The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

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.

The Lahore Café

The main narrative takes place while Changez and the American stranger are having tea and dining at a café in Lahore. The café works as a powerful symbol in that, on one level, it’s a simple structure that allows an American man and a Pakistani man to converse. The deeper meaning, however, is that the American—as representative of America—has been brought to the Lahore café—in Pakistan—to see the unwitting effects of its policies on a weaker country. Throughout the novel, Changez mentions that America enacts its policies on a global stage without considering the implications for other people—it takes no part in the suffering it causes. By bringing the American stranger to the café, Changez forces him to listen to a narrative of suffering and, depending on how the reader imagines the novel to end, the American stranger is now forced to become a part of that suffering in some way.

American Cinema

American cinema plays an important role in Changez’s backstory. He constantly relates thoughts, feelings and emotions to the stranger by way of references to American film and cinema. He compares Jim’s house in the Hamptons to the house in The Great Gatsby; Wainwright at Underwood Samson is compared to Iceman in Top Gun; he mentions Terminator and even describes the dark streets of Lahore as a film set where tumbleweed might blow across the stage. He even describes American nostalgia as having the feeling of old black-and-white films from America’s cinematic past. This use of cinema and film references highlights just how connected Changez is to American culture and how effective America has been in branding itself to the rest of the world. It underscores a sense of interpolation, where ways of thought and/or feeling are suggested through certain cues, such as commercials and/or billboards telling one how to feel or what to think. In effect, this branding helps to highlight the plight of Changez and the rest of the world under the ever-watchful eye of America, casting Changez indeed as a reluctant fundamentalist, as someone who, even against his own will, is drawn to America at the same time as he wants to see a reduction in American influence globally.