Lesson Element

The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Introduction

Instructions and answers for teachers
These instructions cover the student activity section which can be found on page 5. This Lesson
Element supports the teaching of The Reluctant Fundamentalist for OCR AS Level English
Literature, Component 02.

When distributing the activity section to the students either as a printed copy or as a Word
file you will need to remove the teacher instructions section.

 Learners are required to communicate fluently, accurately and effectively their knowledge,
understanding and judgement of their set text.

 Learners are required to understand the significance of cultural and contextual influences
on readers and writers.

 Learners are required to identify and consider how attitudes and values are expressed in
their chosen texts.

 Learners are required to explore connections between their set text and thematically linked
unseen extracts.

Introduction
OCR recognises that the teaching of this qualification will vary greatly from school to school and
from teacher to teacher. With that in mind this lesson plan is offered as a possible approach but will
be subject to modifications by the individual teacher.

Lesson length is assumed to be one hour.

This activity is designed as an introduction to key themes and aspects of language and form in The
Reluctant Fundamentalist. It will be likely that students will have read the novel in advance but, if
they haven’t, the exercise should give them things to look out for as they read.

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Teacher Preparation

Learning Objectives for the Lesson

Objective 1 Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of some of
the key themes and ideas of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.(AO1)
Objective 2 Students will be able to analyse some of the key features of
language and style of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.(AO2)
Objective 3 Students will be able to identify some of the geo-political and
cultural issues needed to make sense of The Reluctant
Fundamentalist.(AO3)

Recap of previous experience and prior knowledge

Remind students of the Specification Aims, Assessment Objectives and text requirements for this
component (especially AO2 – the shaping of meaning).

Summarise ideas and themes to emerge from discussion of extracts from other prose fiction
dealing with the immigrant experience.

Prepare
 A short power-point presentation about Mohsin Hamid: key aspects of his biography, his
writing career to date, and most importantly his reaction to the terrorist attacks in America
on 11 September 2001. The best resource for this is his collection of journalism Discontent
and its Civilisations (Penguin, 2105).
 A handout with the list of key themes and aspects of form and language.
 A handout with thirteen short quotations from the novel.
 Cards with one or two of quotations from the novel printed on them.

Task Instructions:
1. Biography and Context (10 minutes)

Show students the power-point about Mohsin Hamid. This may include some footage of the 9/11
attacks which is readily available on You-Tube but you might prefer to limit yourself to still images.
Lead discussion and encourage justification of ideas.

2. Introduction to the novel (15 minutes)

Talk students through the hand-out which lists key aspects of form and key themes and ideas. With
time allowing, you might want to have copies of ‘My Last Duchess’ available to illustrate the idea of
dramatic monologue.

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3. Close reading exercise (15 minutes)

Get students working in pairs and distribute cards with one or two of the quotations printed on
them. You can always add to the quotations if you need to. Display the following instruction on a
power-point slide: Read your extract(s) carefully, paying attention to the choice of the words and
the rhythm of the writing. What comments can you make about the style and language of your
extract, especially its ‘voice’? What connections can you make between the quotations and the lists
of themes and aspects of form? What sort of contextual knowledge might you need to make sense
of the quotations here? Support students in their work and have extra cards available for those
who finish the task quickly.

4. Plenary (15 minutes)

Distribute the hand-out with all the quotations on it. Get each pair to feed-back their responses.
Encourage each pair to make connections between their quotations and those explore by others.
Develop answers and try to focus on aspects of Hamid’s language and imagery, especially the
construction of Changez’s voice.

Here are some possible areas of discussion:

Quotation 1: the divided immigrant sense of identity; attitudes to America; terrorism and political
violence. Links to quotations 2, 5, 6, 9 and 13.

Quotation 2: urban setting; cultural identity; issues of sexuality; clothes. Links to quotations 1, 8, 11
and 13.

Quotation 3: dramatic monologue; animal images; violence. Links to quotations 2, 8 and 13.

Quotation 4: issues of sexuality and gender; grief and loss; ideas of representation. Links to
quotations 6 and 10.

Quotation 5: capitalism; globalisation; ideas of America; questions of identity. Links to quotations 1,

6, 7 and 13.

Quotation 6: images of representation; dramatic monologue; ideas of America; political violence;

ideas of Islam; grief and loss. Links to quotations 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 13.

Quotation 7: different definitions of fundamentalism; allegorical names; capitalism. Links to

quotations 5, 6, and 9.

Quotation 8: dramatic monologue; construction of the unnamed American; violence. Links to

quotation 3.

Quotation 9: different definitions of fundamentalism; unreliable narration; ideas of Islam and

Pakistan. Links to quotations 1, 5, 6 and 13.

Quotation 10: death, grief and loss; identity; allegorical names. Links to quotation 4.

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Quotation 11: urban setting; connections and contrasts between Pakistan and America; food motif.
Links to quotations 1 and 2.

Quotation 12: Cultural identity and difference, capitalism/globalisation. Links to quotations 5 and 7.

Quotation 13: Ideas of America, cultural identity and imperialism; ethnic and cultural difference;
capitalism/globalisation; different definitions of fundamentalism; symbolism of the jeepney; ideas of
performance. Links to quotations 1, 5, 7 and 12.

5. Summary and setting of homework tasks (5 mins)

Ask students to re-read the first chapter of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and list five things they
didn’t notice from their first reading.

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Lesson Element

The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Introduction

Student Activity

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Key Themes:

 Identity and its construction. Hamid says: ‘The self we create is a fiction.’ 1
 Ethnic and cultural difference.
 Social class.
 Family.
 Gender.
 Love and sexuality.
 Capitalism/finance/globalisation.
 Terrorism and political violence.
 Fundamentalism.
 Death.
 Grief and loss.
 Ideas of America.
 Ideas of Islam.
 The past/nostalgia.

1
Mohsin Hamid, ‘Enduring Love of the Second Person’ in Discontent and Its Civilisations, p.79.

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist Key Aspects of Form:
Review the presentation on Fitzgerald’s life then complete the table below listing each event or
aspect of her life in order of importance. Provide a justification for each event.

 The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a dramatic monologue; you might be more used to applying
this term to poetry (to Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’, for example) but it’s very helpful
here too. The critic M.H. Abrams says a dramatic monologue has three key characteristics:

1. A single person, who is patently not the writer, utters the speech that makes up the whole of
the text, in a specific situation at a critical moment […].

2. This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people; but we know of the
auditors' presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single
speaker.

3. The main principle controlling the writer's choice and formulation of what the speaker says
is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker's temperament
and character.2

Hamid has said that his use of the direct address to the unidentified ‘you’ was ‘to try to show, after
the terrorist attacks of 9/11, how feelings already present inside a reader – fear, anger, suspicion,
loyalty – could colour a narrative so that the reader, as much as or even more than the writer, is
deciding what is really going on.’3

 Anachronic narrative structure: in other words, the narrative isn’t told in chronological order as
the story moves between the present events in Lahore (the conversation between Changez
and the unidentified ‘you’) and what happened to Changez in the past.

 The use of an unreliable narrator. Changez insists that he is ‘not in the habit of inventing
untruths’ (172) but it’s far from clear that we can trust everything he says and Hamid includes
several ambiguous details (such as the origin of the scar on his arm) to emphasise this.

 Changez’s voice: Hamid has described it as ‘born of the British colonial inflections taught in
elite Pakistani schools and coloured by an anachronistic [i.e. out of time, old-fashioned],
courtly menace that resonates well with popular Western preconceptions of Islam.’4 Hamid
gives Changez quite complex but very formal language; his syntax [i.e. the order of words in a
sentence] is often elaborate and artificial with plenty of embedded subordinate clauses.

 Images of animals, especially of predators.

 References to popular culture, especially to films, and to ideas of representation and

performance more generally.

 Urban settings around the world: New York, Lahore, Manila, Valparaiso.
2
M. H. Abrams (ed.), A Glossary of Literary Terms 8th ed. (Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), pp. 70-71.
3
Mohsin Hamid, ‘Enduring Love of the Second Person’ in Discontent and Its Civilisations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2015), p.78.
4
Mohsin Hamid, ‘My Reluctant Fundamentalist’ in Discontent and Its Civilisations, p.70.

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 References to the senses, especially to taste and smell; descriptions of food and meals are
frequent.

 Use of puns and names with allegorical significance (Underwood-Samson, Erica, Changez).

The Reluctant Fundamentalist Introduction

Quotations

1. I was not at war with America. Far from it: I was the product of an American university; I
was earning a lucrative American salary; I was infatuated with an American woman. So
why did part of me desire to see America harmed?
2. It was a testament to the open-mindedness and - that overused word - cosmopolitan
nature of New York in those days that I felt completely comfortable on the subway in
this attire. Indeed, no one seemed to take much notice of me at all, save for a gay
gentleman who politely offered me an invitational smile.
3. I hope you will not mind my saying so, but the frequency and purposefulness with which
you glance about […] brings to mind the 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!
4. I had seen her in a bikini before - indeed, I had seen her topless - but as she sat on my
futon in her bra I felt I had never seen her so naked. Her body had lost its tan and
appeared almost blue in the glow of the television […]. She appeared otherworldly; she
could have sprung from the pages of a graphic novel.
5. now I saw that in this constant striving to realise a financial future, no thought was given
to the critical personal and political issues that affect one’s emotional present.
6. I turned on the television and saw what at first I took to be a film. But as I continued to
watch, I realized that it was not fiction but news. I stared as one – and then the other –
of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes,
despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkable pleased.
7. Focus on the fundamentals. This was Underwood Samson’s guiding principle, drilled
into us since our first day at work. It mandated a single-minded attention to financial
detail, teasing out the true nature of those drivers that determine an asset’s value.
8. When you sit in that fashion, sir, with your arm curved around the back of the empty
chair beside you, a bulge manifests itself through the lightweight fabric of your suit,
precisely at that point parallel to the sternum where the undercover security agents of
our country - and indeed, one assumes, of all countries - tend to favour wearing an
armpit holster for their sidearm. No, no, please do not adjust your position on my
account!
9. And lest you think that I am one of those instructors, in cahoots with young criminals
who have no interest in education and who run their campus factions like marauding
gangs, I should point out that the students I tend to attract are bright, idealistic scholars,
possessed of both civility and ambition.
10. Suffice it to say that theirs had been an unusual love, with such a co-mingling of

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 identities that when Chris died, Erica felt she had lost herself: even now, she said, she
did not know if she could be found.
11. It was a warm evening, like this one - summer in New York being like spring in Lahore.
A breeze was blowing then, again as it is now, and it carried a smell of flame-cooked
meat not dissimilar to that coming to us from the many open-air restaurants in this
market that are beginning their preparations for dinner. The setting was superb, the
wine was delicious, the burgers were succulent, and conversation was for the most part
rather pleasant.
12. “What do you know of books?” he asked us. “I specialise in the media industry,” Jim
replied. “I’ve valued a dozen publishers over two decades.” “That is finance,” Juan-
Bautista retorted. “I asked what you knew of books.”
13. 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
hostility in his expression; I had no idea why. […] Then one of my colleagues asked me
a question, and when I turned to answer him, something rather strange took place. I
looked at him – at his fair hair and light eyes and, most of all, his obvious immersion in
the minutiae of our work – and thought, you are so foreign. I felt in that moment much
close to the Filipino driver than to him; I felt I was play-acting when in reality I ought to
be making my way home, like the people on the street outside.

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