ASSIGNMENT

SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE

MAJOR THEMES IN AYED AKHTAR’S DISGRACED

Ayad akthar’s one-act play Disgraced is about Amir Kapoor, an American-born lawyer
whose Muslim background interferes with his promotion to partner at his Jewish-run
legal firm. First staged in 2012, Disgraced confronts themes of Islamophobia, identity
politics, orientalism, and the place of Muslim-Americans and other minorities in post–
9/11 American society. Featuring a multiracial central cast, the play foregrounds
diverging views on Islamic and Judaic tradition, interpretations of the Quran, racial
profiling, surveillance of Muslim communities, and whether assimilation into American
culture is possible for racialized peoples.

The central conflicts in Disgraced are generated by the prejudices that characterize
American culture and politics in the post-9/11 era. Set in New York City in 2011 and
2012, approximately a decade after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that brought
down the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, the play shows characters living in the
shadow of the traumatic event. Within two months of the attacks, the U.S. Congress
passed the Patriot Act, a controversial set of laws that saw dramatic increases in the rights
of government bodies to surveil, investigate, detain, and prosecute civilians in the name
of counter-terrorism—particularly civilians with Muslim backgrounds. In Disgraced,
Imam Fareed is prosecuted under the Patriot Act under suspicion of funding terrorism;
similarly, the FBI questions Abe after his friend Tariq utters inflammatory threats at a
Starbucks, and Abe suspects the FBI is going to pressure him into cooperating with the
FBI by entrapping extremists at his mosque. While the characters of Muslim background
face dire threats to their freedom, Isaac—a white man—complains about heightened
security measures at American airports, which is how he experiences the negative impact
of the Patriot Act. In response, Amir reveals that he submits to the added scrutiny at
airports by giving himself over to officials for questioning whenever he flies. With this
contrast, Akhtar illuminates one of many stark differences in how Muslim-minority
identities and white Americans experience daily reality in the post-9/11 era.

Islamophobia—a fear, dislike, or prejudice against the religion of Islam and its Muslim
followers—is one of the central themes in Disgraced. Akhtar introduces the theme early
in the play by having Emily and Amir discuss how a waiter stared at Amir the night
before; Emily interprets this example of the everyday racism that Muslim-background
characters experience as exposing the gap between what the waiter assumed about Amir
and who Amir "really is." Because of the Islamophobia that pervades American culture as
a result of the "war on terror" the Bush administration launched in the wake of the 9/11
attacks, Amir changes his name to obscure his Muslim background, worrying he will be
associated with terrorism and refused opportunities to advance in his career. The
pervasive suspicion Muslims face also leads Hussein to change his name to Abe, an
allusion to Abraham Lincoln. Ironically, Amir reveals that he holds Islamophobic ideas
himself: to counter Isaac's and Emily's "well-intentioned" but "naïve" embrace of Islamic
traditional art, Amir launches into a lengthy explanation of the brutality he sees as
inherent to the Quran, and says that, "The next terrorist attack is probably gonna come
from some guy who more or less looks like me." Amir's Islamophobia is complicated
further when he supports his argument by admitting that hateful aspects of Islam still live
within him despite his efforts to root them out, and that he felt a blush of pride when the
Twin Towers fell because it meant Islam was "finally winning." With this paradoxical
element of Amir's identity established, Akhtar invites the audience to question whether
Amir's negative reading of Islam is based on a good-faith interpretation of the Quran or a
fear of the crueler tendencies Amir perceives within himself.

Juxtaposed with Islamophobia is the theme of antisemitism—prejudice or hostility

against Jewish people. Anti-Jewish sentiment first arises in Scene 1, when Amir tells
Emily and Abe the story of how his mother spat in his face and threatened to break his
bones when she found out his first crush was on a Jewish girl; the story ends with Amir
saying he in turn spat in the Jewish girl's face at school the next day. Amir tells the story
to justify his renunciation of Islam, which he associates with antisemitism, among other
forms of hatred. While alone on stage with Jory in Scene 3, Amir talks about how
minorities such as he and Jory are "the new Jews" in the New York legal landscape, and
he suggests that their Jewish bosses will never promote them to be equal partners. Akhtar
further builds on the theme of Amir's apparent hostility toward Jews when Isaac tells
Emily that Amir said at work that his bosses wouldn't have scrutinized him if he had been
pictured in the paper with a rabbi instead of an imam, a comment that his boss Steven
interprets as antisemitic. Ultimately, it is ambiguous whether Amir is hostile toward his
bosses because they are scrutinizing his Muslim background or because he has not rid
himself of the antisemitism his mother instilled in him as a child.

Another of the major themes in Disgraced is the place of minority identities in

mainstream American society. Akhtar introduces the theme with Emily's portrait of Amir,
which shows him surrounded by the luxuries of a spacious apartment and a six-hundred-
dollar shirt. Emily says she hopes to depict Amir as a minority who has succeeded as a
lawyer and attained the prosperity promised by the "American dream." However, Emily's
depiction is complicated by the fact that she has Amir strike the pose of Juan de Pareja,
an enslaved artist's assistant who lived in the 17th century. Amir says it's "a little fucked
up" that her portrait likens him to a slave, even if the original painting sought to depict
the slave with dignity. Akhtar builds on the symbolism of Emily's painting in Scene 3
when Isaac suggests that despite the affluence surrounding Amir in the portrait, the
portrait raises the question of Amir's "place." With this euphemistic statement, Isaac
suggests that some people will never see a minority like Amir as having been assimilated
into American culture, even when he has succeeded within the American legal system.
Amir also questions his place, suspecting that his Muslim background will preclude him
from being made partner at his mostly Jewish law firm. Amir seeks to make an allegiance
with his colleague Jory, an African-American lawyer, arguing that people like them will
only ever be "just invited to the party" and not put in positions of power like their bosses.
Ironically, Jory has already been made partner, complicating Amir's belief that he is
being discriminated against because of his minority background. The play ends with
Amir—fired from the firm and separated from Emily—staring into Emily's portrait of
him. The image suggests that Amir questions whether he has lost his place as an
American success story because of his minority identity or because of conflicts stemming
from his individual personality.

Orientalism—the representation of Middle Eastern and Asian people and cultural

products in a stereotypical, colonialist way—arises most overtly as a theme in Emily's
embrace of Islamic traditional art. Although she is a white Anglo-Saxon protestant, Emily
creates artworks that borrow from Islamic tiling traditions, among other ancient Islamic
forms. Isaac warns her that her work will be viewed as orientalist, but she disputes the
notion, insisting that her work is a sincere and transparent embrace of a culture that
already informs the foundation of white Western culture and art. Isaac becomes
convinced by the argument and stages a show at the Whitney Museum inspired by
Emily's ideas about paying homage to the sacred aspect of Islamic culture. Amir,
however, remains antagonistic to what he considers a naïve embrace of art forms that
have arisen from a religious culture that advocates for beating women and stoning people
to death. Despite his objections, Amir seems to have a change of opinion by the end of
the play, and he tells Emily that he finally understands her work. Ultimately, Akhtar
counterposes Amir's wholly negative reading of Islam and Emily's positive reading to
show how both attitudes stereotype Islamic culture, resulting in polarized opinions that
obscure the nuances inherent to any culture.

Duplicity—meaning both "deceitfulness" and "doubleness"—is another major theme in

Disgraced. Deceit is embodied in each of the characters, coming out in Emily and Isaac's
affair, Amir's concealment of his Muslim background, and Jory's concealment of the fact
that she has been promoted. The theme of duplicity also emerges in the dual facets of
Abe's and Amir's identities: as they both struggle to make efforts to assimilate into
mainstream American society, both men change their names to obscure their Muslim
backgrounds, and they both maintain a sometimes paradoxical mixture of beliefs,
simultaneously embracing the concept of the life of freedom and affluence promised in
America and harboring allegiance to the Islamic fundamentalist teachings they have
absorbed from their families. Duplicity also arises in the context of Amir's law career.
When the Times runs an article that associates him with an imam who is being tried for
allegedly funding terrorism, Amir worries his Jewish bosses will not promote him to
partner. By the end of the play, it is clear that Amir has not been promoted; however, it
remains ambiguous as to whether Amir's Jewish employers decide not to make him
partner because they are Islamophobic or because Amir, as an individual, cannot be
trusted. Jory explains that Amir's duplicity is what makes him a successful lawyer, but
the trait also makes it impossible for his bosses to trust him.