The Reluctant Fundamentalist
This blog is an academic task assigned by Dr. Dilip Baead Sir on the film The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel of the same name. The aim is to deepen our understanding of the text and its adaptation. For further task details, please Click Here
Pre-viewing thinking.
Empire, Hybridity, and the World of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
How do Loomba and Hardt & Negri reframe globalization beyond the center–margin dichotomy?
Ania Loomba’s “New American Empire” and Hardt & Negri’s Empire both push us to rethink globalization. They challenge the idea that the world is simply split between powerful Western “centers” and powerless “margins.” Instead, they reveal power as diffuse, networked, and deterritorialized, flowing through finance, corporations, media, and cultural influence rather than residing in a single nation.
Hardt & Negri’s Empire describes a global governance system that is maintained by interconnected economic, military, and cultural forces. Loomba, while recognizing U.S. dominance, situates it within this broader web of global control.
Seen through this lens, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is not just a story of East versus West. Changez’s journey—from Princeton’s elite to Wall Street’s high-rises, and later to the charged streets of Lahore—reflects how individuals navigate a global network of power that shapes identity, opportunity, and belonging far beyond national borders.
How might these frameworks illuminate the text’s themes of empire, hybridity, and post-9/11 geopolitics?
Reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist alongside Loomba and Hardt & Negri reveals it as a meditation on the reach of empire in the twenty-first century. Changez embodies what Homi Bhabha calls the Third Space—a hybrid identity shaped by both Pakistani heritage and Western capitalist values.
Before 9/11, his hybridity is celebrated; after, it becomes a source of suspicion. This shift reflects how global power defines “security” and “threat,” often through imperial logics that cross borders. Hardt & Negri’s vision of a pervasive Empire is echoed in Underwood Samson, the valuation firm where Changez works, which embodies a capitalist “fundamentalism” as rigid and uncompromising as any ideological extremism.
By resisting simplistic binaries like “civilization” versus “terrorism,” the novel shows how both East and West participate in systems of control—whether through military might or economic dominance. Changez’s disillusionment becomes not a wholesale rejection of the West, but a refusal to accept its uncritical narratives.
What is the significance of Hamid beginning the novel before 9/11 but finishing it afterward?
Mohsin Hamid’s writing process gives the novel its layered power. Conceived before 9/11, the story originally explored identity, ambition, and belonging for a Pakistani man navigating the West. After the attacks, the global atmosphere shifted: suspicion toward Muslims deepened, racial profiling increased, and East–West mistrust became unavoidable.
By completing the novel in this new climate, Hamid infused it with the urgency of post-9/11 geopolitics. The result is a narrative that operates on two levels—an intimate character study and a sharp critique of the corporate, political, and cultural systems that shape perceptions of “the other.” This dual temporality makes the novel a rich exploration of how global events reshape personal lives in ways that are both visible and subtle.
Contextual Research: Mohsin Hamid and the Making of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Hamid began writing The Reluctant Fundamentalist before 9/11, initially focusing on a young Pakistani’s ambitions and cultural negotiations in America. The attacks and their aftermath dramatically shifted the political and cultural context, influencing the novel’s direction.
By finishing it after 9/11, Hamid wove together the personal and the political. Changez’s shift from welcome insider to distrusted outsider mirrors real-world transformations in how Muslim identities were perceived. This dual temporality gives the novel depth, making it both an intimate character study and a reflection on how global events reshape individual lives.
Watching The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Layers of Conflict, Meaning, and Empire
1. Character Conflicts & Themes
2. Title Significance & Dual Fundamentalism
The film subtly links religious and corporate “fundamentalisms” through parallel imagery and dialogue. Underwood Samson’s mantra—focus on the fundamentals—mirrors the dogmatic single-mindedness often associated with extremism. Changez’s “reluctance” surfaces in moments of introspection: he is neither drawn to terrorism nor fully committed to corporate greed. Instead, he occupies a space of skepticism toward both systems, resisting total alignment.
3. Empire Narratives
Post-9/11 paranoia pervades the film—from tense airport interrogations to surveillance scenes—capturing the mistrust between East and West. Mira Nair uses “spaces of ambiguity” (cafés, dimly lit meeting rooms, intimate conversations) to blur lines between friend and foe. This ambiguity forces viewers to question easy moral binaries, showing how individuals can be complicit in systems of power while still seeking spaces of resistance.
Post-Watching Reflections: Dialogue, Adaptation, and Changez’s Place in Empire
1. Reconciliation or Reinforcement of Stereotypes?
Mira Nair’s adaptation aspires to create a dialogue between East and West, offering moments of cultural exchange, empathy, and mutual listening. The framing device—a conversation between Changez and the American journalist Bobby—becomes a microcosm of this effort. However, the film does not entirely escape orientalist framing. Certain visual cues, like the lingering on exoticized Pakistani street scenes, can subtly reinforce the “mystical East” trope. Thus, while it strives for reconciliation, it remains partly caught within the very stereotypes it critiques.
2. Translating Monologue and Ambiguity to Cinema
Mohsin Hamid’s novel unfolds as a one-sided dramatic monologue, with the reader placed in the uneasy role of silent interlocutor. Nair reimagines this for the screen by using flashbacks, parallel storylines, and shifting perspectives, giving the audience more visual and emotional access to Changez’s world. While this opens the story to a wider audience, it also dilutes some of the novel’s deliberate ambiguity. The open-endedness of the book becomes more resolved in the film, reducing the reader-viewer’s interpretive burden.
3. Changez: Resistance, Victim, Both, or Neither?
Changez defies easy categorization. He resists Empire by rejecting the dehumanizing logic of corporate capitalism and speaking openly against U.S. foreign policy. Yet he is also a victim of that same Empire—racially profiled, mistrusted, and alienated in a post-9/11 America. His hybridity means he is both empowered by and vulnerable to global systems of power. This complexity makes him a compelling figure: neither hero nor villain, but a man navigating the fractures of our interconnected, unequal world.
Short Analytical Essay – Key Points (Postcolonial Lens)
1. Hybridity & Third Space (Homi Bhabha)
Changez occupies a “third space,” balancing his Pakistani roots with his Western education and corporate career.
Visually shown through contrasts—Lahore’s warm tones vs. New York’s cold, corporate palette.
His hybridity shifts from an asset (Wall Street success) to a liability (post-9/11 suspicion).
2. Orientalism & Re-Orientalism (Edward Said / Lau & Mendes)
The film partially resists orientalism by humanizing Pakistan beyond conflict zones.
Yet, certain exoticized street and cultural scenes risk reinforcing “otherness.”
Lau & Mendes’ concept of re-orientalism applies: the narrative critiques Western stereotypes but also uses them for dramatic framing.
3. Identity & Power
Underwood Samson’s corporate “fundamentalism” mirrors the dogmatism of extremist politics.
Power is deterritorialized (Hardt & Negri’s “Empire”)—Changez is constrained by global systems rather than just U.S. policy.
4. Resistance
Changez’s final stance—rejecting both terrorism and corporate exploitation—frames him as a reluctant resistor rather than a militant rebel.
The film’s dialogue scenes in Lahore act as microcosms of East–West negotiation.
5. Adaptation Choices
Novel’s monologue replaced with back-and-forth interrogation, softening ambiguity but widening accessibility.
Additional subplots and visual flashbacks give more cultural context but reduce interpretive openness.
Reflective Journal – Personal Positionality
1. Pre-Viewing Assumptions
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Expected a binary East–West conflict narrative; anticipated clear moral positions.
2. Perspective Shift
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Film revealed the fluidity of identity and the impossibility of fixed categories in global politics.
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Recognized how corporate systems can be as ideologically rigid as political extremism.
3. Representation Awareness
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Noted the tension between resisting stereotypes and unintentionally reproducing them.
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Gained appreciation for how postcolonial subjects navigate constant misrecognition.
4. Deeper Understanding
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Postcolonial identity is shaped by both external power structures and internal negotiations.
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Resistance can be subtle—refusal, critique, and dialogue are as potent as overt rebellion.
Barad , Dilip. “(PDF) Nostalgic Impact on Characterization in the ‘Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid.” Researchgate, www.researchgate.net/publication/350517947_Nostalgic_Impact_on_Characterization_in_the_Reluctant_Fundamentalist_by_Mohsin_Hamid. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. 2007.
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