understanding characters behavior in the reluctant
In Mohsin Hamid’s The Hesitant Fundamentalist, the author directs the reader’s awareness of the sense of mistrust and suspicion that many People in america notably possess toward Middle Easterners and Muslims on the whole after 9/11. By doing so, Hamid is forcing the reader to confront this truth and either connect with it or feel accountable in the recognition that it is a effect based generally on biases in the media’s description of a terrorist. America’s idea of a terrorist in post-9/11 traditions has essentially been boiled down to a Disney villain-esque characterization of Midsection Easterners and Muslims, while using perceived enemy being a dark-skinned, long-bearded, turban-wearing replica of Jafar coming from Disney’s Aladdin. Through a carefully constructed story that uses one-sided dialogue between the personas Changez and “the American, ” Hamid throws this kind of prejudice when confronted with the reader, yet also skillfully allows place for various interpretations from the true characteristics of Changez”is he benign, or is usually he precisely what many Americans fear he might become?
The narrator, Changez, is constantly comforting the American he is sharing with his history to that he could be not in harm’s way. The first few phrases of the new bring consciousness to the fact that the common Middle Asian Muslim’s presence frightens many Americans and puts them on edge. Changez says, “Ah, I see I possess alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my personal beard: My spouse and i am a lover of America” (1). Having established the commonality on this notion of prejudice toward the bearded-Muslim in American culture, mcdougal proceeds to arouse the reader’s individual xenophobic traits by laying out Changez as an individual who is overly eager to convince the American personality of his innocence. One of this is obvious when Changez is discussing the tea brought in by waiter. He says, “Do not look therefore suspicious. I assure you, sir, practically nothing untoward could happen to you, not even a runny stomach. In fact, it is not as though it has been diseased. Come, if this makes you more comfortable, let me switch my cup with your own. Just so” (11). The simple fact that the author does not give the American personality any dialogue contributes to the dubious characteristics of Changez because we could only really know what the American is pondering or saying via the story reaction of Changez. Hamid purposely employs this kind of literary device in order to keep you feeling accountable about bias but as well to retain a point of fact in the suspicion of ill-will as well. All things considered, Changez will act bizarrely by approaching the American unsolicited and diving right into a lengthy and intimate discussion of his past. Who does this kind of? It is dubious, and that is precisely what Hamid looks for to capitalize on. There may be truth in the argument that Americans”and many people for that matter”often attribute malevolence to a new person who is overloaded friendly and generous without the known pretext. This could be viewed as unwarranted systematisierter wahn, but the fact that this is the technique used by many criminals to gain their particular victims trust also means that its trusting to not always be skeptical too. It is a dichotomous predicament that evokes notions of Shakespeares Hamlet and begs problem: Is it paranoia if the mistrust is validated? Such is definitely the case with Hamlet, as he is in the end murdered in the same way he dreaded he would become. Hamid decides not to give closure and instead leave the scene approximately interpretation.
Hamid seems to appreciate toying with all the reader’s emotions toward Changez. Changez’s romance with Erica can be seen being a parallel to his wish to be accepted and embraced with a nation that is plagued by xenophobia. Erica’s failure to give up herself by her previous mirrors Americans inability to take changes (read: Changez) that threaten to erase the nostalgia of pre-9/11 America. Erica desires to love Changez, but your woman can’t, just like America won’t be able to seem to move the overwhelming prejudice toward Middle Eastern Muslims in spite of wanting to perspective itself as being a country understanding of all races, creeds, and languages. By developing this tragic love story, Hamid aims to create sympathy toward Changez. Why can’t Erica and America accept him for who he is? Why does Changez supervisor ridicule him for growing a beard? It’s simply a beard. As well, Hamid also insinuates that Changez keeps growing resentful of American intolerance. Changez says:
Sometimes I would find myself walking the pavements, flaunting my own beard as a provocation, yearning conflict with anyone foolhardy enough to antagonize myself. Affronts had been everywhere, the rhetoric emerging from your country at that moment in history”not simply from the govt, but from your media and supposed critical journalists since well” provided a ready and constant fuel for my personal anger. (167)
By simply calling it “your country, ” Changez has removed himself coming from any id with America. He goes on to say that inches[s]uch an America had to be halted not only in the interest of the rest of humanity, yet also in your own” (168). Changez anger and commitment to “stop” America’s current course of anti-Muslim sentiment elevates the question, what did this individual do? This question is never directly responded in the novel. Changez acknowledges this question, saying, “What did I really do to stop America, you ask? Have you ever really no idea, sir? ¦I will tell you the things i did, although it was not much and I dread it may well neglect to meet the expectations” (168-9). Despite saying they will answer this question, Changez never truly does. He mentions that he started to be a “lecturer” at a university and “persuaded [students] of the merits of participating in demonstrations intended for independence in Pakistan’s domestic and intercontinental affairs, ” however , this kind of hardly tackles the “affronts” that angered Changez a lot (179). The open-endedness of this question hints at the idea that the solution is found in the reader’s personal interpretation in the end from the novel. Truly does Changez end American arrogance and intolerance by exhibiting an American his good characteristics and friendship by posting a lunchtime, divulging close details about him self, walking him home, and ending the meeting with a handshake? Or perhaps is there something more menacing in the fact that he has got the American cornered in a dark deserted road while the waiter “rapidly closeau[es] in” and “wav[es] by [Changez] to detain [the American]” (184)? Does Changez stop American intolerance how a Trenchcoat Cosca kids ceased the bullying at Columbine? Does this individual subscribe to Matn Luther King’s philosophy of nonviolence to address racial intolerance, or Malcolm X’s viewpoint of “any means necessary”? Changez promises to be “no ally of killers, ” and yet, he also admits to “intervene[ing]inches in a “scuffle” that ultimately ends up with him having “bruised knuckles” (181, 179). It wouldn’t always be accurate, consequently , to say that Changez is very nonviolent and morally not capable of inflicting damage. But to what extent Changez is chaotic is a question still left up to the reader.
Hamid’s outstanding use of the narrative to create both mistrust and sense of guilt in the visitor results in a thought-provoking acknowledgement of American locura post-9/11. The author’s artificial suspicion toward Changez facilitates us in identifying our personal preconceived symbole, either regarding Muslims or perhaps Americans, or both. Many individuals sympathetic for the plight of Muslim popularity in America post-9/11 may have their own generalized ideas regarding America’s degree of ethnicity intolerance and, ironically, they are often guilty of their particular intolerance toward Americans in general. Hamid acknowledges possibility which the reader will be dismayed by the American character’s distrust of Changez, or perhaps have hunch about the American, and Hamid nurtures this hunch by intentionally portraying the American within a dubious and indiscriminate manner. Hamid possibly ends the novel together with the suspicion that it can be the American who is the “undercover assassin, ” not Changez (183). Why more would someone so obviously nervous around Middle Eastern Muslims have Pakistan? Not for vacation, presumably. Still, there is absolutely no other actual suspicion that is certainly raised about the American in the story, and the American’s capability to carry out harm with the ambiguous “glint of metal” in his coat would appear to result more from a feeling of obligation to defend himself via a identified threat rather than to exécution Changez (184). Perhaps Hamid is revealing that our accusations about the two characters are completely unproven on a logical level. Probably the American is just taking out a “business card” plus the waiter merely “wants to express goodbye, inch as Changez postulates (184). Why must we become so pessimistic and imagine something poor is about to happen, particularly between a Pakistani and an American? These are queries that Hamid raises, and through the story he displays us that folks tend to permit personal biases get in the way of discovering something for what it is rather than what it could be. How we as readers translate the heroes in the new will light up the level to which 9/11 has affected our view of themselves and others, and in this way, Hamid is providing us with a valuable lesson of introspection.
