Reluctant Fundamentalist PDF

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This essay was for Joanne Spiegel's First Year Writing course....

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Professor Spiegel 3 October 2018 The Melting Pot The American Dream is one that many immigrants have pursued. While America, ideally, is a land of opportunity for all regardless of ethnicity, America may also repress other cultures. The big melting pot, while at once conveying the idea of universal acceptance to all cultures, is also suggesting one homogeneous soup. This uniformity can encourage conformity to American ideals, repressing the culture that immigrants have brought with them. In his allegory The Reluctant Fundamentalist  (2007), Mohsin Hamid illustrates this difficulty of fitting into America through a conversation between Changez and an unidentified American man. This novel is especially unique because it describes what would be considered a success story about a young immigrant who attends a prestigious college and lands a competitive job. However, readers soon discover that although Changez is successful, his culture is not accepted. In Katie Roiphe’s article “What the Reluctant Fundamentalist can teach us about the Boston Bombers,” she explains that America does not provide acceptance for all cultures: “the warm embrace that liberals, at least feel that they are giving, is not as absolute, as untroubled, as blanketly wonderful, as we think” (Roiphe). Roiphe explains that while it is easy to believe that America is an accepting nation, appearances are often deceiving. The central issue of the book is not the typical story of an immigrant’s road to success, but rather the challenges immigrants face in maintaining their own culture. This challenge to preserve culture is explained by Changez to the American. At first glance, it seemed to me that the American was purely there as a tool in telling Changez’s story.

2 The novel opens with a question from Changez to the American and immediately launches into a one-way dialogue of Changez’s life in America. Due to this format of storytelling, readers quickly understand the main themes of the book. Changez explains that he automatically knew the American’s nationality “not by the color of [his] skin” or his “dress” (1), but by his “bearing” (2). Changez’s judgment reflects the way in which others made assumptions of him when he entered America. This statement reveals biases that Changez holds and begins a discussion about our own assumptions about people from other cultures. In this way, Changez begins each chapter with a question or a claim directed at the American. This method reinforced my idea that the American was purely there for Changez to speak to. As the novel progressed, I began to notice the significance of the American’s role; not only is he a launching point for discussion, but he is also a symbol of a general American perspective. It is made explicitly clear by Changez that the American is uncomfortable in his surroundings; he sits with his back to the wall, he looks at his food skeptically as if it were poisoned, and he is generally on edge. Although he never receives his own voice, the actions of the American communicate the stressed relationship between the United States and Pakistan. While they enjoy dinner, Changez remarks on the way that the American sits, noticing that a “bulge manifests itself through the lightweight fabric of [his] suit, […] where the undercover security agents of our country […] favor wearing an armpit holster for their side-arm” (139). This implication that the American is wary of his surroundings to the point of being armed highlights the theme of unease. These descriptions stand out more and more as the novel develops, leading me to wonder why the author chooses to focus on explaining these seemingly inconsequential details. I began to realize that the author was constructing a statement about the changing relations between America and Pakistan through these interactions. If we look at the

3 novel in this way, we can see how Changez offers a plea to understand the Pakistani’s perspective; he pushes the American to realize the pain and suffering he has endured due to American judgments of his culture. Through this conversation, Hamid emphasizes the misguided views that many Americans have of the Middle East. Similarly to how the American is a symbol for an American perspective, other characters in the novel may also serve as symbols for broader concepts. For instance, Erica, Changez’s love interest, may also be a symbol of Changez’s constantly changing relationship with America. Erica is so indistinguishable from the country that her very name is embedded within America . Throughout the novel, Erica clings to her past with Chris (or Chris t ianity), very similarly to the way that America continues to cling to its past. Their nostalgia prevents both Erica and America from moving forward; Erica’s nostalgia of being with her childhood friend and America’s nostalgia for when it once was a uniform culture. The reader is able to understand this symbolism immediately; upon the first impression, Changez finds Erica “stunningly regal,” in the same way that he was initially impressed by America (17). Likewise, when he first arrives at Princeton, Changez states that “Princeton [inspires] in [him] the feeling that [his] life [is] a film in which [he is] the star and everything [is] possible” (3). His first impressions reveal the connection between Erica and America, illuminating their symbolic purpose in the novel. Erica’s frequent episodes of nostalgia convey America’s desire to revert to its past. Symbolism may also be interpreted in Underwood Samson, the company Changez works at. Similarly to how Erica is symbolic of Changez’s relations to America, Underwood Samson embodies core American values. Correspondingly, the U.S. is even in the first letters of Underwood Samson. Underwood Samson, a company that specializes in valuing businesses, also connects on a deeper level with American ideals. America evaluates its immigrants before

4 granting citizenship, while Underwood Samson evaluates other companies of their worth, which are often from other countries. Both company and country examine how much success foreigners can give them. Readers are able to see the shared ideals of work ethic, loyalty to the company or country, and general tolerance but lack of cultural acceptance of other nations. Changez’s relationship with America simultaneously changes with his relationship to his company. When he was driving back from work with his colleagues, Changez notices a sudden difference in the way he perceives his coworkers: “I [look] at him—at his fair hair and light eyes and, most of all, his oblivious immersion in the minutiae of our work—and [think], you are so foreign ” (67). This observation explains Changez’s changing relationship with both his company and his country. At the end of the novel, Changez describes moving back to Pakistan after quitting his job at Underwood Samson. Now, he is politically involved, telling the American as he escorts him back to the hotel that he “made it [his] mission on campus to advocate a disengagement from your country to mine” as well as take part in “demonstrations for greater independence in Pakistan’s domestic and international affairs, demonstrations that the foreign press would […] label anti-American” (179). This statement reveals the disparity between Changez’s initial claim that he is a “lover of America” and his actions of protest against the nation (1). As they walk, we are unsure who is in danger; while Changez signals to other Pakistanis, the American pulls out something silver. This scene creates a sense of unease between the two characters, describing the current standing between America and Pakistan. I believe that by leaving the book open-ended, readers are able to become aware of their own biases about the characters. Changez tells the American that he “should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are al under-cover assassins” (183). This statement

5 recognizes the distrust between the two characters and expresses the still-present biases each nation has for one another. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist , Mohsin Hamid explores the complications that immigrants face in an unconventional way. He achieves this by telling what appears to be a success story of Changez, a young Pakistani immigrant that eventually uncovers the lack of cultural acceptance in America. This message is achieved by the interaction between Changez and the American. At first, I found the American to be a simple tool to vocalize Changez’s story. However, I realized that the American served a symbolic purpose to describe the relationship between Pakistan and America, as well as a way for Changez to justify his Middle Eastern perspective. The issues of cultural acceptance and struggle to conform are still relevant today. I believe that America continues to hold biases and prejudices against certain nationalities. While it is easy to believe that America is accepting of all cultures, Hamid urges us to hold up a mirror to ourselves through his character of the American....