Genetic Fingerprint and Literary Genes in Naguib Mahfouz's Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street)

Abstract

This study examines Naguib Mahfouz's use of the concept of the genetic fingerprint as a narrative device in his Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street). Working at the intersection of literary criticism and the science of genetics, the study first establishes the linguistic and scientific definitions of the fingerprint and of heredity, then traces how Mahfouz distributes physical and psychological traits across three generations of the Abd al-Jawad family. The analysis shows that inheritance in the Trilogy operates on two levels: a biological level, evident in the recurrence of facial features, coloring, and build across fathers, sons, and grandsons; and a broader social, religious, and ideological level, evident in the transmission of temperament, piety, permissiveness, and inherited customs. The study argues that Mahfouz anticipated, in literary form, principles later confirmed by genetics — while also leaving room in his characters for environment, upbringing, and circumstance to reshape what heredity alone would predict. The Trilogy thus emerges as a narrative laboratory for the dialectic between genetic determinism and human freedom.