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The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a taut and engaging piece of fiction, exploring the growing chasm between the East and the West. Mohsin Hamid has used a rather unique narrative mode- the dramatic monologue –and used it skillfully to weave an account of a young Pakistani’s class aspirations and inner struggle in corporate America. Throughout the novel, Hamid maintains a tense atmosphere, an atmosphere of imminent danger and radical violence. What results from the two devices is an allegorical reconstruction of post-9/11 tensions, and an inflective young man’s infatuation and disenchantment with America.
Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer and self-confessed “transcontinental mongrel”. Born in 1971 in Lahore, Hamid shifted to the United States at the age of eighteen. He attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked briefly as a management consultant in New York. After living in London for a few tears, he moved back to Pakistan and currently lives in Lahore with his wife and daughter.
Hamid’s fiction deals with varied issues: from infidelity to drug trade in the subcontinent and, in the light of contemporary developments, about Islamic identity in a globalised world. His first novel, Moth Smoke (2000) won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award in 2000. His other novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Decibel Award and the South Bank Award for Literature. This book serves as a testament to his elegant style as he deftly captures the straining relationship between America and Pakistan.
The book is set in an outdoor café in a bustling Lahore market- Old Anarkali- where a young, bearded Pakist...
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... Aside from power, the recurrent leitmotif is the constant comparisons that Changez makes between America and Pakistan. (‘Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, home to as many people as New York...’) Also, he resents the grouping of Islamic identity as one by symbols such as the beard, burqa, etc. Yet, he too homogenizes the American identity to an extent. He frequently describes other Americans as ‘not unlike yourself’ and their actions as ‘just as you are doing now.’
Mohsin Hamid has successfully captured the dominant political discourses of the contemporary world and presented them as mutually exclusive. What makes this book work is the masterful employment of irony and controlled suspense to create a subtle polemic. As one reviewer has put it:-
‘Hamid [has] remained true to a writer’s purpose: To tell a story. And to tell it well.’
Many people are become and are shaped by their country, beliefs, and values. Zia is an international student from Pakistan who is studying to be able to join the civil service in Pakistan. His ultimate goal is to teach political philosophy. Because he is from Pakistan he has certain different beliefs and values, from Americans, that model his behavior and interactions with others, but I won’t be talking about the person he is in Pakistan. No, I will be writing about the person Zia is here at Concordia College-Moorhead and the impact he has had on those around him.
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.
Farber, David R. Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2005. Print.
Social and ethnic tensions: The Kite Runner allows us a look at Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion and then after. The peaceful Afghanistan that Amir was born into is no longer in existence; rival groups now fight amongst each other. “There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood”. Throughout The Kite Runner, there is tension on account of religious, ethnic, and economic factors. Amir, a privileged Sunni, struggles to understand his relationship with his Shi’a servant, Hassan. The boys grew up together, but “in the end, [Amir] was a Pashtun and [Hassan] was a Hazara, [Amir] was a Sunni and [Hassan] was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing”(Hosseini 25). Hassan and his father, Ali, are discriminated against because of their religious beliefs and physical features. He is bullied because some believe “Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns…the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood”(Hosseini 40). The relationship between Amir and Hassan is complicated because of the social pressures. The boys are as close as brot...
For a second, the U.S. stood still. Looking up at the towers, one can only imagine the calm before the storm in the moment when thousands of pounds of steel went hurdling into its once smooth, glassy frame. People ran around screaming and rubble fell as the massive metal structure folded in on itself like an accordion. Wounded and limping from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, America carried on, not without anger and fear against a group of innocent Americans, Muslim Americans. Nietzsche’s error of imaginary cause is present in the treatment of Muslim Americans since 9/11 through prejudice in the media, disregard of Muslim civil liberties, racial profiling, violence, disrespect, and the lack of truthful public information about Islam. In this case, the imaginary cause against Muslims is terrorism. The wound has healed in the heart of the U.S. but the aching throb of terrorism continues to distress citizens every day.
Ansary, Tamim. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009.
Raised in an affluent neighborhood in Afghanistan, the poor and the wealthy worked for survival, and the educated lived alongside the uneducated. In this ordinary, tranquil setting, change suddenly grasps the lives of individuals. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, the protagonist, Amir, must endure the changes that abruptly unravel in his neighborhood. As the novel unfolds, Amir introduces the readers to his profound interest in literature, the escalating tensions among the different political parties as well as the harassment of his brother Hassan. Later in the novel, he draws the reader's attention to the transformation Afghanistan undergoes, from economic oppression to the physical devastation, by constantly contrasting the past
In Islam is a Foreign Country, anthropologist Zareena Grewal demonstrates that “the ‘Muslim World’ [consists of] a place and a people outside American geographic and cultural borders” (6). While the term Muslim World calls to mind images of the Middle East, Grewal shows that Muslim identity is based on ‘moral geographies’ that unite Muslims throughout North America, Africa, and Asia. By focusing on American student travelers to Muslim countries, Grewal shows how identity and authority in Muslim American communities has been challenged and transformed by race, tradition, and ideas of legitimacy. Islam is a Foreign Country successfully communicates personal stories and complex analyses that challenge commonly held narratives about the place of
Because of the drastic differences in the two main settings of the story, war-time Middle East and freedom-loving America, Khaled Housseini accents the struggle the Middle East has in maintaining peace. Even inside of Afghanistan, he shows further contrast using a slight character foil of Amir, a privileged child, and Farid, the hardworking "real Afghan". This shows just how different the life of someone who lives even just a neighborhood away can be. By doing this, the author creates more internal conflict between Amir and his harshest critic, himself.
In N. H. Senzai’s novel Shooting Kabul, a person’s character is shaped by the way they embrace or struggle against their cultural roots. Nation, culture, and society can add an incredible impact on someone’s live. In this novel, Fadi suffers through his sisters sudden absents, bulling, and the struggle of fitting in with society. He comes across many complex obstacles, but in the end overcomes them all.
Amir notes the change he and Baba experienced in American—“For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his” (129).
The Reluctant Fundamentalist provides insight to the story of a Pakstani immigrant who comes to America pre and post 9/11. Changez has a tendency to waver between indentifying himself has Pakistani or American, discuss how Changez’s sense of identity changes throughout the novel?
“Time only moves in one direction. Remember that. Things always change” (Hamid 96). In the book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid portrays a young international student from Pakistan named Changez. Changez comes to the United States to fulfill the American dream, but America is about to let Changez down. He starts with every immigrant’s interpretation of the American dream: get rich and be able to provide for their family. Later, he changes his perspective briefly to America being a possible escape from Pakistan, and lastly shifts his perspective of the American dream to the pursuit of love. The American dream fails for Changez: he loses his job, gets deported back to Pakistan, and the woman he loves meets a tragic end.
War establishes many controversial issues and problems within society and can often expose an individual to many economic and sociopolitical hardships; thus creating an altercation in the way they view life. Amir, from the novel The Kite Runner and the novel’s author Khaled Hosseini, both saw the harsh treatment toward the people of Afghanistan through a series of wars, invasions, and the active power of a Pashtun movement known as the Taliban. Amir, much like Hosseini, lived a luxurious and wealthy life in Kabul. He is well educated and immerses himself in reading and writing. After transitioning from a life in Afghanistan to a life in the United States, both Hosseini and Amir faced obstacles in order to assimilate to American society. In The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist Amir parallels the experiences and hardships that Hosseini endured in his own lifetime.
This symbolizes post 9/11 politics of assimilation, a process in which Muslim Americans acquired social and psychological characteristics of the American culture. Hamid illustrates Changez identity through the lens of post 9/11 politics of assimilation when he characterizes Changez as an intelligent man who earned a degree from one of the most prestigious schools in America. Changez degree from Princeton represents his ability to obtain an elite education similar to every other privileged American. In this part of his life he succeeds in assimilating to America’s culture. His job at Underwood Samson symbolizes the United States and the power it possess. Changez feels like he is apart of America when he lands the job and is given the top position because of his outstanding credentials. When Changez visits Pakistan for Christmas he tells the American stranger how “There are adjustments one must make if one comes from America; a different way of observing is required. I recalled the Americanness of my own gaze, when I returned to Lahore” (p.124). During his trip to Lahore, Changez is described as an assimilated immigrant who begins to look down at his roots because of the success he has achieved in America. However, Changez soon realizes that while he may have succeeded and been apart of America, after the attacks on September 11 he was viewed as nothing