What is the author's style in Half a Day by Naguib Mahfouz?

Half a Day is an allegory. The narrative voice of a story refers to who tells the story. In "Half a Day," the narrative voice is that of the main character, who, at the beginning, is a young boy; by the end, the narrator is an old man. In the beginning, the story is told in the "first person singular," meaning that the narrator speaks from the perspective of an individual "I." However, this voice alters once he has entered the schoolyard, at which point it slides into a first person plural voice from a group perspective of "We." The narrator thus describes school as a group experience, whereby he speaks from the perspective of the common experience of all of the children.

This change in perspective is significant to the allegorical implications of the story. The story describes the experience of the human condition; therefore, the narrator's experiences in school are meant to be understood in terms of the ways in which "we," all humans, experience life, time and memory.