Explain the Importance of Setting and Atmosphere in the Reluctant Fundamentalist Essay Example

during his time in Princeton.

Changez gets these personal traits from growing up in Pakistan. This setting directly influences Changez’s actions, and when he goes to America his differing values become very obvious. At first Changez in enchanted by America, or more specifically New York. The change in settings for Changez influence him, as he says, into ‘attempting to speak, as much as my dignity would permit, more like an American. ’ As the novel proceeds New York’s initial charm wears off and Changez begins to feel like a ‘Janissary’ who historically were children taken at a young age by the Ottoman Empire and trained to be part of the military.

This usually meant that the Janissarys had no connection to their previous homes. Changez quotes ‘I was a modern day Janissary, a servant of the American empire. ’ This alteration in his attitude occurred because of Changez’s return trip to Lahore. When he first arrived home he saw the house as dirty and in need of repair, but then has an epiphany: ‘it occurred to me that the house had not changed in my absence. I had changed. ’ The change in settings lets Changez view who he had become and he did not like it.

When he returns to America his relationship with it had been ‘blurred’ and he ‘was not able to restore [his] boundaries’. These thoughts eventually act as a catalyst which forces Changez to make the choice to leave America. Throughout the novel the settings which Changez is in directly control him like a puppet on a string. They influence and change him, showing the importance of

the settings in this novel. As the physical settings influence the characters, the atmosphere of the settings is created by the characters. Atmosphere is utilised in this novel to show the characters’ opinions and feelings, especially Changez’s.

The two main atmospheres which largely link to the character’s emotions are the atmosphere in New York before 9/11 and after 9/11, and the atmosphere in the tea house in Lahore. Before 9/11 New York is described by Changez as being a vibrant, welcoming city. He was instantly part of the city, ‘in the subway [his] skin would typically fall in the middle of the colour spectrum. On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. ’, and with his hard work ethic Changez thrived in this atmosphere of possibilities that New York had for foreigners.

This atmosphere was created by a unified tolerance and acceptance that New York had, and in return Changez loved this part of America, and this feeling that New York gave him through the atmosphere, saying at the beginning of the novel ‘I am a lover of America’. Because of this affection for America, Changez chose to close his eyes to its faults. But after 9/11 both Changez and America change drastically. They both start to blame each other for the events of 9/11, and America’s actions afterwards towards the Islamic countries.

The people of America directly blame anyone of Islamic descent, with ‘Pakistani cab drivers being beaten to within an inch of their lives’. In retaliation to this, Changez decides to go against the American way, growing a beard and eventually choosing to leave America. This conflict created a

continuously strengthening hostile atmosphere. The emotions of both parties clashed, and by the end of the novel both America and Changez’s opinions of each other are made very clear through the almost suffocating atmosphere which Changez experienced.

In this setting’s atmosphere the powerful emotions and feelings are fuelled by each other, in turn affecting the character’s actions, and the hostile atmosphere that continues on in America. The other major setting in ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ was the tea house in Lahore. The tea house is the present setting of the novel and has a similar ongoing atmosphere to Changez’s story of America. The Lahore setting runs parallel to the American setting, and there are many similarities between the atmosphere of Lahore and that of America.

Both atmospheres begin as inviting and pleasant, with Lahore being set in a sunny late afternoon with a diversity of people around the two main characters, the traditional family and the art collage girls. As Changez was invited into America, ‘students like [Changez] were given visas and scholarships, complete financial aid, mind you, and invited into the ranks of the meritocracy,’ he invites the American ‘into Lahore’ to experience its culture. As Changez’s time in America progressively turns from good to bad, so does the atmosphere in the tea house.

This progressive worsening of the situation is never dictated in the dialog, but felt through the atmosphere that mainly Changez creates. The American and Changez’s time in the tea house is almost metaphoric to Changez’s experience in America, and the main connection that the two settings hold is the similarity in atmosphere. As this is a very emotion

based novel, the atmosphere helps the reader to understand the situations of the characters better than the actual dialog itself, and this is shown most powerfully in the comparison of Changez’s experiences of America and the tea house in Lahore.

In ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ settings and atmosphere are shown to be two key aspects of developing the main character Changez. The settings control changez’s actions and thoughts, developing him from a youth arriving in America from Pakistan, to a man who chooses to leave America because of his values, and the atmosphere reflects both Changez and America’s outlooks during different periods of history. Because of this the settings and atmosphere are extremely important in the readers understanding of the characters motives and chosen actions.

The text tends to merge these two elements to shown a more in-depth view of Changez without the direct use of dialog. This deeper view of Changez’s situation is perhaps the writer’s intention in order to let people see through the eyes of a Pakistani in America during 9/11. Seeing directly through this one character’s eyes helps the reader to empathise with other Islamic people who lived through this time period.