Discuss structure in The Reluctant Fundamentalist to explain the function of the novel component parts. Conclude your short essay expressiong your personal opinion on the novelist's choice of narrative strategy, underlining its pros and cons.

Right from the first lines of the novel (part one) the intelligent reader must notice the poet’s choices in the narrative technique to adopt. Indeed the structure coincides with a dramatic monologue: we call it dramatic because it will be clear it has features in common with the theatre, but on the other hand the reader does not expect it to be a monologue: in the first line the quotation “Excuse me, sir, may I be of assistance?” seems to anticipate a typical dialogue between two speakers, but there is something uncommon he/she soon come across : the lack of inverted commas.

Now the reader has to find out the reason of the writer’s choice, making conjectures about its possible meaning. Going on reading it will come to surface that the novelist often uses that kind of punctuation (inverted commas), but only in dialogues between other characters which belong to a second degree narration: the structure of the book coincides with a story inside another story.

The speaking voice tells about Changez, the protagonist, and his experience in the USA: from his graduation in Princeton to his enrolment at Underwood Samson as an analyst, passing through his love story with Erica and a friendship with one if his colleagues Wainwright.

The matter is that the narrator is not alone, because he is speaking to an American stranger, who has the mere function of a listener. The reader can adfirm the stranger is quite victim, as he is forced to listen word by word to Changez’s monologue, without interrupting the speech to express maybe his different point of view.

The role of the American might be the one of the personification of a common European (or anyone with Western mentality) who often judges the speaker from his impressions. And since from the first lines the narrator says: “Ah, I see I have alarmed you” as he is probably aware of the cultural and ethnic prejudice given by his appearance (his facial features and especially his beard).

When the first person narrator talks to his interlocutor with regular answered-questions to keep attention high and to recall his presence too, the reader might feel involved as if the speaking voice were addressing himself. This unveils a kind of dichotomy reader-interlocutor, they share the same point of view, the same ideals and the same reactions to Changez’s words.

In conclusion we can say the first component parts of the novel have an introductory function: they make the structure clear, without forgetting the setting (the Old Anarkali in Lahore),so that the reader can make a mental picture of the situation.

I personally think the novelist’s choice of narrative technique is undoubtedly brilliant: the use of a monologue where a Pakistani speaks to an American without giving him space to respond changes the social and cultural role of their two ethnies: American generally fell superior to an Eastern man; in this case it’s the Pakistani who leads the story, he’s the only main character despite of his Western interlocutor, who can be considered, as we previously said, the victim of the situation, he is “brought to his knees” as Changez sais in the novel.