RECLAMS UNIVERSAL-BIBLIOTHEK NR.19876, 2003PHILIPP RECLAM JUN.

Mohsin Hamid

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Group: F. Carbonera M.FerrignoClass: 5ALSSchool year: 2014-15

AIMS:

Students should be aware of the importance of:Knowledge and skills related to intercultural

dialogue;Language awareness and learning awareness;Project skills and project work in a multilingual and

intercultural dimension ;Documentation in cultural exchange;Effective communication in a multilingual context;Semantic research in language learning;Cultural features and stereotypes;The way language makes meaning with respect of

the previous point.

OBJECTIVE:

At the end of the project work students should be able to:

Discuss the principle of the novel: Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek Nr. 19876, 2013. Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & co. KG, Stuttgart);

Single out the main Functions of each chapter with reference to message;

Find out key words and expressions used to convey different linguistic and cultural perspectives;

Carry out relevant textual analysis with reference to :• Fiction structural elements( title, layout, denotation, setting, narrative

strategy)• Language’s use

•Draw personal conclusions and argumentations supported by textual reference;

•Relationship signifier-signified.

Chapter 1

Functionss: Introduction of the main character Changez and the American

interlocutor; Description of the setting: Pakistan (Lahore: Old Anarkali), USA

(Princeton) ; Presentation of the narrative technique.

Main Points:Changez: tells about his life from his participation to university in Princeton; declares he is a lover of America; is a brilliant student ; gets a prestigious valuation company-Underwood Samson.

Key words:mission, fundamentalism, dream, skills, business.

Chapter 2

Functions: Introduction of main female character Erica, who is

metaphor for America; Introduction of Erica’s ex boyfriend, Chris; To focus on Changez’s (Pakistan’s) relationship with women .

Main Points: It is the beginning of the relationship between Changez and

Erica: he meet Erica in Greece; Erica is still loving Chris, who died for cancer.

Key word:different , traditional, inappropriate, improper, regal, tiara, family, home, intimacy.

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Functions: To show different cultures meeting: Eastern VS Western ; To show different social classes meeting: upper VS lower class ; To underline fundamentalism ; To highlight the feeling of nostalgia.

Main Points: Erica and Changez explore Manhattan they visit her parents’: live in a penthouse apartment Erica’s father explains his stereotypical view of Pakistan Erica describes traumatic effect of Chris’s death on her.

Key words:Nostalgia, market fundamentalism, stereotypical, open-

mindedness, cosmopolitan.

Chapter 5

Functions:World Trade Center attack:

● Discrimination● Identity: American VS Pakistani● Social classes meeting: upper VS lower

classes● Globalism

Main Points:● Changez goes to Philippines for valuation job of music company. ● America’s empire is richer than Pakistan● Filipino workers ‘look up’ to rich young Americans and starts to

assume the same attitude and language● World Trade Centre collapses ,Changez sees this on TV and

‘smiles’.

Key words:Nostalgia, longing, first class, privileges, expensive foreign, victims, symbolism.

Chapter 6

Functions: To introduce the theme of the mortality and procreation; To introduce the theme of patriotism; To underline the identity of Changez.

Main points:● He sees Erica and she looks ‘older’● attempt at love making fails :

●she can’t get wet’ and told him more about Chris.

Key word:Patriotims jasmine, mourning.

Chapter 7

Functions: To focus on the Fundamentals; To introduce Jim’s identity; To express political Fundamentalism.

Main Points:● America bombards the Afghanistan● Afghanistan is friends and neighbor of Pakistan● Changez continues to focus on work :

●he is encouraged to ‘focus on the fundamentals’

Key word:Fundamentals, rage, change, vanish.

Chapter 8

Functions: To introduce the theme about impermanence and mortality; To introduce the economic fundamentalism; To introduce the theme about racism and racial profiling.

Main Points:● Changez visits Erica ● Erica’s mother tells him she didn’t need a boyfriend.● Underwood Samson continued to power forward in pursuit of

business● his car is attacked by ‘Arab’ haters and Changez is aggressive in

his response.

Key word:Racism, economic fundamentalism.

Chapter 9

Functions: To introduce the theme of conflicted identity; To resume the theme about the political fundamentalism.

Main Points:● Changez has changed:

● he is an unsympathetic American ● He misses the beauty of his family house and homeland:

●He fells powerless. ● He does not shave his beard off for return a form of protest or

identity ● Erica is at a clinic on the Hudson.

Key word:Identity , nostalgia, fundamentalism, regret.

Chapter 10

Functions:• To show deep interior struggle Changez feels;• To show equality way VS capitalism;• Definitive break with American thinking;• To demonstrate the real meaning of fundamentalism.

Main Points:● He meet Juan Bautista who explains the concepts about equality

and art● Changez couldn’t concentrate on the job, worried about Pakistan ● he give up and is sent back to New York.

Key words:Failure, return capitalism, equality, foreigner, powerless.

Chapter 11

Functions:• To highlight climax of Changez’s interiority :he abandoned his

job and he loses Erica (suicide) ;• To show Changez’s reluctance of American ideals and

financial fundamentals;• To reflect about American foreign policy.

Main Points: He thinks about America’s foreign policy and critiqued of US

activities and attitudes he visits Erica at clinic but she is dead (suicide)

Key words:Awareness, dead, fundamentalism, foreign policy

Chapter 12

Functions:• To explain Changez’s return;• Slowly return from the narration to the present;• To show Changez as an opposer of America .

Main Points:● Changez leaves America and returns to Pakistan ● he works as a university lecturer ● he seems to be increasingly opposed to American actions .

Key words:Royal Mosque, multinational corporations, Lahore, left, nostalgia, war, terrorism.