How does Mohsin Hamid use ominous details and imagery to enhance the atmosphere and create suspense in The Reluctant Fundamentalist? The Reluctant Fundamentalist written by Mohsin Hamid, tells the story of a young Pakistani named Changez, who arrived at Princeton at the vulnerable age of 18. Four years later he graduated “without having received a single B”(4), and began working at the elite valuation firm Underwood Samson. Changez was, in the beginning, infatuated with the idea of the American Dream, but at length he realized that the new life he had adopted in New York constituted a betrayal of his deepest self, and finally returned home. However, although Changez’s story took place in American, the plot was actually set in Lahore, using a brilliantly managed framing device. Seated at a restaurant in Lahore, Changez narrated his story over the course of a single evening to an American stranger, whose identity was gradually−but never fully− disclosed by an unsettling and suspenseful drip-feed of information. From the beginning and throughout the entire novel, Hamid strives to...
Harry S. Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity and Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University, and is also an author. He received his B.A. from Calvin College, M.A. from Kent State University, and Ph.D. from Kent State University. Professor Stout is the author of several books, including The New England Soul, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for history; The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, which received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for biography as well as the Critic's Award for History in 1991; Dictionary of Christianity in America (of which he was co-editor), which received the Book of the Year Award from Christianity Today in 1990; A Religious History of America (coauthor with Nathan Hatch); and Readings in American Religious History (co-edited with Jon Butler). He most recently contributed to and co-edited Religion in the American Civil War and is currently writing a moral history of the American Civil War. He is also co-editing Religion in American Life, a seventeen-volume study of the impact of religion on American history for adolescent readers and public schools (with Jon Butler). He is general editor of both The Works of Jonathan Edwards and the "Religion in America" series for Oxford University Press. He has written articles for the Journal of Social History, Journal of American Studies, Journal of American History, Theological Education, Computers and the Humanities, and Christian Scholar's Review. He is a contributor to the Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching, Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, and the Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West.
Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving is a novel in which religion is of great importance. One of the main themes in this novel is faith in God and oneself, and even more, the conflict between belief and doubt. Irving writes in such a way, that this is very evident throughout the book. John Wheelwright, at the start of the novel, is a young boy who does not seem to know much about how strong his faith really is. Part of the reason for this, is that the choice between believing in and doubting God is that there isn’t any complete evidence that He even exists.
Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, a book edited by Al Truesdale and published by Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, examines two significantly different ways of understanding the nature and role of the Bible that mark different parts of Christ’s church. The first is represented by fundamentalism; the second by Wesleyan theology. The goal of the book is to help persons in Wesleyan denominations clearly understand the differences between Wesleyan theology and fundamentalist theology, and that even though both are of the Christian faith, how the theology between the two are incompatible with one another. “Without becoming divisive or claiming perfection in Christian doctrine, the various denominations hold theological positions that reflect their Christian experience, history and understanding of the Scriptures.” (loc 124 Kindle, Truesdale) Wesleyans believe that the proof of the gospel reside primarily in how a person lives their life and “not in logic and argumentation.” (loc 160 Kindle, Truesdale) They support the policy of that to get a better understanding of their faith, is the result of all fields of human exploration and research, from scientific to historical.
Perspective allows people to see another person’s point of view. In the essay “The Cabdriver’s Daughter” by Waheeda Samady, she addresses her perception versus society’s opinion of her father. In her eyes, her father is a person capable of displaying kindness and expressing his profound knowledge while for some Americans, he is their preconceived notion of what a terrorist might look like. She challenges people to look past his scars and the color of skin, and “look at what the bombs did not destroy” (19). To her, he is the man that has lived through the Soviet-Afghan War, persevered through poverty, and denied these experiences the power of changing him into a cantankerous person. Samady feels prideful of her father’s grit through his past experiences yet feels sorrowful thinking about the life he could have lived if the war had never happened.
punishment of vice, and the exclusion of religious intolerance. But in order for a religion to be
Since September 11, 2001, the Western world’s view of the Middle East, specifically countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, has shifted drastically. Whenever the media portrays the Middle East, they manage to spin a story negatively or violently. Due to these extrinsic influences, the youngest generation of Americans has never known an America that did not express at least some hatred toward certain parts of the Eastern world. Novels like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini strive to encourage a healthy interest in Afghanistan and the Middle East while breaking the stereotypes that westerners have come to accept as fact about the culture and religion of Afghanistan. Hosseini manages to conjure a universal story line with relatable characters that introduce the world to the everyday people of postcolonial Afghanistan. On a grander scale, in The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini utilizes his own life experiences alongside his firsthand account of the contemporary history of Afghanistan to craft a novel that breaks down these negative stereotypes and offers a significant contribution to Afghan American literature.
In the first chapter of Nathan Hatch’s book, The Democratization of American Christianity, he immediately states his central theme: democratization is central to understanding the development of American Christianity. In proving the significance of his thesis, he examines five distinct traditions of Christianity that developed in the nineteenth century: the Christian movement, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons and black churches. Despite these groups having diverse structural organization and theological demeanor, they all shared the commonality of the primacy of the individual conscience.
Marsh, Clifton E. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Resurrection, Transformation, and Change of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in America, 1930-1995. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
In the first scene we observe a Muslim man inside a firearm store, attempting to buy a gun. The owner is a white Caucasian male that presents a negative attitude towards the customer because of his Muslim background. This feeling triggers in the owner, negative attitudes based on the assimilation and stereotypes with the Muslim race. Being immediately associated with the Al Qaeda terrorist group, which was responsible for suicidal bombers that have killed thousand of Americans.
Sometimes religion can be a necessity for comfort. Over time, we may already possess our very own identities and then develop different ones after a tragedy. In order to easily move on from a plight, some sort of comfort or security is needed, whether its time, family, friends, a sport, or religion. In the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, one can clearly see the viewpoint of how Gogol’s life over time has evolved from American to Bengali. With the comfort of his Bengali life he’s able to push through the tragedy of his father’s death. However, apart from when Gogol needs his family and culture for comfort, he is simply a true American.
Hermansen, M. 2000. “Hybrid Identity Formations in Muslim America: The Case of American Sufi Movements.” The Muslim World 90: 158–197.
Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Religion is important in life because it not only gives humanity order, but it also gives people a reason for life. Without religion, perhaps society would be one big pile of corrupt, evil, and selfish human beings. This is something that Meursault struggles with the concept of religion the entire novel because he has a strong belief in the truth, which opens up a wide spread of issues. Some of his beliefs about life include that it is absurd because he thinks it’s just a game, and that it is mankind’s responsibility to look over oneself because death is a traveling burden. Even during his trial he is at a disadvantage because of his inability to connect with the conventions of society. In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault loses his faith in life, God, and society because of his lack of understanding and comprehending his feelings and emotions. If the purpose of religion is to bring people together in unity and also give them a sense of hope, then why is Meursault so uninterested and unaffected by any of the events that took place during the novel such as his mother’s funeral, his relationship with Marie, or even his trial? The real purpose Meursault acts the way he does is because he loses is faith in himself and humanity. This feeling of nothingness inside Meursault is most evident in the first line of the novel, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know,” showing no sign of grief or mourning for the loss of his mother (1). The death of his mother serves as a disruption of the status quo in his life, it is the beginning of his emotional journey of deterioration and separation from...
In his short story, “The Prophet’s Hair,” Salman Rushdie make use of magic realism, symbolization and situational irony to comment on class, religion, and the fragility of human life. The story is brimming with ironic outcomes that add to the lighthearted and slightly fantastic tone. Rushdie’s use of the genre magic realism capitalizes on the absurdity of each situation but makes the events relevant to readers’ lives. In addition, the irony in the story serves as a way to further deepen Rushdie’s commentary on class and religion. Finally, his use of symbolization focuses on the concept of glass, and just how easily it can be broken.
This essay will discuss the central themes of the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Because the story is told at a time before the War on Terror, it brings the reader back to an Afghanistan the average American never knew existed and presents the current socio-economic reality of a United States one may choose to ignore. The description of Afghanistan before its many "occupations" is a tragedy in itself. The Author portrays a country on the cusp of greatness, which of course makes the inevitable future occupations all the more tragic. When Amir returns to Afghanistan after nearly twenty years, his shock is palpable. He has come back to an entirely different country, and only fragments remain from his past.