Chapter 9: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

1. Chapter 9: The Reluctant Fundamentalist Changez visits Pakistan, realises how Americanised his perspective has become and sets this right again. He is angry at how vulnerable his country has become, he feels he has abandoned his country and family. He grows a beard, almost in ‘protest’. He visits Erica in an institution, where it appears she is intent on disappearing.

2. Chapter 9: Tone • The tone becomes more ominous in this chapter. C experiences hostility from India while in Pakistan and from his colleagues upon his (bearded) return to New York. • At a dinner in honour of Changez, his family speak constantly of the threat of war with India. “My brother cleaned his shotgun.” (p.145) • Erica also intimates her forthcoming disappearance • In the parallel narrative, C orders dessert, describing it as the “perfect sweetener for an evening such as ours, which is taking a turn towards the grimmer side”. (p. 157)

3. Chapter 9: The American • Changez advises the American to eat with his hands: “There is great satisfaction to be had in touching one’s prey” (p.140) • Further hints are dropped as to the identity of the American: “Aha! Then you have been in the service, sir, just as I suspected!” (p.147)

4. Chapter 9: Erica • Changez visits Erica in a clinic where he is warned that she is in love with someone else, that: “in her mind she was experiencing things that were stronger and more meaningful than the things she could experience with the rest of us.” (p.151) • She warns him to distance himself from her, saying that “it hurts when you care about someone and they go away” (p. 153). C considers ‘abducting’ her.

5. Chapter 9: Changez’s identity • Changez is ashamed of the home to which he has returned: “this was my provenance, and it smacked of lowliness.” (p.141) but comes to realise that it is he, not his home, who has changed. He had become “entitled and unsympathetic” and “resolved to exorcise the unwelcome sensibility”. • He is later disturbed that he was “a man lacking in substance and hence easily influenced by even a short sojourn in the company of others” (p.142) • C does not tell his family about Erica – why would this be?

6. Chapter 9: Changez’s identity • The fact that he is soon to leave his family and home behind makes C feel like “a kind of coward in my own eyes, a traitor” He wondered if he was abandoning them for “A well-paying job and a woman whom I longed for but who refused even to see me?” (p.145) “I found it ironic; children and the elderly were meant to be sent away from impending battles, but in our case it was the fittest and brightest who were leaving, those who in the past would have been most expected to remain. I was full of contempt for myself” (p.146) • Changez does not shave his beard as “a form of protest...a symbol of my identity” and later “I was deeply angry.” (p.148) He doesn’t care how this affects his position at Underwood Sampson

7. Chapter 9: Changez’s Journey • Upon his return to America, and as his anger develops, Changez “wondered how it was that America was able to wreak such havoc in the world.... With so few apparent consequences at home.” (p.149) • His work suffers and his appearance is shabby, Jim supports him by offering him the project in Valparaiso, Chile