Possessed by whiteness: Interracial affiliations and racial melancholia in Mohsin Hamid’sThe Reluctant Fundamentalist

Abstract

Drawing on whiteness studies and psychoanalytical theory, this article explores representations of interracial relationships as a means to claim and/or contest the ideal of whiteness in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. In Hamid's novel, the 9/11 attacks trigger a crisis in self-identification for model-minority Pakistani protagonist Changez, which proves illuminating in terms of the invisible racial subjugation exerted so far upon him by Jim, Changez's passport into the corporate world, and by Erica, his (white) lifeline to exclusive Manhattan. The article focuses on the ways in which Hamid uses the post 9/11 context to reveal the racial melancholia surreptitiously informing today's "new" versions of the American Dream, which is apparent in Changez's and Erica's relationship as well as in their parallel impossible mourning of the broken mirror of "white" Am/Erica. Emphasizing the extent to which whiteness and racial melancholia permeate the discourse of assimilation, Hamid's book rewrites the "new" American Dream as what Anne Anlin Cheng has called a "fantasy built on absences".

You Sell Me Out: Representation of Peripheral Pakistan in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

“…When the American wife talks to Rezak, his feelings are expressed as 'His heart, his soul melted, as if a queen had spoken to a foot soldier' (228). This is unlike Hamid, who links the white skin colour of Erica with sickness in The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Munos 2012). Mueenuddin keeps intact a native fixation on white skin colour with its association with the generous and benevolent American Sonia who says, patronisingly, 'This is my place, now.…”

Post-9/11 re-orientalism: Confrontation and conciliation in Mohsin Hamid’s and Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“…The Reluctant Fundamentalist grabbed literary attention with its deployment of the less-common, Camus-inspired, dramatic monologue style (Ilott, 2013; Morey, 2011), which, as critics swiftly noted, permits no other voices (Munos, 2012: 400). From the outset, Nair distanced herself from the novel’s style: “The book is a monologue of a Pakistani man talking to an American who doesn’t say a word […] That’s not going to sell any tickets.…”

“…As Hamid noted, “The effect I was reaching for […] is that you’re in a theatre and there’s one actor on the stage taking you through the play” (Kaplan, 2013: n.p.). This leads to the monologue style, addressed to an unnamed and voiceless American (Munos, 2012: 400), who can be interpreted as a stand-in for the (Western) target reader. This narrative technique provides the reader with Changez’s perspective, preventing him or her from hearing or seeing the American’s perspective, and thus “refusing the normalizing consolation of a dialogue” (Morey, 2011: 139).…”

“…Changez’s tone is all-important in Hamid’s representation of the Pakistani perspective, which is defensive and wronged. Claudia Perner writes of the “over-polite narrative voice” (2011: 29), and Delphine Munos claims that it is increasingly bitter and accusing (2012: 400). Hamid has commented on this in numerous interviews, acknowledging that Changez speaks in a strange accent: “an oddly anachronistic, almost British-sounding but yet undeniably Pakistani form” (Yaqin, 2008: 46).…”

Navigating Economic Inclusion and Psychological Exclusion

“…Other scholars examine racial paradigms of alterity and misrepresentation (Ali & Zafar 2019;Bibi et al 2021;Naqvi 2021) and explore the connections between terrorism and fundamentalism (Singh 2012;Seval 2017). Notably, the pervasive effects of Islamophobia, manifesting as societal threats and suspicion, feature prominently in the discussion of the novel (Chowdhury 2018;Fateh & Mortada 2017;Munos 2012;Tilwani 2019;Maqableh 2022). Conversely, other scholars approach this novel as a countervailing literary response to the prevailing political rhetoric and literary discourses in the post-9/11 United States (Shihada 2015;Hai 2020;Shymchyshyn 2022).A shared consensus between most of these critical arguments is that these racial discourses impede immigrants' ability to achieve assimilation, tolerance, multiculturalism, and the American Dream.…”