, El Ramly chose him as resembling the mind, critical thinking, the reason and the main aim behind why we all need to unite. Mansour, a name which literally means victorious, refused to let go of the house and tried all his best to convince his relatives to keep it. He also refused to believe that there was such a thing as ghosts that could demolish any great idea or development that they could do or achieve. He was convinced that ghost stories existed only when they were young and that there was no such thing as ghosts in the real world. Then we have, Ehsan, the illiterate stereo type of Egyptian women, understood nothing other than undertaking household chores. Ehsan- a name - refering to kindness, symbolized the kind woman who wanted to take care of the whole family, love them and play the role of their mother. She also sank in the thought that she had a poor mind, and thus needed to depend and rely on her husband to do the thinking on her behalf. She strongly believed in the ghosts existence that supposedly appeared to them. Third, EL Ramly introduced Darwish , the man who hid behind religion in order to do what he likes. He used his wifes illiterate position to make her think that he knows best and that she has to depend on him in everything. In addition, he made her think that sticking to what is wrong and what is right according to his own perspective and without thinking- is her only way to salvation and heaven. He intentionally kept her preoccupied with the little and futile religious details on which she cannot act alone; like whether to shake hands with men wearing gloves or not, or whether or not talking should be in loud or a low voice, and many other little things that religion spoke of. Within this context, it became clear that EL Ramly not only succeeded in portraying Ehsans character as a hesitant woman who focused on small religious details that are only there to help people comprehend their set of religious values- at the expense of the core of religious practice; he was also equally able to send a strong message that some people chose to misuse religion in ways that fulfill their own vested interests. . Darwish himself believed in the existence of the ghost, manipulated with that idea of the ghost according to his religious belief; he started explaining to his relative that the good ghost appeared to help them because they were near to god and the bad one appeared because there was a member in their family who is being so open and free, and by this God has sent them that bad ghost as a sign of Gods anger on them. Next, Amal hope the young youth who has lots of dreams wish to hold. Although, she was well educated, she represented the lost youth we have in Egypt. Many of the new- graduated wish to build up a good career for themselves and be able to make money, but at the same time, they lack the capability and strength to really do it. She gave us an image about the young who are always undecided , who dont know which path to take, how to build up a good line of business , how to become something effective in their country and how to work their way out in life without really depending on stuff making them not enforcing enough. She was always going with the flow whether it matched her way of thinking or not and searching for the easy way to get what she dreamt for. She couldnt really come up the mind whether there was really a ghost or it was only imagination of one of the characters. Ezz wealth another character we were exposed to, which signified some of the big financiers in Egypt, who cared about expanding their assets no matter what were the costs and the way. He didnt care if the house will stand with all its tradition, memories or fulfilling his grandfathers will, instead, he cared only how to get rid of his personal debt to the bank and how to exploit the house and the land to his own benefit. He changed his opinion whether there is a ghost or not according from where he will benefit. followed by, we are given, Hazem tough/firm who is an Egyptian journalist, who was also taking care of his younger brother who has a psychological problem and needed his elder brothers assistance in everything. Hazem, bestowed on us most Egyptian journalists , who you can never get from them a specific opinion, always being objective as much as they can and sometimes unclear , afraid to express their own views due to what they observed from the overpower held on them by the old regime. Egypt suffered real freedom of press and media; journalists and broadcasters are allowed with certain limit of freedom, in addition cant reveal the actual reality whether it is with or against anyone, always leaving ambiguity of thinking among the people and sometimes reaching a point of continuous change of ones position. In the play, Hazem couldnt give his relative any clear message, afraid to point to them what they could really do and how they could solve the problem they were facing. In addition, he was unable to give them an opinion whether there really is a ghost or not. Another important character, Fakhr honor a young man suffering from a psychological problem he faced when he was young. A weak, somehow with low intelligence character, afraid to do anything on his own, obsessed with the idea of ghosts and thrilling ideas, easy to take advantage of due to his old complex. El Ramly used him as a symbolism of fearing of the unknown, not having the ability to do anything and a tool to confuse the audience; whether the ghost really existed or have the came to believe of its existence because of their sub-conscious, made them to visualize the ghost with him. Last, our last character that is given a simple name, in order to represent for us the poor layer of the society, who cared about nothing rather than little amount of money he could get and a place that could live in. He didnt care if there was a ghost or not, but the main thing he will be able to live in a proper sense and get rid of poverty.
Through the chain of events, a ghost appeared to Fakhr to tell him about the secret treasure buried in the house. As soon as Fakhr told them about what the ghost said to him, they all started fighting whether or not there was a ghost, should they believe Fakhr and start looking for the treasure or not. Mansour then started to explain to his relatives that there was no such thing as ghosts and they couldnt depend on their relative Fakhr to take from him any real info due to his experience and mental sickness. In spite of all the reasons Mansour gave to them, they chose to be believe that there was a real ghost and the treasure was real. Furthermore, they started attacking Mansour for not being one hand with them and helped them to look for the treasure. They accused him to be blind and not collaborative with his fellow relatives. He began again to tell them that the mind sees what it wishes to see and that their unconscious wanted them to see that ghost for they cared about the easy way to get money and live wealthy without really having to work hard for it. In addition, with all his almighty, Mansour gave all his best to remind his relative with the real teasure , which was being all together again , the memories of their grandfathers house ,reminding them with the value of the house is about 200 years and its history. He wanted them to appreciate that history and to stick together and not to give in with the idea of the good and bad ghost. By the mid of the play, Mansour himself got confused whether or not there was a ghost and why he only couldnt see him. Despite he started experiencing some events that could signifies the presence of the ghost, he kept insisting in denying it. Mansour trusted that each one of us has his own vision of ghost and that if he allowed himself to believe in and fear that ghost, his life will turn into a disaster. He tried hard to show them and prove to himself that there was no such thing as ghost that he decided to act as if he is the ghost and then revealed himself to the family to tell them that ghosts are only in their imagination. Getting all involved in the ghost issue, even believing there was a good and bad one, they forget their grandfathers aim of keeping the house, which to love each other, care about each one and unite. In addition, Mansour played the inner voice of some of the characters to make them confront themselves and why they really wanted to believe in the ghost issue. The play then reaches its climax when the relatives decided to get rid of the house by renting it and at the same time getting rid of the ghost issue, then spilt the rents money among them and forget about living in it. Suddenly, the house sets on fire, all of them ran to put it out, at that point they stopped seeing the ghost revolving around them at that time, but failed to put it out and the play ends.
As a conclusion from seeing this brilliant play, the two main purposes of the play is revealing to the audience the idea of the ghost that has been haunting us for centuries, each in its different phase and the importance of unity. Besides, leaving the audience to think, is there really such things as ghosts? Or are they images of other kind of fears that we face, pulling us back from really doing something real and developing? And how much can that thought affect our lives. The writer left us with an open ending to see the play from our own point of view and analyze it according to our experience and our own concept of the ghost. To see what really we need to appreciate ; is it family unity in other words the unity of the Arabs , or facing our external and internal fears that has been holding us back or material issues that help us implement what we dream of and wish for. Or is actually, a combination of all that and we have to find our way to link all stripes together to form one big strong firm that holds everything we need to overcome real threats we might face in the future.
