THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

Chapters analysis

The text I’m going to analyze is the novel by Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It is a narrative text about a young Pakistani ‘s personal story, Changez, who followed “the American dream.

The novel is arranged into 12 chapters each with a different function.

First chapter opens in medias res: it introduces the protagonist’s monologue and sets the main points if the novel. The relevant information that comes across reading the text is that Changez comes from Lahore, Pakistan and that he is speaking to an American man. The reader can easily understand protagonist’s smartness because of his ability on reading between lines and grasping details.
It is interesting to reflect upon the discourse, that is, the narrative design of the story in The reluctant fundamentalist: the reader has access to information from a unique point of view, that is the protagonist’s one. By using the monologue technique, the narrator seems to speak directly to us. At the same time the novelist presents to us a restricted point of view, the Pakistani’s one, while the American interlocutor is silenced.

Second chapter Changez tells his interlocutor about Erica and the beginning of their relationship.

The following chapter better presents the setting: a café in Lahore, Pakistan.
Changez perfectly adapts to New York City. Despite and at the same time because of his foreign outer appearance, he is part of this multicultural city.

Forth chapter describes Changez’s dinner at Erica’s flat and the developing of their relationship. During the dinner Erica’s father automatically identifies Changez as Muslim and therefore as a non-drinker. The reader may guess the novelcan be read as questioning identity deduction from outer identification of a person.

In fifth chapter is the reader comes to know about Changez’s first business trip in the Philippines. It is important to notice how he feels more closer to his Filipino driver than to his colleagues: Changez’s difficulty to live his true identity comes to surface. It becomes clear that the protagonist cannot reconcile his Pakistani-self and his social role as employee at Underwood Samson.
During his permanence in Philippines the twin tower of the World Trade Center collapsed and Changez perceives the notice smiling: Changez “was caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees”. The Pakinstani identity becomes to result more relevant.

In Sixth chapter Erica tells Changez about her dead boyfriend, Chris. Their attempt at love making fails and Chagez offers himself to impersonate Chris: he is hiding his personal identity and he has to take on the persona of Chris.

Chapters seven and eight : after 9/11 America is insecure: people is fearful and suspicious about “Arabs” . Afghanistan being bombed: Changez becomes more conscious of his personal identity and find an end to his identity crisis.
Erica falls into depression.

Chapter 9: Changez comes back to his family house and homeland and he felt like he was abandoning them when he returns to America. He did not shave his beard off for return: it becomes clear that the beard is of special importance to the narrative the reader understands its symbolism: it is a symbol of protest, a symbol of his identity, or perhaps to remind himself of the reality he had just left behind.

Chapter 10: the narrator meets Juan Bautista the chief of the publishing company they are valuing. Changez can’t focus and in the end he gives up and is sent back, in disgrace, to New York.

In the last two chapters Changez has a more critical vision of US activities and attitudes-traditional. Changez leaves America nad returns to Pakistan and works as a university lecturer. He seems to be increasingly opposed to American actions and he is surrounded by energetic young students who are interested in Pakistan’s future.
The frame tale then becomes at the end the center of attention, as it is left open if it is the interlocutor who will trap the narrator or vice versa.

The conception of the story thus conveys a feeling of ambiguity and confusion, because it does not explicitly tell the reader who the good or the bad guy is and whom to believe: the narrator or the American interlocutor? One could argue that this is the central question and point of the novel; that it tells the reader not to jump to conclusions from already acquired stereotypical knowledge.