Chapter 10: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

1. Chapter 10: The Reluctant Fundamentalist Changez travels to Valparaiso, Chile and fails to work properly, preoccupied by thoughts of Erica Your goal: do formulate your own interpretation of Chapter 10

2. Think, Pair, Share • Take two minutes with the person next to you to come up with a sentence to share with the class • The climax of Mohsin Hamid’s novel ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is the culmination of…. • (add at least ten words)

3. Chapter 10: Changez’s Journey • Changez travels to Valparaiso, Chile, for work and becomes disengaged, “preoccupied” and “unable to concentrate” on his task (a liability for Underwood Sampson). • Valparaiso is another city “in decline” • Changez is preoccupied with America’s role in Pakistan’s conflict with India • C has an epiphany on page 165, he is “dazzled and rendered immobile by the sudden broadening of [his] arc of vision.” On page 168, he gains profound insight.

4. Chapter 10: Changez’s Journey • C describes the time as “the threshold of great change” • After gaining some insight into himself as a kind of “modern-day janissary” a man who “lacks a stable core”, he also tells his manager that he refuses to work • “all [he] knew was that his days of focusing on fundamentals were done”

5. Chapter 10: Juan-Batista and Changez’s ‘Janissaries epiphany’ • C meets Juan-Batista, an elderly man who heads the publishing company he has been sent to value. C warms to him immediately. J-B sees value in the authentic Changez who tells him that “Books are loved in my family” (p. 161) • J-B notes that C seems “lost”, they have lunch and JB asks “does it trouble you to make your living disrupting the lives of others?” before likening C to the janissaries, who had “fought to erase their own civilizations” (p. 172)

6. Chapter 10: The hostile American interpretation • The chapter opens as C notices a bulge in the jacket of the American’s suit and observes that undercover security agents “tend to favour an armpit holster for their side-arm” (p. 158) thus sowing the seeds of suspicion • C refers to a “firing squad”, “on this of all evenings”

7. Chapter 10: Changez as the spurned lover • Changez worries about Erica’s “illness of the spirit”, in an attempt to understand why he had failed to “penetrate the membrane with which she guarded her psyche” (p. 160) • His “longing for her was undiminished despite [their] months of near-complete separation” (p. 160)

8. CHAPTER 10: Your interpretation • Hamid’s purpose with Chapter 10 is… • In chapter 10, Hamid presents and develops the theme/s of… • The points of view and values that Hamid expresses in chapter 10 include…. • Metalanguage relevant to chapter 10 includes… • My interpretation of chapter 10 is…