The Reluctant Fundamentalist discussion

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Book discussion

Our goal for the lesson is to analyse some quotes and elements from the book "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", discuss them and through this get a better understanding of the book.

Organisation

Form groups: you will need 1 laptop per group 

Choose one designated typist 

Create a Word-document title: group + number + book discussion

At the end of class save your findings and e-mail them to [e-mail]

Fundamentalism
What do you think it is?

What is fundamentalism?

Read the whole passage

 from beginning to page 5 “I certainly was, at least at first.”

Discuss the following questions

Where is this passage set? 

Who is speaking and to whom? 

Only one character speaks, but what clues are we given about the response of the man he is speaking to? 

What do we learn from this passage about the different cultures of the two men? 

How does the speaker know so much about America and Americans? 

What are his opinions about them?

Close reading questions

How do they create an impression of a conversation and of movement through the scene? 

Can you suggest at appropriate points the utterances that the author suggests have been made by the American?

Explain how the author creates an impression of the speaker’s tone being helpful and polite.

How does the passage create a sense of tension between the two men?

What was the speaker’s experience at his American university, Princeton What does the final sentence of the passage suggest about it?

final sentence of the passage suggest about it?

How can you tell that the speaker is clever? What

do you think his intentions are?

Looking at the title of the novel and this opening

section, discuss how you think the story will

unfold.

Predict 

Looking at the title of the novel and this opening

section, discuss how you think the story will

unfold. 

During his successful life in America Changez says this:

I suspected my Pakistaniness was invisible, cloaked by my suit, by my expense account.

Changez, Chapter 5

What does he mean by that? What was he trying to do or what does he imply about himself?

In his early days at Underwood Samson, Changez wants to fit in with his white coworkers—to be identified as a successful American. Here he is relying on the most superficial appearances and perks of his job to try to convince himself that his true identity is that of a white American financier. He deludes himself into believing that the trappings of white "Americanness" make his true identity as a dark-skinned Pakistani invisible to others, whom he believes would see him and treat him as one of their own.

After 9/11 happened:

I was pleased ... that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees.

Changez, Chapter 5

What did he mean? What feelings did he convey?

In this pivotal moment, Changez is surprised by the pleasure he gets from seeing the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. As he explains later, he hates violence and bloodshed, so it's not the carnage that pleases him. He's pleased that a hubristic America has gotten what it deserved. Its self-identity as untouchable and all-powerful is shattered by the attack.

After 9/11 Changez grew a beard. It had a meaning to him, even though other people started to look at him strangely.

[The beard] was, perhaps, a form of protest ... a symbol of my identity.

Changez, Chapter 9

What did the beard symbolyze for him?

After his visit to Lahore and his anger at the threat of war between India and Pakistan, Changez decides to flaunt his Pakistani identity.

This quote reveals the motive for keeping his beard at work, a bastion of clean-cut American whiteness. Changez is willing, even eager, to attract hostility from his coworkers and the public because such attitudes confirm his assessment of Muslim stereotyping. The beard symbolizes Changez's Pakistani identity but also signals the threat of violence and provokes fear in Americans who assume all Muslim men with beards are terrorists.

Wainwright approaches him about his beard and asks him to consider getting rid of it.

You need to be careful. This whole corporate collegiality veneer only goes so deep.

Wainwright, Chapter 9

What does Wainwright mean? What can happen to Changez?

Wainwright understands Changez is growing his beard to provoke his colleagues and to exhibit pride in his ethnicity. Yet Wainwright reminds Changez that although the firm may have given him a good job, beneath the veneer of tolerance lies a core of American racism.

 

Wainwright, who is also nonwhite, wants to keep his job. He warns Changez that he risks losing his job because Underwood Samson will not tolerate such "non-American" ethnic pride. The quote implies that, as in much of America, tolerance is a facade barely hiding the intolerance at the core.

Why is Changez a fundamentalist and why is he reluctant?

Two Types of Fundamentalism

When Westerners think of fundamentalism they usually think of Islamic fundamentalism, often with terrorist tendencies. However, fundamentalism may take other forms. What different types of fundamentalism have in common is their strict adherence to the inerrancy, the absolute truth, of their belief or belief system. Just as Islamic fundamentalists believe in the inerrancy of the Quran, the Islamic holy text, so Christian fundamentalists believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Yet all fundamentalisms are not religious.

Two types of fundamentalism according to the extract?

This novel portrays the American capitalist economic system as a type of fundamentalism: market fundamentalism. Adherents to western market fundamentalism fully believe in its capitalist principles and the necessity of free markets to perfect the capitalist model. Market fundamentalism assigns value almost exclusively to generating a profit by whatever means necessary, without considering the potential consequences. Its fundamental value is money and, by extension, wealth. Just as religious fundamentalists reject alterations to or nonorthodox interpretations of their religious texts, market fundamentalists fight against any restrictions, such as regulations or laws, that impinge on markets and reduce monetary returns.

Why is the American economy system also a fundamentalism?

Changez as a fundamentalist

In the novel Changez is torn between these two types of fundamentalism. He's not an orthodox, let alone militant, religious fundamentalist, for his fundamentalism is more closely related to Pakistani tradition and identity. However, his ambitions have immersed him in a world governed by market fundamentalism. Various events in the novel, such as the 9/11 attacks, bring Changez's identity as a Pakistani Muslim into direct conflict with his role as a purveyor, or servant, of market fundamentalism. How and why Changez resolves these conflicting fundamentalisms shape the novel.