The Reluctant

Fundamentalist
Chapter 5
By Mieca and Dennis
Key Turning Points

A possible cause of Changez’s dissatisfaction with

the United States is revealed.

The events of 9/11 are foreshadowed in the café.

Comparisons between first world and third world

countries are made.
Allusions
 James Bond – only better (ppp72-73)
 Grease/1950s – compares slums of Manila to
1950s America (p73)
Comparisons between nations
 Economically, Manila sits somewhere between New York
and Lahore. In a way it shows Changez to be caught
between two worlds, much like Manila itself is.

 Comparing NY to Lahore isn’t a problem for him- but the

fact Manila is wealthier (because of US influence) disturbs
him.

 The result – “I attempted to act and speak, as much as my

dignity would permit, more like an American” since he
wanted to share the respect Filipinos had for his American
colleagues. In a sense, he wants to be one of them though
admits “I was often ashamed.”
Erica & Jim
 She is distant, a world away.

 He “did not belong” but he “never stopped swimming” and is the

embodiment of the American Dream – he has risen from poverty to
great financial success. (p80)

 Changez doesn't’t feel the same way – though finds a similarity in that
he was “at the candy store” when his family’s fortunes declined.

 This prompts him to reflect on the nostalgia of his family for their past
success. It “was their crack cocaine… and my childhood was littered
with the consequences of their addiction.” (p81)
Changez’s withholdings
 Changez hides his feelings at several points of the novel:

 In this chapter-

1. ‘I was often ashamed. But outwardly I gave no sign of this.’

2. ‘I never let on that I felt like I didn’t belong to this world.
Just like you.’ (Jim says of himself but relates to Changez)
3. ‘I tried therefore to be as nonchalant as possible.’
4. ‘this allowed me to share in the anxiety of my colleagues
and ignore for a time my initial sense of pleasure.’
The American
 Changez compares himself and the American to the bats
– “They are successful city dwellers, like you and I,
swift enough to escape detection and canny enough to
hunt among a crowd” (p72)
 Changez remarks that the American is “remarkably
well-traveled for an American—for a person of any
country, for that matter.” He wonders aloud what
“business” brings the American to Lahore. (p73)

 What is Changez’s perception of the American?

Key Quotes of this chapter
… like butterflies and fireflies, they belonged to a
dreamier world incompatibles with with pollution and
congestion of a modern metropolis. Pg 71

I am increasingly curious as to the nature of your

business… pg 73

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. Pg 75
We were mired in traffic, unable to move, and I
glanced out the window to see, only a few feet away,
the driver of a jeepney returning my gaze. There was
an undisguised hostillity in hi expression… pg76

I looked at him – at his fair hair…his oblivious

immersion in…our work…and thought, you are so
foreign. I felt at that moment much closer to the
Filipino driver than to him. pg 77

I never let on that I felt like I didn’t belong in this

world. Just like you. Pg 80
But did I grow up with a poor boy’s sense of longing, in my
case not for what my family had never had, but for what we
had had and lost. Pg 81

In this Jim and I were indeed similar: he had grown up

outside the candy story, and I had grown up on its threshold
as its door was being shut. 81

And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my

initial reaction was to be remarkable please. Pg 83

I was caught up in the symbolism of it all, that the fact that

someone had so visibly brought America to its knees. Pg 83.
Night falls
 Changez tells the American “I wish to warn you
before I proceed.” (p82)
 He offers the American a drink, who declines.

 We need to look at how the change to night and

pause in the narration affects the mood?
9/11 – p83
Why Changez smiles at the fall of the twin towers.
 He is “remarkably pleased.”
 He is “caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that
someone had so visibly brought America to her knees.”
 He is happy that America had been exposed and threatened.

 Though he states he is “no sociopath” and is perplexed that he

is “pleased at the slaughter of thousands of innocents.”

 The American is now disturbed and “clenches is hand into a

fist.”