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The Reluctant Fundamentalist Symbols, Allegory and Motifs

Beards (Symbol)

Changez's beard symbolizes his connection to his homeland and his Pakistani cultural background.
During his youth in America, he was clean-shaven and did his very best to look the part of the young
corporate American, abandoning this aspect of himself. After 9/11, beards were to many a symbol of
radical Islam, and thus undesirable. Changez's reclamation of his beard is also a reclamation of his
cultural identity.

Changez's Relationship With Erica/America (Allegory)

Changez’s difficult relationship with Erica is in itself an allegory for his and much of the Muslim
world’s relationship with the United States. It is passionate, and he finds himself almost inexorably
drawn to her, but she cannot get past the wounds inflicted on her, and her inability to let go
ultimately drives them apart. The inability of much of America to separate terrorists from the
entirety of the Muslim world led to an increase in hostility between nations, and ultimately soured
their relationships.

Underwood and Samson (Symbol)

Underwood Samson appears at first to be the perfect place to work. It encapsulates the American
Dream, the idea that if one works hard, one will be rewarded. The glitz and glamour of it further
emphasizes just how, like Erica, it symbolizes aspects of the United States. As Changez’s time there
goes on he comes to realize that there is a dark undercurrent of prejudice in the workplace, which
becomes glaringly obvious when he grows out his beard, causing many of his coworkers to become
uncomfortable.

Bats (Symbol)

"But bats have survived here. They are successful urban dwellers, like you and I, swift enough to
escape detection and canny enough to hunt among a crowd." (63)

Changez tells his American interlocutor an allegory of different animals and how they have or have
not adapted to the man-made environment of the city. For someone like Changez who did not come
from a Western metropolis, living in New York was a difficult experience of finding his way practically
and morally in a world that isolated him while providing him with many more opportunities.

Fall of the Twin Towers (Symbol)

For Changez, the images of 9/11 make him feel that America has received a comeuppance that it has
long deserved after bombing so many other countries. Though he recognizes that many innocent
lives were lost, he is also highly aware of how the World Trade Center stands as a symbol for
American domination.
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Changez’s Beard

Changez’s facial hair is a symbol that defines him from the very first page of the novel. In fact, he
suggests that his beard is the reason that the American stranger is taken aback by his appearance.
When Changez relates the story of his time in America, he notes that he did not have a beard then;
he was a clean-shaven young man doing his best to fit into corporate America. After the attacks on
the twin towers, a beard was the last thing he wanted, as public abuse was becoming more and
more rampant for Muslims. When Changez returns home to Pakistan, he decides not to shave when
it comes time for his return to New York. The marked contrast in his appearance immediately causes
his coworkers alarm and he is even verbally abused while on the subway. Changez’s beard grows
alongside his growing disillusionment with American economic and political systems.

Geography

Geography plays an important role in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, most notably in the form of
cities. Lahore, where the novel begins, is Changez’s birthplace. Lahore is a city very much affected by
class-consciousness, but the wealth of its upper and middle class is in decline, so much so that
Changez could only afford to attend Princeton on a scholarship. On his trip to Valparaiso in Chile,
Changez compares the once-great port city to his hometown of Lahore; he is saddened by its
condition as a city in ruins, overrun by “new money” titans of industry, such as New York and Manila.
New York is a city that, before 9/11, seemed to welcome everyone. Changez could never really feel
like an American, but he was instantly viewed as a New Yorker. New York held everything that
Lahore could no longer afford, privilege and the monetary means to live a charmed life. New York
was to hold Changez’s future, both in life and love.

Moshin Hamid's "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". North America's Foreign Relations with the
Middle East

THESIS STATEMENT:

This essay analyses North America’s foreign relations with the Middle East before and after the 9/11
attacks in Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This is inherently depicted in personal and
professional relations. Namely, the plotline focuses on the life of Changez, a Pakistani immigrant that
portrays an ‘Islamic elite’ dwelling in the US. Following the 9/11 attacks, a growing wave of
Islamophobia will emerge, tearing apart Changez’s accommodated American lifestyle. Much of this
detriment is conveyed by means of Changez’s relationship with other characters, especially with
Erica (Changez’s love interest), a troubled young woman. Erica’s character is a symbol for the
American nation.1

CLOSE READING AND EXAMPLES:

The novel’s title The Reluctant Fundamentalist is quite significant for its contradictory meaning. It
somehow stands for the radical actions carried out by the American government to prevail national
security after the 9/11 attacks. The story follows the life of Changez (a Pakistani man living in the
United States). He is the embodiment of the upper class immigrants. He studied at Princeton and
worked as an analyst for Underwood Samson & Company. The company’s motto: “Focus on the
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Fundamentals” 2 (which is also an allusion to a short story written by Moshin Hamid), is connected
with the nostalgia the Americans were succumbed by after the events of 9/11. Simultaneously,
Changez struggles to understand his ‘fundamental identity’. All this American nostalgia turns into a
‘fundamentalist’ attempt to prevail national security. This lead them to commit inhumane practices
such as torture in order to extract information from presumed terrorists. These procedures have
always been controversial for its lack of principles but nearly two thirds of the US populations have,
at one point, supported the like practices if those happen to thwart a terrorist attack3. Films like the
Unthinkable, by Gregor Jordan4, criticises the validity of these reactionary measures by displaying
the torture of an American born terrorist who converted to Islam and threatened to detonate 3
bombs in the U.S. The theme of the film emphasises the determination of two subjects: Yusuf (an
American born terrorist) and H (an American officer). Like in the book, the Unthinkable presents an
encounter between two different cultures5. But as opposed to Hamid’s novel, the film showcases an
aggressive and violent atmosphere making viewers to question if the ends justify the means. The
initial dialogue in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, is also a talk between two cultures, an encounter
where West meets East. The setting is placed in Pakistan, Changez’s homeland, what makes him feel
more self-confident. The American notoriously remains fidgety during Changez’s whole speech. In a
way, he seems to be assessing the veracity of Changez's words. As the plot moves forward, Changez
accounts, in detail for his life lessons as an immigrant in New York. The reason why he decides to do
so is unclear. But expressions such as: “I am a lover of America” (Hamid, 7) suggests he might have
looked for his companion’s understanding and sympathy. In another sense, the quotation
endeavours to destroy the abysmal distance between both of them. Yet, Changez explicitly criticises
the US political interventions in the Middle East, perhaps in the hope of making the American argue,
not only on the US ‘fundamentalist’ measures but also on the stereotypes Americans have
consolidated (Afghanistan, Pakistan to mention just a few) on people from the Middle East. In this
regard, Changez’s concludes: “I assure you. It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not
imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you
Americans are all undercover assassins.” (Hamid, 183).

Changez’s love life in America is one of the most meaningful aspects in the story. The element that
makes this element so significant is the figure of Erica, a young American woman characterised by a
troubling self that impedes her to commit emotionally with Changez. Erica’s mental health is
something to make allowance of in order to understand the development of the plotline.
Undoubtedly, Erica is the plot’s most complex character and betokens the role of America in socio-
political contexts. Actually, the name Erica is embedded within the word America, which hints there
is an interconnection between the two. Like North America, land where the popular American
Dream emerges, Erica is defined as a having a magnetising attraction that avoids her fearsome
solitude: “She had told me that she hated to be alone, and I came to notice that she rarely was. She
attracted people to her; she had presence, an uncommon magnetism” (Hamid, 21). This is done on
purpose; the author shows by means of that the image America attempts to foster internationally.
Yet, differently to what it actually happens both in the book and in reality, Erica is a troubled young
woman incapable to get over the death of her former boyfriend, Chris. The latter is the reason why
Erica and Changez’s relationship is doomed to fail from the very beginning. In relation to this, such
sense of loneliness is rendered in a political context as international isolation, which is something
that North America, as the great one nation that attempts to project worldwide, fears considerably.
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Chris (Erica’s old-time boyfriend) is a short name for Christian (follower of Christ) and so, referring
Chris as Erica’s ‘home’ (Hamid, 32) hints America’s preference for its original Christian background
rather than the exoticness coming from elsewhere. This is emphasised by means of Erica's obsession
with Chris, which metaphorically impedes Changez to accommodate completely. In other words,
Changez can dwell as an American citizen but he will never be one. This presumption reinforces a
symbolic allusion, by means of the characters and their relationships, of the deteriorated relations
between the United States and the Middle East. In fact, Erica initially admires Changez’s politeness
and considered him to be different, exotic: “well- liked as an exotic acquaintance” (Hamid, 17). The
saddest of it all is that Changez virtually knows it, but he is hopeful to win her over. This entails
Changez is just an exotic outsider determined to win Erica’s heart when he is nothing but the
shadow of Chris. This turns upside down all his attempts of winning Erica’s love as she will never see
him the way he wants her to. Subsequently, he faces the afore assertion in “she was in love with
someone else. It did not matter that the person Erica was in love with was (…) deceased; for Erica he
was alive enough, and that was the problem” (Hamid, 133). Relating to that, America will always lay
under a cloud of suspicion when it comes to foreign affairs with the Middle East. An example of this
latter is the awkward and mostly one-sided conversation between Changez and the American
stranger at a café in Lahore, where the unnamed American shows himself uncomfortable and
uneasy, suspecting about nothing and everything at the same time.