78 pages • 2 hours read
Mohsin HamidThe Reluctant Fundamentalist
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Though the War on Terror has commenced, and relations between America and Pakistan are dire, Changez tries to remain calm and immerse himself in his work. While valuing a company in New Jersey, Changez and the rest of the team are met with hostility from the workers.
One night in October, Changez becomes outraged when he turns on the television and sees Afghanistan being invaded by America. The story then switches back briefly to the frame narrative, where Changez suggests the two men dine together. The stranger wants to eat back at his hotel but Changez insists. He then continues his story by telling the stranger about Erica and why he didn’t tell her about his anger over the invasion of Afghanistan.
Changez hasn’t heard from Erica since the night the two of them tried to make love. He’s upset by this lack of communication, but she eventually invites him out for a drink. When he sees Erica this time, however, he’s taken aback. She is diminished and sick. She’s been thinking a lot about Chris and hasn’t been sleeping. Changez is unsettled by Erica’s demeanor. She suggests that they spend less time together, but Changez disagrees and the two go to his place. Lying in bed, Changez kisses Erica but receives no response. For some reason, he tells Erica to pretend that he’s Chris. Changez doesn’t know why he suggests this, but it works, and they make love, even though he knows that she’s imagining he is her dead boyfriend. After she falls asleep, Changez begins to regret what he’s done: “I felt something I have not felt before or since; I remember it well: I felt at once both satiated and ashamed” (p.106).
Chapter 8 Summary
Changez again notes the stranger’s uneasiness around the waiter, and then returns to the story of Erica. After attempting to contact her repeatedly after they sleet together, she finally reaches out to him again, this time inviting him to her apartment. When he arrives, he is greeted by Erica’s mother who implores Changez not to cause Erica any emotional upheavals because she is suffering from mental illness. She tells him that Erica needs a friend more than a lover: “Erica’s mother’s tone was one of quiet desperation, and frightened me” (p.110). Weighed down by Erica’s mother’s revelation, Changez sits with Erica in her room and tries to get her to connect with him as in the past, but to no avail: “How can I describe to you, sir, how much her words disturbed me? She glanced away, and I saw her recede into her mind” (p.112). He realizes that Erica is a victim of nostalgia; she is clinging to the past when she and Chris were together. He can't to help her, and asking her about her book only seems to make things worse, Changez throws himself even more vigorously into his work, feeling as if Underwood Samson is the one place that isn’t seeking solace in a troubled past. The narrative again switches briefly to Lahore, where the stranger’s phone rings again, causing Changez to note that he receives a message on the hour, as if someone is checking up on him. He then returns to his story.
As he is leaving work one day, he is accosted by a stranger. The stranger’s friend pulls the man away but the man calls out a racial slur as he leaves. Enraged, Changez confronts the man, brandishing a tire iron from his car. Changez then tells the American stranger that he cannot remember what the man looked like, but that the story is true nonetheless.
One night, he and Jim are working late and go to Jim’s apartment for dinner. Jim senses that Changez is engaged in an inner struggle and offers his help, but Changez refuses to admit anything, afraid that it might be mistaken for weakness. Changez again comes top of his class and receives a prorated bonus. Against the advice of his parents, he purchases a last-minute ticket to Lahore to visit his family.
Chapter 9 Summary
At the Lahore café, the meal is served and the stranger asks for cutlery. Changez remarks that there’s satisfaction in touching your prey, in maneuvering it with your own hands, and so the two eat while Changez returns to his story.
Changez arrives in Lahore and notices a marked difference in his perception of place: “I was saddened to find it in such as state—no, more than saddened, I was shamed. This was where I came from, this was my provenance, and it smacked of lowliness” (p.124). He is disgusted by his reaction to his home; how he looks upon it with the same eyes that those from America might look upon it. When he finally makes an effort to change his perception of the place, he realizes that his home is rich in history and that he has nothing to be ashamed of.
His family holds a banquet to mark his return and the main topic of conversation is the growing antagonism between India and Pakistan. When it’s time for Changez to return to America, he wants to stay longer but his family insists that he return. Though his mother warns him to shave, he doesn’t, and his new beard means that his return to work is marked with tension; he is also subject to verbal abuse in the subways. Wainwright tries to warn him about the effect his beard is having and to offer his support, but Changez refuses to shave.
Though he’s supposed to stay away from Erica, he contacts her, only to find out that she’s in a clinic. He goes to visit her and learns that her condition is worse; he’s told that she’s still in love with Chris. Changez tries to cheer Erica up but after a brief walk around the grounds, realizes that their relationship is a thing of the past. In the driveway, Changez considers trying to get Erica to leave with him. In the end, however, he drives away.
The inner turmoil that Changez suffers as a result of both Pakistan’s international relations and his relationship with Erica is visible to his coworkers: “I cut a desolate figure in the office after that, angry and preoccupied with thoughts of Erica and of home” (p.136). Changez wonders if he’ll be fired. As it turns out, Jim offers him a project valuing a book publisher in Chile. Jim understands that Changez needs to get his mind off things by working hard and offers him a job he would normally give to someone with more experience. Although Changez accepts, Jim is left with a puzzled look on his face. The chapter ends in Lahore, with Changez wanting to order dessert for the two men. He tells the stranger that, given his military training, he should know that something sweet like chocolate or rice pudding is best before undertaking carnage.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Looking back on his time in New York after 9/11, Changez wonders at his own blindness to the ominous events that were unfolding around him. The political events, as well as his relationship with Erica, struck at the very core of his American dream, and yet he continued to play the part of the efficient, studious businessman, thinking that, given his social status in the world, he was far removed from the troubles taking place. With the War on Terror under way, Pakistan was on America’s radar. Changez’s family was divided in their reactions to the changes. Changez tries to imitate the stoic approach of his father, believing that everything would right itself in the end, unsure if this attitude was the result of naiveté or bravery.
Changez experiences both internal and external threats to his identity during this time. Pakistan has been threatened by the Taliban for offering its support to America; rumors abound that Muslims are being mistreated in the workplace and in public, with incidents including deadly attacks, disappearances, raids on mosques, shops and their homes. Wainwright offers his support but Changez chooses to believe that everything will be fine, and immerses himself further into his work. The threats to Muslims are problems for poorer people, he reasons.
Jim witnesses this anti-Muslim hostility first-hand one day, when Changez’s car tire is slashed. He tells Changez that some people are very resistant to change. They are unaware of the fact that “power lies in becoming change” an important lesson that Changez will soon take fully to heart. Jim’s apartment is also described, with Changez mentioning that there were pictures of male nudes and that Jim had no family. It’s insinuated that Jim might be homosexual which might help to explain the affinity Jim has always insisted exists between the two men. As a gay man and an immigrant, Jim and Changez both live on the margins of a society that values heterosexuality and whiteness.
As Afghanistan is Pakistan’s neighbor, Changez views Afghans as friends. Watching the country being invaded angers him greatly, igniting the embers that have been smoldering in him since the beginning of the narrative. He drinks heavily the night of the invasion and, for the first time in his career at Underwood Samson, is late to work. This break in character is symptomatic of his break with the corporate status quo, and acts as a powerful precursor to future events.
In the frame narrative, Changez mentions that the waiter at the Lahore café may also dislike the stranger. The waiter is from a tribe of people who are on both sides of Pakistan’s border, meaning he also has family in, or may even be from Afghanistan, himself.
At one point, Changez compares Erica and America to entities looking to the past for strength, highlighting the role nostalgia plays in the novel. Erica’s decline is synonymous with America’s retreat into nostalgia. While discussing nostalgia and the events in New York, the stranger asks Changez about what the man who threatened him looked like. Though he can’t remember many of the details of what he is now relating, Changez confesses that it’s the thrust of the story—the narrative—not the specifics, that matters. This again raises doubts about whether or not Changez is a reliable narrator. Can either of the two men be trusted?
Related Titles
By Mohsin Hamid
