In the present text I am going to discuss about the main features of the first chapter of Mohsin Amid’s novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, concentrating particularly on the language used by the novelist.

In the first chapter the writer introduces the protagonists, Changez, a Pakistani man, who left his birthplace to go to the USA, to study at Princeton University and then to work in a consultancy firm, the Underwood Samson, in New York and his interlocutor, an anonymous American man, who is helped by Changez to orient himself in the old district of Annarkali in Lahore. For this reason Changez invites him to have a cup of tea together and in the tea bar he listens Changez’s telling about his life.

Reading the first chapter, the reader discovers a lot about the style of the whole novel, because the chapter is significant especially for the language used. The first sentence is used to set the atmosphere and since the register is highly formal, it creates distance between the speaker and the interlocutor. At the beginning the interlocutor is quite frightened by Changez because of his physical appearance especially by his long beard, but the Pakistani man reassures him saying that he is a lover of America. Indeed he has understood that the interlocutor is an American man because of his bearing and not because of his wearing or his physical appearance. This is important because it shows clearly that the protagonist is not influenced by prejudices and stereotypes , that will characterise his life, after an event that happens, when he is New York, the Twin Towers attack in September 2001. After it, American people will have prejudices about Pakistani people and Changez will suffer for it. With the sentence “I am a lover of America”, Changez does not say anything interesting , but it makes the reader understand something about his life. Indeed the reader imagines that he lived or studied for some years in the USA, but after a while he decided or was forced to come back to Pakistan. This sentence increases the reader’s curiosity and he/she goes on reading to discover more about the protagonist. He/she reads the characters go to a tea bar in Lahore, they sit there to have a good cup of tea and Changez begins to tell to the American man his story. In the first chapter he tells about his first years in the USA, when he attended Finance course at Princeton University. He describes how his life was, how his classmates were and his impressions and feelings about America. The chapter ends when Changez started working for a business firm in New York. In the last sentence, there is a link with the present time of the story. Indeed the narration of Changez’s story is interrupted by a comment of the Pakistani man and by something that happens in the tea bar, where the protagonists are having their cup of tea. This device is used by the writer to hold the reader’s attention and to invite him/her to continue reading the novel in order to discover what will happen in the following chapters.

In conclusion the reader understands that the language used is formal to highlight the fact of the interlocutor is an unknown western person, in which each reader can identify. Moreover the use of some sentences, which have an implicit message, and the use of the dramatic monologue technique have the purpose to capture the reader’s attention, increase his/her curiosity and make him/her continue reading the novel.