4th CHAPTER

MAIN FUNCTION OF THE CHAPTER:

difference between American and Pakistani culture and economy- culture comparisons.

Hamid underlines differences between America and Pakistan. He speaks also about economic fundamentalism.

STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE NOVEL:

• In the first section Changez focuses attention on his scar on the forearm, he explains how has made it. He focuses attention on a Lahore's characteristic.

The intelligent reader understand that the Pakistani protagonist is perfectly aware of the problems in his country for example electricity problems.

He compares the big possibilities of energy in America and the small ones in Pakistan. He compares the lights in New York and the lights in a market in Lahore.

• Then he explores Manhattan with Erica (he feels comfortable in cosmopolitan NY).

Erica is the emotional side of America. She is wealthy, popular and glamorous. However, like America, she is deeply flawed. She is so wrapped up in her own problems that she detaches from the rest of the world.

Erica helps to give a deeper understanding of Changez' personality. The name "Erica" reminds the word “America”, it follows that Erica represents America.

Hamid characterises Erica as a symbol of America to reinforce his views and criticisms of America in its pursuit of undisputed global dominance. Like Erica, America, too, is guilty of a dangerous obsession with past glory.

• Erica’s parents invite Changez to their home in the Hamptons, he feels a bit at home.

He doesn't know what wear and he decides to dress with elements of his culture but he wears jeans, this means that he is the intermediary between two cultures. Changez speaks about fashion because it is an icon of a certain way of being, thinking.

• Erica’s father annoys Changez with stereotypical views on Pakistan.

The intelligent reader understands that the father's question to Changez is a monologue, the protagonist is silenced.

In front of the polite answer of Changez, Erica's father says true things but he annoys Changez. Therefore it is an attitude of the typical American who wants to prevail.

He is annoyed because he understands that Erica's father has an American point of view. He sees at Pakistan with a lot of prejudices.

The father's idea of Pakistan is not right for Changez because he has had an Eastern culture and education.

Changez responds by saying that they are not all fundamentalists, but there are bigger problems that America does not know. Hamid makes clear that people speak with prejudices and stereotypes.

People make ideas about other cultures according to the media, however, sometimes hide the difficulties and problems of other countries. It follows that we know little about other countries and the meeting process between two culture is long and difficult.

Hamid wants to tell us that we judge other cultures making use of stereotypes but not of objective data.

• They have a picnic lunch in Central Park

In this situation Erica describes trauamatic effect of Chris’s death on her.

The rivalry that Changez feels against Chris symbolizes the difficult and ambiguous relationship with America. "Chris" reminds the word “Christianity” therefore refers to Occidental culture.

 

5th CHAPTER

Main function of the chapter:

Changez goes to Phillipines (Manila) for his valuation job of a music company;  he is surprised and upset to find even an outpost of America’s empire is richer than Pakistan.

He says: "it was one thing to accept that New York was more wealthy than Lahore, but quite another to swallow the fact that Manila was as well”. Changez shows bitterness and envy towards countries that are better off than his.

Hamid makes comparisons between first world and third world countries

Changez begins to have nostalgia of his family (underlines that Pakistan is a very poor country).

He says: “I was often ashamed”. He still shows sense of guilt, conflicted feelings.

He feels sense of power because he decides people’s future (He begins to show fundamentalist aspects).

“I attempted to act and speak, as much as my dignity would permit, more like an American….I wanted my share of that respect as well”. The intelligent reader understands that Changes is changing identity to get more respect.

Exchanges sporadic emails with Erica but she is distant.

The nostalgia of Pakistan and of Erica make him reflect.

With the phrase: “when I turned to answer [my colleague] …I felt in that moment much closer to the Filipino driver than to him”, Hamid makes us understand that Changez feels different from Americans, he feels a foreigner.

Jim visits and compliments Changez on work.

Hamid characterizes better the character of Jim: he says that he “did not belong” but he “never stopped swimming” and is the embodiment of the American Dream because he has risen from poverty to great financial success.

Changez doesn't feel the same way – though finds a similarity in that Jim “had grown up outside the candy store, and [Changez] had grown up on its threshold as its door was being shut” (connection to firefly).

World Trade Centre collapses –Changez sees this on tv and ‘smiles’

This is the turning point of the novel.