THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST – CHAPTER 1

The first chapter of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” introduces the protagonist, Changez, who utters his experience at Princeton University and Underwood Samson in a Pakistani bar to an unnamed outsider approached because of his American appearances.

The presence of a Western interlocutor who’s not given any chance to speak creates a direct bond between the reader and the listener: both of them are forced inside the main character’s point of view and that is why they can only decide whether or not to rely on it while making up their opinion about the speaker.

This is indeed the main function of dramatic monologue in regards to such novel, but not the only one: thank for it, the protagonist can also express his feelings and ideas, which are not under a Western influence, but instead under an Eastern one.

It is therefore possible to underline the first chapter brings to surface a figure of speech drawn out for the whole length of novel, which is allegory: “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” stands for a dialogue between Eastern and Western culture. Both are deeply different from one another, and for this reason Changez takes some distances from his listener, albeit with politeness.