In the present text I’m going to analyze an extract from chapter 3 of The reluctant Fundamentalist, a novel by Mohsin Hamid. The passage regards the scene where Changez, the speaking voice, is telling the interlocutor about Lahore’s new districts and the status of people living there.

The novelist decided to adopt a dramatic monologue to silence the interlocutor in order to narrate the story from an Eastern point of view. The purpose of the choice is to analyze events like the 09/11 attack and the consequent problems from the perspective of a country considered guilty.

Indeed, Changez is a Pakistani man in America who will face American prejudices caused by his nationality.
In the sequence I’m analyzing he is trying to focus the attention of the stranger, the interlocutor, on the differences/similarities between Manhattan and the new districts of Lahore. Actually the comparison is done to bring to surface a social and economic divide between Pakistani and American people, or rather Manhattan’s wealthy people. The divide has been anticipated by the representation of Lahore: “an ancient hierarchy” where “the mounted man” is superior than “the man on foot”. Therefore, the opposition is about poor and rich people.

At first sight comparing Manhattan to Pakistan Changez wants to convince the stranger that moving to New York felt for him like coming home. Actually, when he found himself to live in a new city he started to look for a tie that could help him to overcome the sense of nostalgia. He found that in the fact that Urdu, his mother tongue, was spoken by taxicab drivers, or in the typical Pakistani food served at the Pak-Punjub Deli, or in hearing during a parade a song of his cousin’s wedding.
His means of surviving homesickness are used to emphasize a cultural difference which he overcame intellectually. Indeed, he is initially accepted by American people because he is very intelligent and moreover because, thanks to his appearance, he seems to be rich. After the Twin Towers attack things changed because of fear. American citizens were frightened and as a consequence they started to exclude him because of his nationality. So, the reader understands that thanks to irony Changez wanted to express the idea that America integrates you when you satisfy precise requisites and if you don’t you can easily be refused.
This happens all the time since ever: if you’re rich, good at school and sometimes also good-looking you are accepted otherwise you are not.