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The final way that Mahfouz creates a critical tone towards government in The Norwegian Rat is through the use of irony. The use of irony makes Mr. A.M. look foolish which creates a critical tone towards government. Mr. A.M. is a metaphor for government because he is suppressing the freedoms of the people, and is requiring them to pay money for means to keep the rats out . The example of this is when Mr. A.M. says, “They're not ordinary rats; they're even attacking cats and people... Rely too upon yourselves, starting at least with the obvious things... Having as many cats as possible in the stairwell and on the roofs. Also inside the flats if circumstances permit... (another person then says) But it's said that the Norwegian rat attacks cats” (Mahfouz 1). The irony in this passage is that Mr. A.M. tells the residents of the apartment building to keep cats in the stairwells and individual apartments while earlier in his dialogue he creates fear in the people by saying that the rats are attacking people and cats. This irony shows a critical tone by showing us that Mr. A.M. is a liar and is taking advantage of the others in the apartment building by making the situation seem worse than it is without any real evidence of actual rats being found anywhere
As you can see, Mahfouz creates a critical tone in The Norwegian Rat by using characterization, diction, and irony. All of these things show us that Mr. A.M. and the G overnor are greedy and are taking advantage of or creating a situation to control the actions of other people using the fear of the Norwegian Rat infestation. Mr. A.M. is shown to be greedy when he collects money from the other apartment tenants for what seem like ridiculous measures to keep the rats out. It is clear that Mr. A.M. is a metaphor for government because he collects money from the tenants that is supposedly being used for measures to protect them, strips the people of the building of their freedoms, and is told to be the most well off of the tenants. All of this is used by Mahfouz to create a critical tone toward government in The Norwegian Rat.