NARRATIVE POLITICS IN POST 9/11 SPY FICTION: AN ANALYSIS OF FULLER’S BREAKING

FAITH AND I GNATIUS’ BLOODMONEY

Introduction

Narrative is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in sequence of written or

spoken words or still or moving images or both. It is found in all forms of human creativity.

Literary theorists have historically paid a lot of attention to narrative. From Aristotle to Roland

Barthes, a lot of critical investigation has been carried out for understanding various aspects of

narrative. Roland Barthes (1973) in his book S/Z (originally published in French) explicates the

five codes underlying any given narrative text. In their combined analysis, Raman Selden, Pater

Widdowson and Peter Brooker (2005) in A Reader Guide to Contemporary Guide explain the

five codes of Barthes. They describe that, according to Barthes, there are five codes that drive a

narrative. First is Hermeneutic code that concerns enigma which arises whenever narrative

commences. Second code is Proairetic that concerns the basic sequential action and behavior.

Third is Semic code that concerns the connotations that are evoked during characterization or

description. Fourth is Symbolic ode that concerns polarities and antitheses which allow

mutivalence and reversibility. Furthermore, they also explicate the difference between ‘readerly’

and ‘writerly’ codes. The first two codes are ‘readerly’ codes while the next the codes are

writerly codes. The last three are considered to be ‘writerly’ as they are discretely used by the

writer. The present research deals with the last three ‘writerly’ codes. The study deals with the

representation of Pakistani characters and culture with respect to the three narrative codes

employed by the novelists. As these novels are being examined through the lenses

Postcolonialism so we would observe the narrative politics in these works. Narrative politics is

not to be explored technically but thematically.

Exploration of narrative politics in western discourse is contral concern of Postcolonial theory.

The research employing different post colonial concepts : othering ,mimickry, ambivalence and

primitivism analyize these texts and explores how all these process of othering are rooted deep in

history and have been reworked in post 9/11 era.

Representation is a critical concept in post-colonial studies. Edward Said (1978) in his

seminal book Orientalism holds that representations can never be truly objective. He demystifies

how the “West” produces the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically,

scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period. As he proposes:

The value, efficacy, strength, apparent veracity of a written statement about the orient relies very

little, and cannot instrumentally depend, on the orient as such. On the contrary, the written statement is a

presence to the reader by virtue of its having excluded, displaced, and made supererogatory any such real

thing as “the orient”(p.22).

The attacks of 11th September on the American soil have rekindled the negative feelings of

west towards the Muslim world. The classical orientalist stereotypes have been reused in western

media and popular literature. They have been reconstituted, redeployed, redistributed in a

globalised framework and have shaped a new paradigm which can be called ‘Neo-Orientalism’.

In neo-orientalist narrative, Muslims are mainly portrayed as terrorists.

As Pakistan became a key ally in “war on terror” with United States after 9/11 incident, so

did representation of Pakistan (a part of Orient) gained currency in the western literature. Many

American novelists, in their spy fictions, use Pakistan as their setting. It shows how Pakistan is

important for American writers. It is therefore interesting to investigate as to how Pakistani

people are being represented in post 9/11 spy fictions. The representation of Pakistani characters
lends this study its scope. For that purpose, I have chosen two spy novels namely –Breaking

Faith: A Novel and Bloodmoney authored by Graham E Fuller and David Ignatius respectively.

In both novels, many characters belong to Pakistan.

In the wake of 9/11 calamity, American novelists gave a serious attention to spy fiction.

Many American novelists like Barry Eisler, Charles Gillen, R J Hillhouse, Gene Coyle, Thomas

F. Murphy, Mike Ramsdell, T. H. E. Hill, and Jason Matthews have themselves been intelligence

officers working for CIA. They are called ‘insiders’ because of their involvement in CIA. The

spy fictions authored by ‘insiders’ have a special claim to authenticity, and overlap with

biographical and other documentary accounts of secret service.

Graham E Fuller has been chief of a station in Kabul—he is insider. The fiction authored by an

insider is considered more realistic in comparison to fiction authored by outsider. Keeping in

view the authenticity, it is important to investigate as to how Pakistani characters have been

represented in his novel.

Likewise, David Ignatius is American journalist and novelist. He is associate editor and

columnist of The Washington Post. He has travelled throughout South Asia including South

Waziristan, Pakistan. His novel has got world class applause. So it is useful to examine the

representation of Pakistani characters in his novel.

Statement of the problem

In a world suffering from discrimination, misunderstanding, hatred and violence, some

writers have chosen to pour more fuel to the flaring fire, instead of working for abolishing

artificial barriers between nations. In a way, they are broadening the space between nations. In

the wake of 9/11 incident, the Muslims are being portrayed as terrorists in American media and
films. The proposed research would like to throw light on whether the above mentioned novels

try to mitigate the misunderstanding between USA and Pakistan or they also misrepresent the

Pakistani characters as terrorists. .

Research Questions

1-How do spy narratives like Fuller’s Breaking faith and Ignatius’Bloodmoney paint

Pakistani characters in post 9/11 context?

2-What is collective perception of Fuller and Ignatius pertaining Pakistani characters?

Objectives of the study

1-The research work will substantiate the (mis)representation of Pakistani characters through

Fuller’s Breaking Faith and Ignatius’Bloodmoney

2-It will illustrate the politics of fictional texts in spy narratives in post 9/11 context.

Literature Review

Numerous researches have been carried out on impact of 9/11 calamity on literary scenario.

Researches like Kanwal’s “Rethinking Identities in Contemporary Pakistani fiction: Beyond

9/11” (2015), Hellmich’s “Creating the Ideology of al-Qaeda:From Hypocrites to Salafi

Jahadists” (2008), Tuasted’s “Neo-Orientalism and New Barbarism thesis:Aspects of Symbolic

Violence in the Middle East Conflicts” (2003), Turner’s“ Orientalism, Globalism and

Postmodernism” (1994), Sadowski’s “The Neo-Orientalism and the Democracy Debate” (1993)

and Robertson’s ”Globalization and Social Modernization: A Note on Japan and Japanese

Religion”(1987) have debated this issue in length. Before discussing Neo-Orientalism, there is a

first need of understanding the Orientalism.

 Orientalism, as Said (1978) used the term, can be defined as an ideology which promotes the

‘West-and-Islam’ dualism and the idea that ‘Others are less human’. In Orientalism, Said’s main

argument is that the West represents the East on the basis of on its own values, thus creates a

distorted image of the East. Said describes Orientalism as “a way of coming to terms with the

Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience” (p. 1). He

defines Orientalism as a “style of thought” based upon the acceptance of “the basic distinction

between East and West” (p.2).

Many other scholars praise Orientalism as well. According to Talal Asad (1980), Orientalism

“reminds us that the hegemony of Orientalism is still so massive that it is not feasible to try to

develop alternative approaches without first confronting it with a view to undermining, not its

rational achievements, but its traditional authority.” In Asad’s opinion, Orientalism’s goal is to

critically examine the authority of the West in representing the East. As Robert Nichols (1981)

puts it, Orientalism is a “complex process of dominating the representation of non-Western

peoples through the production of specific forms of knowledge about the non-West” (p.119). The

West takes it upon itself to represent the non-West measured against Western values that leads to

“distorted the images and forms of knowledge about [the non- West]” which “justifies the

ongoing physical -military colonization of […] lands and resources” in the non-West (p.119).

According to Samiei (2009), though there have occurred many changes in Orientalist

thinking in world of global communication, the incident of 9/11 has again rekindled the

Orientalist stereotypes in Western literature. He points out a new version of Orientalism that

legitimizes the War on Terror discourse. He explains how, after 9/11 incident, Muslims are being

depicted as “fanatical, well trained, dangerous, and thus barbaric”(p.13). He argues a Neo-

Orientalist discourse that emerges from ‘‘terrorist frame’’ that has intensified post 9/11
Orientalism (p.21). The scholars like Yahya Sadowski, Dag Tuasted and Christina Hellmich

maintain that the old patterns of human history and destiny have not simply been removed but

have been reconstituted, reshaped, redeployed and redistributed in globalized framework and

have shaped a new paradigm which can be called Neo Orientalism.

According to Behdad and Williams (2017), this new paradigm, like Orientalism, is

"monolithic, totalizing, reliant on a binary logic, and based on an assumption of moral and

cultural superiority over the Oriental other"(p.45). Neo-Orientalism should thus be understood

more as "a supplement to enduring modes of Orientalist representation" in his view (p.48).

The representation of Pakistan in post 9/11 spy fictions is a unique area of research .This

area invites researchers to investigate how Pakistan is being fictionalized in spy fictions. There

has been a little research on this topic. Cara Cilano (2014) is the first critic who has debated the

issue. In her book, Post 9/11 Espionage Fiction in the USA and Pakistan, she elaborates how the

genre has evolved and the terms like ‘spy’, ‘proxy’, and ‘terrorist’ have absorbed different

meanings in post 9/11 scenario. While discussing the context of post 9/11 literary scenario, she

maintains that the ‘spy’ in the post 9/11 fiction has certain qualities. In her view, we start

identifying with spy through affective appeal. Moreover, he has an authoritative control on

narrative. As for ’terrorist’ she maintains that the terrorist in American texts is appropriated and

made the protagonist in Pakistani texts. In this way we are shown the other side of the coin. This

appropriation, in her view, in a way tries to compensate the illiteracies of American texts. Sarkar

(2016) has also jotted down about how espionage fiction developed. He also talks of

contemporary Indian spy fiction. In his view the enemy portrayed in Indian spy fiction is the

protagonist of Pakistani spy fictions. For contextualizing my research, the researcher would

throw light on spy fiction in general and post 9/11 fiction in particular.
 The spy fiction, according to Woods (2008), emerged as a legitimate literary genre in early

ninetieth century with the publication of James Fennimore Cooper’s “The Spy: A Tale of Neutral

Ground” (1821). Its evolution took time to materialize. In 1900, British writers paid attention to

this genre as they perceived their Crown was vulnerable. Thereafter they monopolized the genre.

The contours of this new literary genre were first suggested by two key works, Rudyard

Kipling’s “Kim” (1901), and Erskine Childers’ “The Riddle of the Sands” (1903).

This research tends to investigate the above mentioned novels within the framework of

Orientalism. The researcher would justify his argument by quoting the critics of various

disciplines.

Research Methodology

I would adopt a close textual analysis of selected paragraphs or sentences of both novels with

respect to Barthes’ three writerly codes (Semic, Symbolic and Cultural) of narrative structure.

Since it is qualitative analysis, I would analyze the selected text in the backdrop of Said’s

Orientalism. This research is Poststructural in its method of investigation and Postcolonial in its

application. I would engage different critics in my discussion to substantiate my argument.

Tentative Chapter division

Chapter 1: Introduction

In this chapter, the researcher would briefly introduce the background of the topic and then

move on to statement of the problem, objectives, significance, scope, limitations, and

methodology of the study.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

 In this section, the researcher would dilate on previous research done in this area. The

researcher would mainly discuss the different strands of Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism. Then,

I would relate his topic with recent research in the area and would find a space a for his proposed

topic.

Chapter 3: Representation of Pakistani characters in Fuller’s Breaking Faith

This chapter would offer a textual analysis of Pakistani characters of Fuller’s Breaking Faith.

The researcher would substantiate his arguments with other critical claims. In the end, findings

of the research would be followed by discussion.

Chapter 4: Representation of Pakistani characters in Ignatius’Bloodmoney

In this chapter, the researcher would analyze the Pakistani characters of

Ignatius’Bloodmoney. He would endorse his argument with other critical stances. In the end, the

findings of the research would be followed by discussion.

Chapter 5: Conclusion

In this chapter, the researcher would make a collective image of Pakistan

through summarizing the argument and make recommendation for future

researchers.

Significance of Study

Pakistan has gained a lot of global significance in the wake of 9/11 incident. Many American

novelists set Pakistan as their setting. It is interesting to investigate as to how Pakistani

characters are being represented in post 9/11 spy fiction. Moreover, the significance of this

research is the identification of post 9/11 discourses and their influence on post 9/11 American

novels as new discourses that can be influential in shaping the public opinion. It will also reveal

the mechanism through which Pakistani characters are represented

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