Reading Reluctance: An Analysis of Mistrust between Adherents of Fundamentalism and Liberalism with a Focus on Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Abstract

This paper highlights the variant aspects of what we may call the reluctance of fundamentalism and liberalism in post-postcolonial contemporary Pakistani literature in English, analyzing comparatively both exclusive and inclusive elements of its extensive canvas. This research project began with curiosity regarding an element of reluctance between two characters of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The two main characters of the novel, Changez and an unnamed American visitor represent allegiances to two different schools of thought: Changez to fundamentalism and the American to liberalism. They have nothing in common except reluctance, a reluctance that does not allow them to trust each other and that is what plays a key role in the absence of any positive expectations from the other. This study seeks an answer to the questions: What are largely the causes that separate human beings? Why can’t we, human beings, trust one another? Why don’t we give everyone the basic right of leading his/her life according to their own deliberate choices? It’s a project of its own novel kind and the deductive method is used for this qualitative- cum-analytical research to review Hamid’s novel. The findings of the research conclude the role of social misrepresentations to be the main cause of mistrust between the followers of two schools of thought.

Keywords

• Reluctance, Mistrust, Social Misrepresentations, Fundamentalism, Neo-liberalism