In the present text I want to analyse the main features of the first chapter of Mohsin Hamid's novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist in order to understand his role in the economy of the whole story. The introductory chapter has a specific function in the story's development. Indeed it presents the protagonist Changez and his life in New York. First of all the reader is settled into the narration thanks to the single person long and dramatic monologue of the protagonist. In this way the reader can identify an interlocutor even if he can not see or hear him. However the reader recognizes his presence thanks to some clues given by the speaker. So Changez seems to speak directly to the reader himself.

Moreover the introductory chapter sets the atmosphere. The reader knows the protagonist is sitting in a tea bar in Lahore in Pakistan with an unknown guest.

Furthermore the reader can understand Changez's idea of the American dream through his words. America rapresents the perfect life even if he is a young Pakistani man. New York is the city of modernisation, of progress and globalisation: it is the ideal city unlike Lahore, which is the real world where the actions take place. After his graduation at Princeton University, he had the chance to study at Underwood Samson & Company in order to get a job.

To conclude the first chapter is very significative because it introduces the whole story and it presents the most important aspects of Changez's personality: he is stubborn and he trusts in the American people and in their ideals.