SUBMITTED TO:

MAM SAJJIDA SHAREEF

SUBMITTED BY:
SHAISTA YOUNAS
ROLL NO:
3088
DEPARTMENT:
ENGLISH
SECTION:
A

UNIVERSITY
OF
OKARA
EXPLORATORY PROJECT
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Introduction
Mohsin Hamid was born in 1971 in Lahore, Pakistan, and moved to the US at the age of 18 to
study at Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He then worked as a management
consultant in New York, and later as a freelance journalist back in Lahore.
His first novel was Moth Smoke winner of a Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for the PEN
Hemingway Award. Moth Smoke was made into a television mini-series in Pakistan and an
operetta in Italy and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2000.
In 2007 his second novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was published and shortlisted for the
2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. In 2008, it won the South Bank Show Annual Award for
Literature and was shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize Eurasia Region, Best
Book and the 2008 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. A short story based on the novel
was also published in The Paris Review in 2006.
Hamid's third novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia won the Tiziano Terzani International
Literary Prize and was shortlisted for the KLF Embassy of France Prize and the Haus der
Kulturen der Welt International Literature Award. His fourth novel, Exit West was shortlisted for
the Man Booker Prize. He has also published a book of essays entitled Discontent and Its
Civilisations. Dispatches from Lahore, New York & London. Mohsin Hamid now lives in
London.
Style in The Novel.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an example of a dramatic monologue and autodiegetic
narration. Critic M. S. E. Madiou, in "Mohsin Hamid Engages the World in The Reluctant
Fundamentalist," offers a perverse reading of Hamid's novel calling it metafictional. He argues
that the novel reflects on its own footprints from production all the way to publication.
According to the critic, Hamid does this through the character of Erica a novelist who stands for
Hamid's "Eureka" moments taking the debate away from Erica as America.
Summary
In the streets of Lahore Pakistan a young man Changez approaches an unnamed man for the
purposes of his summary we will call him the Stranger and asks in an unclear combination of
extreme politeness and menacing familiarity if he can be of assistance. Changez says that the
Stranger looks American, and escorts him to a nearby cafe where they drink tea and eat dinner.
As afternoon turns into evening, Changez tells the Stranger about his time in the United
States.Changez comes from a respected but declining Pakistani family. Nonetheless, he gets into
and attends Princeton University where he makes excellent grades and acts the part of an exotic
foreigner but secretly works multiple jobs to support himself and his family. He comments to the
Stranger that he now sees that Princeton was indoctrinating him into a pro American mindset
teaching him to use his skills to help American companies but that he didn’t realize this at the
time. Near the end of his senior year, he interviews for a prestigious valuing firm, Underwood
Samson, which does analysis to determine the worth of companies. During his interview, Jim, an
executive vice president at the firm, learns that Changez is on financial aid, and conceals his
economic status from his classmates; Jim tells Changez that he, too, hid his background at
Princeton, and gives him a job. Between graduating Princeton and beginning his career at
Underwood Samson, Changez goes on a vacation to Greece with Princeton friends and peers. It
is here that he meets Erica, a beautiful and charismatic Princeton graduate, with whom he is
instantly smitten.
In New York, Changez begins his career at Underwood Samson. He makes friends with another
trainee, Wainwright, and wins the admiration of his colleagues and supervisors. Meanwhile, he
continues to spend time with Erica, who lives in New York and invites him to parties and
dinners. Changez notices that Erica seems deeply lonely, even when she's surrounded by friends,
and learns that her boyfriend and childhood friend, Chris, died last year.
While working in Manila, in the Philippines, Changez witnesses the collapse of the Twin Towers
on September 11, 2001, and finds himself feeling pleasure at the sight of powerful, arrogant
America brought to its knees. Then, on his return flight to New York, he is detained at the
airport. He begins to notice and be the subject of increasing racism and discrimination in New
York City and at Underwood Samson. Erica, traumatized by 9/11, begins to sink into nostalgia
for Chris. One night, Changez and Erica have sex, a “success” Changez achieves partly by telling
Erica to pretend that he is Chris. Changez thinks this will bring them closer but Erica grows
increasingly distant from Changez.
Changez, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in New York and the United States as a foreigner
after 9/11 travels to Pakistan to see his family and feels angry with the United States for
supporting India's aggression against his home. At the same time he doesn’t feel entirely
Pakistani either Later while traveling to Chile for Underwood Samson he meets Juan Batista the
president of a publishing company who compares Changez to a janissary a reference to Crusades
era warriors who were kidnapped from their own culture and then forced to fight against it.
Changez realizes this is true that he is doing harm to Pakistan by working for Underwood
Samson. He returns to New York in the middle of his assignment. Jim fires him, but seems
sympathetic to his struggle. Changez returns to Pakistan where he lectures at a university and
supports anti American demonstrations although he insists he never encourages violence.
As Changez tells the Stranger his story he frequently points out that the Stranger seems
uncomfortable and notes that the Stranger has something under his jacket in the exact position
where spies keep a gun. The waiter who serves them their food seems angry with the Stranger
but Changez assures the Stranger that there is no danger. Changez then walks the Stranger back
to his hotel. As they stand outside the Stranger notices a group of people including the waiter
who have been following them and reaches under his jacket.
Themes
Patriotism & Post 9/11 United State
As a Pakistani man in the United States, Changez has a perspective and experiences that give
him insight about aspects of American patriotism that Americans take for granted. Reflecting on
his time at Princeton University, he realizes that there is a hidden patriotic project in his college
education. Young, intelligent students from the United States and the rest of the world are taught
to love America, live in America after they graduate, and lend their services to American
companies. During his time at Princeton, Changez isn’t conscious of this patriotic indoctrination,
but after September 11, he witnesses an enormous surge in patriotism and a patriotic obsession
with the United States own past and purity that affects him directly. Although he had thought
that New York City had its own distinct culture, after the attack he sees the city join with the rest
of the United States in forming a single culture whose most obvious characteristic is its hostility
to non American like Changez himself.
Even though Changez is naturally resistant to this form of patriotism because it excludes him, he
continues to love his new country, which has provided him with a first-rate education and job.
His relationship to the United States is similar to his love for Erica. America during the War on
Terror, Changez observes, Erica becomes obsessed with her own past, most notably her love for
her dead boyfriend, Chris. It’s unlikely that her relationship with Chris was remotely as strong
while he was alive; she idealizes the past because it’s past; because it’s safe, unchallenging, and
unchanging. Ultimately it is Erica’s failure to escape the past that prevents her from loving
Changez in the present. On the one occasion when they have sex, Changez tells Erica to pretend
that he is Chris a clever metaphor for the way Changez must pretend to be someone else to
succeed in the United States.
Changez’s relationship with America and patriotism has all the turmoil of a love affair. Although
he loves America initially, and it seems to love him in return it becomes clear by the end of The
Reluctant Fundamentalist that both the United States and Erica are too nostalgic for an idealized,
semi-mythical past to reward his feelings of love or patriotism. His feelings rejected and
disillusioned with the United States, Changez returns to Pakistan.
Coming of Age
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a good example of a Bildungsroman or coming of age novel. In
the early chapters Changez the protagonist his name clues us in to the character development he
will undergo is an uncertain, passive young man. He travels all over the world to Princeton
University to Greece to New York City without ever voicing a particularly strong reason for
choosing to go to these places. In reality he does not choose to go to Princeton or New York at
all he obeys what others tell him, or does what he thinks he supposed to do. Because of his
passivity in most of the first half of the book Changez encounters many different models for how
he should come of age. One important model is Princeton University where he absorbs the
unstated but accepted idea that a valuable life is one in which he uses his intelligence and
knowledge to help a capitalist American company, which in his case is Underwood Samson. It’s
only when he looks back on his life later that Changez realizes that this was the hidden message
of his Princeton education and that he has allowed others to control his own development.
In the aftermath of September 11, Changez encounters new hostility from Americans: an
aggressive airport security guard detains him, and pedestrians harass him. He begins to realize
that the ideal of growing up he’s been fed at Princeton and Underwood Samson makes him
useful to Americans, but doesn’t actually make him a part of America. Despite his contributions,
he is still seen as an outsider in the United States. Naturally angry at having been used and
rejected in this way, he begins to rebel against America and Underwood Samson in small ways,
such as growing out his beard an expression of his desire to take control of his own life and a
symbol of his coming of age. Changez’s ultimate choice to leave the United States for Pakistan
contrasts markedly with his early passive traveling.
But even if The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a book about growing up it is not completely clear
what Changez grows up to be. He returns to Pakistan to become a university lecturer, but the
novel never reveals whether or not he has become a supporter of terrorist groups or simply a
peaceful critic of American foreign policy. Changez’s identity is unclear to us it may also be
unclear to Changez himself. The ambiguity of the ending in which it is unclear whether he is
about to befriend or attack the Stranger, may be read as a sign that Changez is still growing and
still has choices to make, choices that will define who he will become.
Racism & Fundamentalism
Throughout the novel beginning on the first page Hamid the author shows how people judge one
another based on their clothing, their skin color and their mannerisms. These forms of racism
shape Changez and his impressions of the United States. Although Changez’s friends at
Princeton treat him respectfully they are aware that he is an outsider in the United States. When
they travel to Greece together Changez experiences various forms of soft racism. While not rude
or disrespectful to him his friends think of him as an exotic pet even Erica is attracted to Changez
because he is different. Changez accepts and in some ways encourages these feelings partly
because he wants Erica and his other friends to accept him and partly because he himself is
unsure who he is.

After 9/11 Changez encounters more overt and hostile sorts of racism in America. He called an
Arab though he's really Pakistani and is detained at an airport and harassed by a bigoted security
officer. Changez refuses to subside during these confrontations, and, in defiance of what he sees as
their profound unfairness and viciousness, deliberately changes his behavior and appearance to
seem even more obviously foreign. Put differently the novel shows how racism helps to make the
very thing it fears. In Changez’s case racism ultimately drives him

from his adopted country of the us back to Pakistan. The racism and prejudice stemming from the
fear of fundamentalism leads him a devotee of America to become at minimum more critical of the
us and possibly a fundamentalist.

In the novel “frame narrative” Changez and therefore the Stranger judge one another supported
their racist preconceptions. The Stranger is suspicious of Changez due to his beard and clothing,
while Changez sizes up the Stranger as an American supported his bearing. within the end. Hamid
doesn't reveal if either Changez or the Stranger has judged accurately: Changez might be an anti
American terrorist and therefore the Stranger might be an American spy, or both, or neither.
Readers are forced to make a decision whether the stereotypes of terrorist and spy are during this
case accurate and if they're whether Changez has been driven to terrorism by the racism he
encountered as an outsider within the us.

CONCLUSION

In the conclusion we disappointed with Changez because as a young and well educated Pakistani
who has experienced American life, he's uniquely placed to encourage moderation and have
interaction critically within the post-9/11 debate. At a time when most in his country saw the
conflict as a zero sum situation, he could have argued for positive-sum solutions fighting for ideals
and not simply the home government. Many indeed, have striven to try to to so since then. But
Changez failed.

The problem together with his politics is clear: he fails to carry his homeland, Pakistan, and
himself to the same standards and expectations to which he holds America. A review by The
Guardian questions Changez the foremost pointedly. By what higher personal virtue does Changez
presume to guage. one expects Changez’s opposition to America to be founded on some morally
superior alternative set of values.” But he hardly provides anything by way of an appropriate
alternative.

OPEN BOOK REVIEW

Question No# 1:

Borderline By Hanif Kureishi Summary and Character

Borderline is essentially an outcome of workshops and interviews with real British Asians living in
South beat the first 1980s. Racist attacks were commonplace and therefore the National Front were
holding meetings within the area, protected by police. In response to the violence, British Asian
Youth Movements were growing to counter-

protest the discrimination and abuse Asian people were facing on the streets.

The characters of Borderline aren't ghosts of the past, they're currently living and inhaling 2018,
fighting many of an equivalent battles against racist violence, forced marriage and exploitation.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who chaired the post-show discussion, described being spat at on a
London bus post.Brexit and told to travel home. Only a month ago there was a fascist
demonstration in Hyde Park. Resistance will look different in today’s interconnected world but it's
clearly needed quite ever.

Kureishi suggests that the white media cannot represent the community.Hearing these voices on
stage tonight was a reminder that this sort of theatre may be a powerful way for the community to
talk for themselves during a way that's open, inclusive and unitize.In Borderline, this mood is
captured through the eyes of an out sized and diverse ensemble of character s, drawn from the
contributions of the important workshop participants and ably played by a robust cast.

Amima
Amina may be a young British Pakistani woman making the simplest of her relationship with
Haroon before her father can arrange her marriage. Kureishi looks at the matter of arranged
marriage for this new generation and the way the sense of obligation can overwhelm children and
make a situation where they feel forced. ‘These marriages are prostitution,’ says Haroon, long
before the difficulty of forced marriage had reached the sensationalised pages of the united
kingdom media. Kureishi sensitively paints the complex emotional entanglement between Amina
and her family and shows that force can often be the results of a quiet process, built over a
lifetime.

Ravi

The play also portrays the difficulties of newer migrants to the united kingdom. Ravi may be a
naive young man from India, heart breakingly hopeful about what England will offer to him.

‘England’s a cemetery,’ says one young man to a disbelieving Ravi, reflecting the disappointment
experienced by numerous of the characters. When Ravi involves learn this through exploitation
and violence it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Ravi teeters on the brink of becoming a comical
stereotype sometimes, playing the a part of the sacrificial lamb whose disposition will inevitably
be taken advantage of.

Banoo

Banoo, Amina’s mother, is another character who has been worn down by her treat ment in
England. It becomes clear that she is battling depression and she or he is beginning to a rticulate it

‘I wish to leave within the rain. Less people.’ Initially Banoo appears to fulfil the tropes of a
typical Asian housewife; taking care of people family and remaining largely passive. Repeatedly
silenced by her husband Amjad, it's Susan, English journalist, who gives Banoo an area to

begin recording her testimony and that we begin to ascertain glimpses of Banoo that are faraway
from the stereotype. The presence of the tape machine encourages her to talk more freely and have
interaction together with her feelings. Kureishi highlights the importance of documenting
.individual experiences and during a sense he's doing with the play what Susan is doing together
with her tape machine

- attempting to capture the raw truth of those experiences.

Themes in Borderline
Qureishi is not any way taking sides in his Representations of existing situation of migrants. He
makes references to the stereotypes of both Westerners and Easterners so as to spotlight both the
cultural gap between them and therefore the Prejudices they need against one another.
“Borderline” is one among Qureshi’s plays during which he's concerned with the difference
problems of migrants, the underlying causes of those problems, and possible ways to eliminate
these causes. within the play, Qureishi deals with these issues through depicting “The daily
experiences of South Asian immigrants in South all”, a suburban district of London, and focusing
especially on an immigrant Pakistani family, their relationships within the family, with other
immigrants and with the native population.

Parker states:

“A number of Qureshi’s early plays and screenplays reflect the formation of his concern with the
dominant culture’s interest within the exotic”His observation is actually valid for “Borderline”. As
he suggests, the ecu journalist Susan is during a way interested in Orientals as she finds them
different. She is interested by their culture, their mentality, and their relationships. For her, the
Oriental is an enigma which she wants to decipher. She expresses her amazement at their attitudes
towards life:

You play a game of tennis and you've got an umpire and two ball boys magnetized by your every
move. You ride for miles during a rickshaw dragged by a thin fifty-year-old father of seven and
you are feeling so guilty you give him two years’ wages for a tip. If your tea is cold and you
complain so me bomber is kicked out of employment and his grandmother starves to death. It’s
difficult to not end up becoming some quite fatuous aristocrat.

As the above statements make it clear that she is critical of Orientals, yet she is not any t
prejudiced; she genuinely tries to know them. She even interviews them so as to form a radio
programme about these Orientals. She claims that she is informing concerned people about what
these Orientals are browsing. However, the drive for her research is that the European passion for
the ‘exotic’. She unconsciously regards them as a topic race. Hence, Anwar is true in his claim that
she cannot.

Qureshi’s concern for the reciprocal ‘ Othering’ is what Parker identifies in his early plays . This
assessment is again true for “Borderline”. Both Europeans and Orientals regard one another as ‘the
other’. Europeans ‘Othering’ Orientals is usually depicted through their racist acts instead of
words. for instance, Ravi is spat on within the street and Susan talks a few Banglades hi woman
whose son is attacked by some fascists. The attitude of ‘Othering’ pervades in Orientals’ mind, as
well. Yasmin is prejudiced against Europeans and says

“White people would really like an exhibition of my misery”

Although Haroon is that the one who seems to be more sensible and modern, he cannot keep
himself from engaging in racist thoughts. He states:

“The English get bad hearts because they need rotten souls and bad consciences”

Hence, it's apparent that the racist attitude is adopted by each side. within the play, certain
stereotypical traits of European and Eastern cultures are reflected in terms of behavioral pattern s,
beliefs, mores, gender roles, and laws. However, in doing this Qureishi adopts an ironic approach
towards the norms of both cultures. for instance, the thought that European women have casual
sexual relationships is really parodied by Qureishi within the play. Ravi involves England with this
misconception and shortly realizes that this is often not the very fact. These sorts of stereotypical
behavioral patterns also are attributed to Eastern people.

The weak female voice in Eastern society is represented by Amina and Banoo here and therefore
the gender roles are questioned. In her relationship with Haroon, Amina points out that things are
different for boys . She means their society can readily accept a person’s having a relationship
with a lady whereas it's regarded degrading for a lady to possess such a relation ship with a man.
Another sign of the patriarchal structure of Eastern society reflected within the play is that Amjad
feels that it's natural for a person to beat a lady when she does something he doesn't approve of.

“He hits Amina when he finds out that she has been out in the dark.” Amina repeats a press
release she hears from her father:

“In India, a policeman won’t move before you bribe him – unless it’s to hit you”

Here, the law system in India is usually recommended to be corrupt. The inefficiency of the
military is additionally mentioned. Amjad compares European and Indian health service when he
asks his wife to call the ambulance as his health gets worse:

“They will are available a moment. You see how things are good here.

However, ironically, after he utters these words, the audience study his death within the next
scene. as compared to India, England is depicted as a dreamland through the attitude of some
immigrants like Amjad and Ravi, yet soon they discover that it's not the very fact which England
 is simply another country which has its own handicaps. Ravi realizes the very fact as soon as he
gets to England but he feels that he cannot confess his failure to the people in India. He tells them
that he features a great life in England which he has even bought a flat and explains his reasons of
his lies to Haroon.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Qureishi analyzes the society in the best way: he marks the misconceptions
and prejudiced opinions about cultures and parodies them in the play. He depicts the
multicultural structure of Britain and reveals the problems it brings to all members of the
society. However, he is not against a multicultural society; what he tries to do is to lay bare
the conditions from different perspectives and offer different solutions.

Question No# 2

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Introduction:
At a time when most in his country saw the conflict as a zero sum situation,
he could have argued for positive-sum solutions fighting for ideals and not simply the home
government. Many indeed, have striven to do so since then. But Changez failed. The problem
with his politics is clear: he fails to hold his homeland, Pakistan, and himself to the same
Changez refuses to subside during these confrontatios, and, in defiance of what he sees as their
profound unfairness and viciousness, deliberately changes his behavior and appearance to seem
even more obviously foreign. Put differently the novel shows how racism helps to make the very
thing it fears. In Changez’s case racism ultimately drives him from his adopted country of the us
back to Pakistan. The racism and prejudice stemming from the fear of fundamentalism leads him a
devotee of America to become at minimum more critical of the us and possibly a fundamentalist.
In the novel “frame narrative” Changez and therefore the Stranger judge one another supported
their racist preconceptions. The Stranger is suspicious of Changez due to his beard and clothing,
while Changez sizes up the Stranger as an American supported his bearing. within the end. Hamid
doesn't reveal if either Changez or the Stranger has judged accurately: Changez might be an anti-
American terrorist and therefore the Stranger might be an American spy, or both, or neither.
Readers are forced to make a decision whether the stereotypes of terrorist and spy are during this
case accur ate and if they're whether Changez has been driven to terrorism by the racism he
encountered as an outsider within the us.
CONCLUSION
In the conclusion we disappointed with Changez because as a young and well educated Pakistani
who has experienced American life, he's uniquely placed to encourage moderation and have
interaction critically within the post-
9/11 debate. At a time when most in his country saw the conflict as a zero sum situation,
he could have argued for positive-sum solutions fighting for ideals and not simply the house
government. Many indeed, have striven to try to to so since then. But Changez failed. the matter
together with his politics is clear: he fails to carry his homeland, Pakistan, and himself to an
equivalent

standards and expectations to which he holds America. A review by The Guardian questions
Changez the foremost pointedly. By what higher personal virtue does Changez presume to guage.
one expects Changez’s opposition to America to be founded on some morally superior alternative
set of values.” But he hardly provides anything by way of an appropriate alternative.
Question No# 3:
An American Brat
Introduction of the writer:

Bapsi Sidhwa invented English-language fiction in Pakistan. Unlike India, from which Pakistan
was carved, the country had no established literary tradition in English. Urdu was the official
language, and lots of would have preferred that the previous colonizers’ language disappear
altogether.Born into a wealthy family, Sidhwa spent her first seven years as an Indian citizen within
the plains city of Lahore.At age two, Sidhwa contracted polio, and she or he didn't attend school
until she was fourteen. Tutored reception in English, she read British literature extensively, a
practice that encouraged her to become a writer. Her parents, however, had other ideas, and at
nineteen she entered an arranged marriage and shortly bore three children. As an upper-class wife
and mother, Sidhwa broke tradition by beginning to write, albeit she admitted in an interview that
initially she wrote secretly. Otherwise her friends would have thought her “pretentious,” she said:
“After all, i used to be only a businessman’s wife"
Short Introduction of Characters
Zareen:
Emotional, caring about her own religious beliefs.
Feroza:
She has Muslim friends. political trends captures her mind, she cares about her father's emotion s by
refusing the role within the play.
Cyrus:
Cyrus is Feroza's father, cautious about her daughter.

AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF BOTH CULTURES

In ‘An American Brat’, Bapsi Sidhwa seems to be more curious about exploring the horizons of
contrast and comparison of Pakistani and American civilizations. For the sake of comparison,
Sidhwa has used basically two characters e.g. Protagonist – Feroza and her uncle Manek. This
theme is additionally highlighted within the short stay of Zareen in ‘New World’. so as to know the
comparison drawn by Sidhwa, we must analyse the characteristics of both civilizations.
Government
Sidhwa has highlighted the characteristic of Pakistani society tons. She condemned the
fundamentalism through the words of Zareen when she says:
“Could you imagine Feroza cycling to high school now?… what I could neutralize 59 and 30, my
daughter c an’t neutralize 1978.”
Sidhwa also made his reader conscious of the very fact that these political problems create
psychological problems in youth and Zareen took important decision of sending Feroza to America
due to this problem.
“I think we should always send Feroza to America for a brief holiday… she is been so desperate
lately; you're right, it’s these politics”
Strong Religious and Moral Institution:
Religion and morality are these institutions which can't be questioned in Pakistani civilization. One
cannot compromise on religion and moral values in Pakistan. Feroza was unable to marry consistent
with her happiness due to her religious restrictions. David’s parents can permit him to marry
outside their religion but Zareen is horrified with the thought that Feroza will marry anybody aside
from Parsee.
Independence:
In the character of Jo, Sidhwa has shown the independence of yank girls. While Feroza was hooked
in to her parents and for sometime on her uncle Manek. But Manek taught her to be independent.
All American characters are free and independent to require their own decisions as against those of
Pakistani culture where women are still dependent and unable to require their decisions.
Family Structure:
American family setup is completely shattered and broken. Children are alleged to live alone and
independently. While old parents live separately and have their own activities.
This characteristic of yank family system of Jo where parents run their own restaurants while their
sons and daughters wont to live separately.
Political Insight:
In Pakistan, politics concerned all from street cleaner to business tycoon – because it personally
affected all. The political process would run smoothly and it might make a touch difference to Jo’s
life because it would to American policy.
As a post Colonial Novel
To understand the notion of cognitive hybridity, we'd like to revert to the post-colonial notion of
hybridity as defined by various theorists. The materialization of non-native Englishes and
Literatures has frequently been considered the cultural response and reciprocation to resist the
supremacy of the governing culture and therefore the colonial discourses. Cultural literary experts
and critics like Bhabha, Hall and Ashcroft et. al. argue that as languages and texts performed an
important task within the production of the discourses associated with empire, hence literary fiction
is prime within the restoration of identities and national histories among the previously
colonized states and cultures.The term hybridity is related to the category of culture. The category
culture has been investigated by social theorists. Since the term culture refers to fixed categories of
deterministic activities; a spread of novel terminologies and definitions
of culture are proposed.

AS A FEMINISM NOVEL:
Feminism is essentially a movement that demands equal rights for ladies. It believes that ladies are
like men altogether spheres and itaims to spot women as creative
andequal contributors of values. There are some radical feminists who think that the writing of girls
can't be judged rightly by male critics and hence these women believe in gynocriticism. within the
eighteenth century the West saw the looks of the primary feminist treatise, with the publication of
the famous Vindication of the Rights of girls.
Conclusion
To conclude, we will say that both Bapsi Sidhwa and Mohsin Hamid created and constructed their
protagonists within the selected novels through the portrayal of their subjective perception within
the context of faith and politics. just in case of Changez’s character manifestation, the context of
errorism also is a robust impetus in formulating his subjectivity. In both novels the cognitive hybrid
it of the characters are shown to elucidate the connection between the colonized and therefore the
colonizer which leaves indelible imprints on the psyche of the colonized.
The subconscious longing of the colonized to write down back to the colonizers in their language
demonstrates the deep-seated predicaments of the subjugated nation’s psyche.
The crucial issue of hybridity associates exclusively to the displaced people, the Third World
immigrants from colonized countries. during this regard the context and backdrop of faith, politics
and terrorism act as a framework for character manifestation and therefore the exhibition of
cognitive hybridity within the characters of the post- colonial novel and further studies may
be conducted to elaborate the numerous impacts of faith, politics and terrorism into Pakistani fiction
in English, and therefore the exploration of cognitive hybridity in several scenarios in Pakistani
fiction.

Question No# 4:
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie Introduction:
Burnt Shadows may be a 2009 novel by Kamila Shamsie. it had been shortlisted for the Orange
Prize for Fiction and won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction.
Summary
In four sections, Burnt Shadows follows the intersecting histories of two families, beginning within
the final days of the planet War II in Japan, following to India on the brink of partition in 1947, to
Pakistan within the early 1980s, then to ny within the aftermath of 9/11 and Afghanistan within the
wake of the following US bombing campaign. within the prologue, an unidentified prisoner finds
himself naked during a cell in Guantanamo, wondering "how did it come to this?". the most story
the n begins in Nagasaki in 1945, with Hiroko Tanaka, a 21 year old teacher-turned-munitions
worker who is crazy with the German Konrad Weiss. Their idyllic romance ends in tragedy, with a
fatal flash that leaves Konrad a "burnt shadow" on the bottom, and indelibly sears the birds on
Hiroko's kimono into the skin of her back. In search of latest beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi.
She stays with Konrad's stepsister, Ilse, now referred to as Elizabeth, and her husband, James
Burton. She begins to find out Urdu with Burton's clerk, Sajjad Ashraf, with whom a relationship
blossoms, to the Burtons' disapproval. With the partition of India, Hiroko's world turns upside do
wn once more, and she or he finds a replacement life in newly created Pakistan. In Karachi, Hiroko
and Sajjad's son Raza is born. He meets a CIA operative, who is none aside from Harry Burton, Ilse
and James' son. Ilse has meanwhile reclaimed her Identity, divorced James, and moved to ny. Raza
finds himself, naively, swept up into the jihaddist movement in Afghanistan.
When she loses Sajjad also, Hiroko moves to ny to be near Ilse. Though the ladies ha ve not seen
one another in decades, they find themselves deeply sure to one another.
Harry has meanwhile extracted Raza from his unsought extremist associations, and instead, off ers
him a career within the private security/intelligence sector. The parallel convergence of the families
in ny and Afghanistan is that the foundation from which both tragedy and support arise. Above
ground zero, as she once stood over her destroyed home city, Hiroko becomes attached to Harry's
daughter Kim, and meets an Afghani taxi driver who becomes a key player within the dramatic
events that follow.
Conclusion

Burnt Shadows may be a novel where feminism, postcolonialism Islamization, East-West

relationship, the effect of war on people's life are the most issues that the novel tackles. Shamsie
emphasizes the thought of creating the planet an area for better life. Having lived between two
different worlds Shamsie can convey the important way the west check out the easterners. it's be
come clear that Shamsie's fiction is permeated by politics. Her diction and metaphors are often
so realistic and therefore the main emphasis of her fiction is given to the political world. it's not the
planet of dreams and fantasy, rather this world where people are oppressed by the past wars which
became permanent conflicts which will end in a 3rd war.standards and expectations to which he
holds America. A book review by The Guardian questions Changez the most pointedly. By
what higher personal virtue does Changez presume to judge. one expects Changez’s opposition
to America to be founded on some morally superior alternative set of values.” But he hardly
provides anything by way of a suitable alternative.

Question No# 3:

An American Brat

Introduction of the writer:

Bapsi Sidhwa invented English-language fiction in Pakistan. Unlike India, from which Pakistan
was carved, the country had no established literary tradition in English. Urdu was the official
language, and many would have preferred that the former colonizers’ language disappear
altogether.
Born into a wealthy family, Sidhwa spent her first seven years as an Indian citizen in the
plains city of Lahore.
At age two, Sidhwa contracted polio, and she did not attend school until she was
fourteen. Tutored at home in English, she read British literature extensively, a practice that enco
uraged her to become a writer. Her parents, however, had other ideas, and at nineteen she entered
an arranged marriage and soon bore three children. As an upper-class wife and mother, Sidhwa
broke tradition by starting to write, even though she admitted in an interview that at first she
wrote in secret. Otherwise her friends would have thought her “pretentious,” she said: “After all,
I was only a businessman’s wife"

Short Introduction of Characters

Zareen:

Emotional, caring about her own religious beliefs.

Feroza:

She has Muslim friends. political trends captures her mind, she cares about her father's
emotion s by refusing the role in the play.

Cyrus:

Cyrus is Feroza's father, cautious about her daughter.

AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF BOTH CULTURES

In ‘An American Brat’, Bapsi Sidhwa seems to be more

interested in exploring the horizons of contrast and comparison
of Pakistani and
American civilizations. For the sake of comparison, Sidhwa has used
basically two characters e.g. Protagonist – Feroza and her uncle Manek.
This theme is also highlighted in the short stay of Zareen in ‘New
World’. In order to understand the comparison drawn by Sidhwa, we
must analyse the characteristics of both civilizations.

Government

Sidhwa has highlighted the characteristic of Pakistani society a lot. She condemned the
fundamentalism through the words of Zareen when she says:
“Could you imagine Feroza cycling to school now?… what I could do in 59 and 30, my daughter c
an’t do in 1978.”

Sidhwa also made his reader aware of the fact that these political problems create
psychological problems in youth and Zareen took important decision of sending
Feroza to America because of this problem.

“I think we should send Feroza to America for a short holiday… she is been so desperate
lately; You are right, it’s these politics”

Strong Religious and Moral Institution:

Religion and morality are these institutions which cannot be questioned in Pakistani
civilization. One cannot compromise on religion and moral values in Pakistan. Feroza was
unable to marry according to her happiness because of her religious restrictions. David’s
parents can permit him to marry outside their religion but Zareen is horrified with the
thought that Feroza will marry any one other than Parsee.

Independence:

In the character of Jo, Sidhwa has shown the independence of American girls. While
Feroza was dependent on her parents and for sometime on her uncle Manek. But Manek
taught her to be independent. All American characters are free and independent to take
their own decisions as opposed to those of Pakistani culture where women are still
dependent and unable to take their decisions.

Family Structure:
American family setup is absolutely shattered and broken. Children are supposed to live alone
and independently. While old parents live separately and have their own activities.
This characteristic of American family system of Jo where parents run their own restaurants
while their sons and daughters used to live separately.

Political Insight:
In Pakistan, politics concerned every one from street sweeper to business tycoon –
because it personally affected every one. The political process would run smoothly and it
would make a little difference to Jo’s life as it would to American policy.

As a post Colonial Novel

To understand the notion of cognitive hybridity, we need to revert to the post-colonial

notion of hybridity as defined by various theorists. The materialization of non-native
Englishes and Literatures has frequently been regarded as the cultural response and
reciprocation to resist the supremacy of the governing culture and the colonial discourses.
Cultural literary experts and critics like Bhabha, Hall and Ashcroft et. al. argue that as
languages and texts performed a vital task in the production of the discourses related to
empire, hence literary fiction is fundamental in the restoration of identities and national
histories among the previously
colonized states and cultures.The term hybridity is associated with the category of culture.
The category culture has been investigated by social theorists. Since the term culture refers to
fixed categories of deterministic activities; a variety of novel terminologies and definitions
of culture have been proposed.

AS A FEMINISM NOVEL:

Feminism is basically a movement that demands equal rights for women. It believes that
women are equivalent to men in all spheres and itaims to identify women as creative
andequal contributors of values. There are some radical feminists who think that the writing
of women cannot be judged rightly by male critics and hence these women believe
ingynocriticism. In the eighteenth century the West saw the appearance of the first feminist
treatise, withthe publication of the famous Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that both Bapsi Sidhwa and Mohsin Hamid created and constructed
their protagonists in the selected novels through the portrayal of their subjective perception
in the context of religion and politics. In case of Changez’s character manifestation, the
context of errorism also serves as a strong impetus in formulating his subjectivity. In both
novels the cognitive hybridity of the characters are shown to elucidate the relationship
between the colonized and the colonizer which leaves indelible imprints on the psyche of
the colonized.
The subconscious longing of the colonized to write back to the colonizers in their language
demonstrates the deep-seated predicaments of the subjugated nation’s psyche.
The crucial issue of hybridity associates exclusively to the displaced people, the third
world immigrants from colonized countries. In this regard the context and backdrop of
religion, politics and terrorism act as a framework for character manifestation and the
exhibition of cognitive hybridity in the characters of the post- colonial novel and further
studies may
be conducted to elaborate the varied impacts of religion, politics and terrorism into Pakistani
fiction in English, and the exploration of cognitive hybridity in different scenarios in Pakistani
fiction.
Question No# 4:
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
Introduction:

Burnt Shadows is a 2009 novel by Kamila Shamsie. It was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for
Fiction and won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction.

Summary

In four sections, Burnt Shadows follows the intersecting histories of two families, beginning in
the final days of the World War II in Japan, following to India on the brink of partition in 1947,
to Pakistan in the early 1980s, and then to New York in the aftermath of 9/11 and Afghanistan in
the wake of the ensuing US bombing campaign. In the prologue, an unidentified prisoner finds
himself naked in a cell in Guantanamo, wondering "how did it come to this?". The main story the
n begins in Nagasaki in 1945, with Hiroko Tanaka, a 21 year old teacher-turned-munitions
worker who is in love with the German Konrad Weiss. Their idyllic romance ends in tragedy,
with a fatal flash that leaves Konrad a "burnt shadow" on the ground, and indelibly sears the
birds on Hiroko's kimono into the skin of her back. In search of new beginnings, Hiroko travels
to Delhi. She stays with Konrad's half sister, Ilse, now known as Elizabeth, and her husband,
James Burton. She begins to learn Urdu with Burton's clerk, Sajjad Ashraf, with whom a
relationship blossoms, to the Burtons' disapproval. With the partition of India, Hiroko's world
turns upside do wn once again, and she finds a new life in newly created Pakistan. In Karachi,
Hiroko and Sajjad's son Raza is born. He meets a CIA operative, who is none other than Harry
Burton, Ilse and James' son. Ilse has meanwhile reclaimed her Identity, divorced James, and
moved to New York. Raza finds himself, naively, swept up into the jihaddist movement in
Afghanistan.
When she loses Sajjad as well, Hiroko moves to New York to be near Ilse. Though the women ha
ve not seen each other in decades, they find themselves deeply bound to each other.
Harry has meanwhile extracted Raza from his unsought extremist associations, and instead,
off ers him a career in the private security/intelligence sector. The parallel convergence of the
families in New York and Afghanistan is the foundation from which both tragedy and support
arise. Above ground zero, as she once stood over her destroyed home city, Hiroko becomes
attached to Harry's daughter Kim, and meets an Afghani taxi driver who becomes a key
player in the dramatic events that follow.

Conclusion
Burnt Shadows is a novel where feminism, postcolonialism Islamization, East-West
relationship, the effect of war on people's life are the main issues that the novel tackles.
Shamsie emphasizes the idea of making the world a place for better life. Having lived
between two different worlds Shamsie can convey the real way the west look at the
easterners. It has be come clear that Shamsie's fiction is permeated by politics. Her diction
and metaphors are often
so realistic and the main emphasis of her fiction is given to the political world. It is not the
world
of dreams and fantasy, rather the present world where people are oppressed by the past wars
which turned into permanent conflicts that may result in a third world war.