TRF

Challenging stereotypes

● “It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all
potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover
assassins.” - Shows how M.H uses the dialogue to test our fundamentals and challenge
stereotypes

● “In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the colour spectrum. On
street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. I was, in four and a half years, never
an American; I was immediately a New Yorker.” - Changez's place in society as the outsider/
the other. Where he was never able to identify with the American but able to identify with the
hustle and bustle of new york whilst working at Underwood Samson. Buying into the
fundamentals.

● “When my turn came, I said I hoped one day to be the dictator of an Islamic republic with
nuclear capability; the others appeared shocked, and I was forced to explain that I had
been joking.” - Changez uses humour - his appearance and identity to challenge the
stereotypes and tendency to lean on the idea that Muslims were terrorists. Through using his
appearance to challenge this, people were shocked and thought he was a terrorist proving to
both Changez and the readers the unjustful fundamentals of society at that point in time as
well as today. (Making it almost timeless..)

● “They try to resist change. Power comes from becoming change.” - This quote can be seen
as M.H/ Changez trying to teach society that through changing our mindset/ our
fundamentals, we can become one society living peacefully. It is almost a plea for change in
how we think and view the world. To learn from our mistakes and to improve.

● “You, sir, on the other hand, seem ready to bolt. What has so startled you? Was it that
sound in the distance? I assure you, it was not the report of a pistol” Ambiguity, one
person's perspective, dramatic monologue.

● “You prefer your that seat with the back so close to your wall? .. And will you not remove
your jacket? So formal!” - sense of implicit distrust between Changez and the American-
wants him to remove jacket to make sure he’s not hiding anything (irony in calling American
“formal”)

● “A thousand of your compatriots were enrolled, five hundred times as many, even though
your country’s population was only twice that of mine” - Changez commenting on the
flawed ‘meritocracy’ present in the United States and the way it’s skewed against
immigrants/the outsider

● “Princeton made everything possible for me. But it did not, could not, make me forget such
things as how much I enjoy the tea”- Shows the effect Princeton had on him: although it
 gave him opportunities it did not change his fundamentals (as other factors such as
Underwood Samsons did). Homeland / defining home / identity

● “I recall the Americanness of my gaze”

● “I had changed”

Dramatic Monologue

● The dramatic monologue form that I finally decided on allowed me to capture the way in
which the world sees itself today, in a sense of mutual suspicion. It almost mimics the global
media where so often you hear one side of the story. ( Hamid 2007 )

● “I see that I have alarmed you...I am a lover of America” (Page 1- Chapter 1) - Right off
the bat Changez is discussing stereotypes and how a beard has become synonymous with a
person who is possibly dangerous/a terrorist. We also get the first description of what
Changez may look like, as well as the first part of the dramatic monologue and the American
Stranger.

● “I can assure you that everything I have told you thus far happened, for all intents and
purposes, more or less as I have described.”

● “I can assure you that I am a believer in nonviolence; the spilling of blood is abhorrent to me,
save in self-defense … I can see from your expression that you do not believe me. “

● “But why are you reaching into your jacket, sir? I detect a glint of metal. Given that you and I
are now bound by a certain shared intimacy, I trust it is from the holder of your business
cards.”

● “I am being dishonest” (Changez, to the American) - makes readers question his integrity and
the reliability of his narration

The dramatic monologue has a fantastical element. It is a form that is playful. It allows you
to bend reality in a way that tempts the reader with suspicion and disbelief.

Purpose of the DM: voice of other/ reader opp to get different perspectives/ unreliable
narrator/ ambiguity - reader to understand power

● If the book was meant to champion the “other”, why didn’t Mohsin Hamid end the book by
PROVING to us that the American is bad and Changez is innocent? - this ambiguity is
deliberate, so that readers don’t commit the same colonial evil of a “Single Story” from the
other side. Post Colonial Reading

● “it is the thrust of one’s narrative that counts, not the accuracy of one’s details.”

● “But surely it is the gist that matters”

● “You can trust me… I am not in the habit of investing untruths!”
 ● “Dirty our hands” (Page 123, Chapter 9)

● “Emissary to intimidate me or worse” (pg. 183)

Change/ Identity

● “You're a watchful guy. you know where that comes from?" I shook my head. "It comes
from feeling out of place," he said. "Believe me. I know.” - Shows Changez as the other in
the book. Shown through the feeling of alienation as one would in a foreign country. Since he
is giving this quote as advice we can tell that he is talking about his past experiences whilst
being in America.

● “You have reminded me of how alien I found the concept of acquaintances splitting the bill
when I first arrived in your country. “mutual generosity over mathematical precision” -
Throughout the book, M.H gives examples of what being an outsider in a foreign country
feels like. This quote shows Changez as the other realising his differences.

● “I recall the Americanness of my own gaze”

● “A different way of observing is required”

● “Lacked a stable core”

● “I had not shaved my two-week old beard… a symbol of my identity… to remind myself
of the reality I had just left behind”

● “Veneer”

● “Trust me. I’m not in the habit of inventing untruths!” (Page 152, Chapter 10)

● “Push back the veil behind all this had been concealed!”

● “You retreated into myths of your own superiority.” (Page 168, Chapter 11)

● “You were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked
you” (pg. 168)

● “..try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously

imagined ourselves to be.” (Page 174, Chapter 12)

● “Single most important priority of our species” (pg 178)

● “..emissary to intimidate me or worse”- (Page 183, Chapter 12)

● “No country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so
many people so far away, as America” - use this instead of smile
Fallen Empire/ American Imperialism

● “I said I was from Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the
Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York”- the beginning of the parallels
Changez creates between Pakistan and New York with the theme of the fallen empire
(through the diction with phrases such as “ancient capital”)

● “ the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians…..
To be reminded of this vast disparity was, for me, to be ashamed. ”

● “..in a position to conduct themselves in the world as though they were its ruling class” (Page
21- Chapter 2)

● “… I did something in Manila I had never done before: I attempted to act and speak, as much
as my dignity would permit, more like an American.”

● “I stared as one — and then the other — of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade
Center collapses. And then I smiled.”

● “I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for the first time I was
struck by its determination to look back.”

● “There really could be no doubt; I was a modern-day janissary, a servant of the American
empire at a time when it was invading a country with kinship to mine “

● “...like Pakistan, America is, after all, a former English colony...” - Changez challenging
America through the theme of colonialism. Shows both the irony of Changez feeling like a
qsagainst immigrants and a fear of them post 9/11.
●
● “ it seemed to me that America, too, was increasingly giving itself over to a dangerous
nostalgia at that time.”
● “finance was a primary means by which the American empire exercised its power”
● “I was struck by how traditional your empire appeared”

Alienation/integration

● “I was, in four and a half years, never an America; I was immediately a New Yorker.”

● “Then pretend,” I said, “pretend I am him.”

 ● “I know only that I did not wish to blend in with the army of clean-shaven youngsters
who were my coworkers, and that inside me, or multiple reasons, I was deeply angry.”

● “Foreigners sense of being watched” - (PAGE 31- CHAPTER 3)- Did Changez feel the same
sense of being watched in America? Also creates a tension filled atmosphere as it causes the
reader to further question whether Changez is actively spying/watching the American stranger
in a possible terrorist maneuver

● “well-liked as an exotic acquaintance by some”- Shows how the Princetonians saw him as
‘exotic’ simply because he was an outsider

● “I was separated from my team at immigration”

● “I was dispatched for a secondary inspection”

● “We were marvelously diverse...and yet we were not”- (Page 38, Chapter 3)- They may on
first glance look like a multicultural and diverse group which has integrated to function like
one unit, but in fact, that is not the case. They are virtually the same, and this could possibly
further extend to America as a whole, as a country that seemingly is very multicultural, but in
fact, only the people who fit into the idealised stereotype and conform can truly function
without problems in their society.

● “I have felt rather like a Kurtz waiting for his Marlow”

Setting +Food imagery

● “It is odd how the character of a public space changes”
● In the beginning, Old anarkali, is described as a “congested” marketplace- adjectives such as
“warm” and “pleasant” to illustrate the atmosphere.

● Chapter 3- “shadows have lengthened,” immediately setting a more dim and unsure
atmosphere, creating a sense of foreboding for the coming chapters.

● Reflected in the American’s behaviour, which Changez compares to an animal in

“unfamiliar surroundings,” bringing in the predator or prey metaphor that runs throughout
the story.

● “mounted man over the man on foot” and how in Old Anarkali the mounted man is
“forced to dismount”- highlights that there is no hierarchy in Old Anarkali and the power
one would presume that the American holds is absent, putting him at a disadvantage.

● This eerie ambience is being carried forward through the use of foreshadowing, when
Changez refers to their meeting as “night of great importance,” which is “taking a turn
towards the grimmer side”.
 ● Towards the end of their stay at the cafe, Changez and the American are alone, and the
marketplace has taken on an “ominous edge”- The suspicious atmosphere influences the way
in which Changez and the American both act.

● Initially Changez talks proudly of Lahore, referring to it as the “city of my birth” and the
“ancient capital of Punjab”.

● New York capital of the ‘American Empire’.

● Changez mentions that upon moving to New York he felt “unexpectedly like coming
home”, and how he was “immediately a New Yorker”.

● However, on his first day at Underwood Samson (a true representation, or symbol for the
US), he realizes that it was “another world from Pakistan.”

● His identity slowly begins to shift toward America, as he “did not think of himself as a
Pakistani, but as an Underwood Samson trainee,” and later as a “young New Yorker with
the city at (his) feet”.

● Post 9/11, the setting of New York drastically changes, along with Changez’s attitude
towards it, as he feels “joy” that someone had finally “brought America to her knees”-
highlights the theme of Fallen empires and Changez’s realization that America is just like any
other country “condemned to atrophy”.

● New York was “in mourning”, and Changez began to feel “uncomfortable in his own face”
in a city he once identified with greatly.

● Upon returning to Lahore, Changez is ashamed at how “shabby” his home had become,
before he realizes that it wasn’t the house that had changed, but he had changed. The
realization that he was viewing his home through the “eyes of a foreigner” angered him, and
made him feel “possessed”.

● Mohsin Hamid uses the setting of Manila to break the news of 9/11- the first thing Changez
notices upon arriving in Manila was that despite expecting to “find a city like Lahore,” he was
met with a landscape similar to that of New York- because of which Changez feels sheepish.
● “I felt powerless; I was angry at our weakness, at our vulnerability to intimidation of this
sort from our—admittedly much larger—neighbor to the east.”
●

● “It is odd how a character of a public space changes”

Predator-Prey motif:
● Erica described as a “lioness” - lionesses do the hunting, he feels like prey to her and is
powerless to resist being drawn to her - Erica as a character and his relationship with her are
 an allegory for America and his relationship with the country, which we can therefore infer
that he sees as a predator in the world

● “..behaviour of an animal that has ventured too far from its lair and is now, in unfamiliar
surroundings, uncertain whether it is predator or prey!” - Definitely alluding to the stranger
being nervous, and possibly unsure of what the outcome of the day is going to be. There
seems to be some form of power struggle to determine who is the prey and predator in this
situation.

● Likening the american’s manner to “a fox in the wild”

● "we are delighted...by the carcasses of our fellow animals" shows the dog-eat-dog nature of
their society
● “I felt powerless; I was angry at our weakness, at our vulnerability to intimidation of this
sort from our—admittedly much larger—neighbor to the east.”

Symbolism
● Chuck, Jim, Mike - “monosyllabically monikered”- their names are stereotypically American
and oversimplified- this reduces them to the reader’s idea of an average american and is a
post-colonial inversion of the reductive lens through which minority characters are usually
portrayed

● Changez is into the sex, Erica can't get wet- "her body had rejected me"- post 9/11 hostility
and rejection from America.

● Changez remarks “Underwood Samson had the potential to transform my life... making my
concerns about money things of the distant past”- shows how money minded Underwood
Samson (and by relation, the United States) really are and how that influences his own
fundamentals (money problems being removed are “transforming his life” which means he
pays a lot of importance to it)

● “She attracted people to her; she had presence, an uncommon magnetism. Documenting
her effect on her habitat, a naturalist would likely have compared her to a lioness: strong,
sleek, and invariably surrounded by her pride.” - This quote about Erica can also be seen as
M.H giving a description of America as Erica is used as a symbol for the country.

● Erica is wearing Chris’ shirt in Greece, says he has an “old world appeal”- shows America’s
obsession and incessant need to hold on to their past/history (Chris having an old world
appeal may be an allusion to him representing Christopher Columbus as he was from the “Old
World” (Europe))

● After the 9/11 attacks Erica is described as “emaciated, detached and so lacking in life”: the
same state America is in

● “I was a modern day janissary” ( Page 152, Chapter 10)

● As the plot progresses, the imagery shifts from describing the “delightful mating call of a
flower” and the fragrant, comforting tea to “Angry and Red Flames” - imagery becomes more
 violent as the tension between him and the American grows and is mirrored in the
environment

Power
● “I felt powerless; I was angry at our weakness, at our vulnerability to intimidation”
● “ Finance was the primary mean by which the American empire exercised its power” (pg.
156)
● “You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority.”
● Changez’s didactic tone- resents America interfering with/trying to control the rest of the
world, yet sees himself - admittedly “never an American” - as worthy of passing judgement
on all of America. Hypocrisy
● PAGE 182

Ending

● Ambiguity - making the reader choose their own interpretation of events, which forces them
to acknowledge and reassess their own biases/prejudice - Reader response theory

● If the book was meant to champion the “other”, why didn’t Mohsin Hamid end the book by
PROVING to us that the American is bad and Changez is innocent? - this ambiguity is
deliberate, so that readers don’t commit the same colonial evil of a “Single Story” from the
other side. Post Colonial Reading

Mohsin Hamid Interview:

● “Changez is a mongrel who resists his mongrelization”: simile comparing Changez to a dog,
implying he is inferior to purebred dogs due to the hybridized identities under attack
● “Changez’s voice speaking to the American...comes out of the quasi-Victorian, elite private
schooling voices”
● He becomes at once ashamed and proud of his background. It is a strange dichotomy. The
novel implicates the audience; it holds up a mirror to what they are. In that process, the
author establishes a conversation with the audience. (Hamid 2007)
● Numerous hints are given throughout the novel that Changez is not entirely a reliable
character. (Hamid 2007)
● “In my view of the world, nostalgia can be both a crippling feeling and one that makes you
stronger. Erica’s affliction makes evident nostalgia’s multi-dimensional presence.” (Mohsin
Hamid 2007)
● “Roots adrift”

Martyrdom- fighting for a set of values and beliefs that you strongly believe in. Sacrificing for a
better outcome.

TRF- changez sacrifices the advantages hat he got by working in underwood Samson- power,
prestige. Sacrificed that set of values in underwood Sampson.