Ever changing ever shifting waters

The water imagery in seasons of migration seems to become not only a framing symbol in the novel, but a reflection of Mustafa Saeed’s owns character of a man who sees himself as “continuous and integral” and at the same time constantly shifting. It is fitting then that Saeed must die immersing himself in the very thing he can be identified with, unlike the narrator who decides to live discovering that although he was “floating on water” he “was not a part of it”. Just as the Nile seems to be a part of village yet flows past it, Mustafa Saeed too embraces a similar role, existing in his own vicinity, an entity that although must live among the people of the village must retreat like the waves that touch the shore .  He refers to the Nile as “ever changing” and “ever shifting”, the façade of the water reflecting the mask on her mother’s face, and hence it comes as no surprise that perhaps the reason a silent understanding exists in the unspoken words and subtle gestures between mother and son is because Saeed feels like he associates himself with her.

The imagery further depicts his sexual encounters with the women as well, the “sea swallows up the shore and the waves heaved under the ship” reflects the superiority he feels above the women as he ‘conquers’ them, mirroring the sense of entitlement that is embedded within the sea as it swallows the shore, an almost violent crude act that parallels Saeed’s own encounters as he stays awake at night “warring with bow and sword and spear and arrows”.  More over the Nile flooding the village symbolizes the fake promises Saeed makes to the women of fertility and a calm continuity yet is in actuality not capable of much more than the destruction that comes without warning and ironically takes Mustafa Saeed’s life in this case, which is perhaps a failed attempt at redemption for all the blood on his own hands. The water imitates the shifting structure of the novel that constantly oscillates between time and space, shifting to the next narrative just as the reader grasps one. The reader is constantly drawn into Saeed’s fervent obsession with the north and all the possibilities it holds (a clear reversal of the oriental discourse) and hence it is fate that the north flowing Nile will unite Saeed with the desire that becomes the purpose of his existence.