Reread the end of the story "The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish" (the last page and a half). Why do you think the author ends the story this way?

In “The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish,” a young boy is sent by his mother to buy some beans. However, he is unable to complete the task because he gets distracted by outside forces, forgets his task, or loses the money he needs to buy the beans. At the end of the story, the boy witnesses a woman being violently hurt and runs off in terror. He ends up in an unfamiliar place, unsure of how to get back home and certain that “countless difficulties lay in wait for [him] before [he finds his] way home”.There are many possible reasons the author, Naguib Mahfouz, decided to conclude the story this way.One, the author may have wanted to emphasize the boy’s character development. Throughout the entire story, he is forgetful and easily influenced by outside forces (he becomes violent and throws the dish at the bean seller after seeing the play about a knight who defeats a ghoul). He goes from one place to the next without much thinking or foreseeing problems. This naive way of operating, in the real world, often ends badly, like in the case of this boy.Secondly, the theme of violence and escaping is portrayed in ironic ways throughout the story. First, his mother threatens to harm him if he does not get the beans as she asked; then, he sees the violent play, the bean seller pushes him, and, lastly, he sees an actual woman being hurt. He’s also seen escaping his home before his mother can find out he didn’t get the beans, escaping the bean seller’s threats, and finally escaping the scene of a crime. The irony is that he would not have had to be part of any of this violence had he just fetched the beans correctly, which should have been an easy task. The last time he left his home, he could have chosen to stay there rather than get caught up in trouble. So, by ending the story in the middle of the boy’s journey, before he gets home, the author illustrates the unimportance of whatever should happen next. Because after all, none of these problems should have taken place in the first place.Thirdly, Mahfouz may have decided to end the story this way in order to encourage the reader to imagine the continuation of the story. The violence and absurdity of the situation escalates throughout the narrative, which leaves the reader with many ways to imagine the final outcome of this boy's simple task of buying beans for his mother.