Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), with its deliberately
contrived setting and action that places a Muslim and a Western character in
a sharply defined arena, offers a fertile basis for the examination of identity, motivation, prejudice and distrust in the post 9/11 world. The unusual structure of the novel has the effect of necessarily involving the reader and inviting him or her to examine existing prejudices and assumptions. Through the interactions of two principal characters in a one-sided conversation, frames of identity, normative behaviors and otherness are shifted to reveal the underlying danger and half-covert threat that come about during a direct and unmitigated encounter between representatives of the American and Pakistani cultures. The encounter depicted appears fraught with barely-acknowledged hostility, even as it comprises a profoundly informative, engaging and seemingly balanced portrait of American culture. The negotiation of identity and alterity presented in this novel is perhaps its most innovative feature. With directed observation of the other and freedom and eloquence afforded by the dramatic monologue form, Hamid’s narrator effectively reframes the American subject through an objectifying gaze, demonstrating how effective that external gaze is in creating distance between characters and cultures.
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