Topic > The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid: Silencing Americans

Following tradition in anything is easy. The model is established, the style defined. Only your originality is required and that's it. But it is certainly very difficult to go against the grain, challenging traditional strains and daring to create your own methods and ways. You risk everything. You are never sure what might follow as a reward for changing course, you are never sure how the world might react to the change. But that's the challenge! Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Mohsin Hamid, in his famous novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, proves bold enough to construct a separate path for himself to walk on. He chooses a disturbing method in the world of writing, offering the one-sided perspective of the Pakistani protagonist and skillfully withholding the reactions of an interlocutor, the American. It seems that he had a lot on his mind before he dared to publish his work and we can observe that this silence of the American (read "America") becomes the strength of the novel rather than a limitation as any traditional and stereotyped writer would do. Whatever reason Hamid had in mind for silencing the American, readers feel a sense of satisfaction in the first place. This need to be heard, to have freedom of expression and to have a platform where one can raise one's voice (even if in a very technical way) has been a repressed desire in all types of colonized or ex-colonized subjects. The reader enjoys this silence to a large extent as he feels satisfied from within, not only of having some sort of catharsis through Changez, but also of feeling powerful against the ever-dominant suppressor. It's nice for some postcolonial readers to realize, at the end of the novel, that this would give America no "opportunity to respond to the growing criticism leveled against it." The novel thus becomes something more effective than a reflecting mirror for America. Readers witness Changez's level of satisfaction by reading the episode of the collapse of the Twin Towers and Changez's reaction: "I watched as one - and then the other - of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, as despicable as it sounds, my initial reaction was to be extraordinarily pleased" (Hamid 43). But at the same time the American's gestures bring readers back to fear. “Your disgust is evident, indeed,” Changez comments, “your large hand, perhaps without you realizing it, has closed into a fist,” but this too is resolved immediately with Changez's explanation of his feelings. He then admits his sense of perplexity in the face of his sense of pleasure at the massacre of thousands of innocent people. He reflects: But at that moment my thoughts were not aimed at the victims of the attack - death on television moves me more when it is fictitious and happens to characters with whom I have established relationships in several episodes - no, I was taken. in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to its knees (Hamid 43). Observing that these words only serve to strengthen the discontent of his American listener; Changez's challenges: But you definitely can't be completely innocent of these feelings. Don't you take any joy in the video clips – so prevalent these days – of American munitions devastating your enemies' facilities? (Hamid 43). Another reason for the success of this method is, certainly, the involvement of readers. By silencing one side, Hamid has opened a window of perspectives for readers as it is entirely up to them to imagine the American's reaction or response in the way they choose. Although Changez