When Fundamentalists Return to the Orient: an Analysis of Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" and Mohsin Hamid's "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"

In my essay entitled "When Fundamentalists Return to the Orient: an Analysis of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist" I intend to analyze the analogies in the paths taken by two characters, natives of Asia and emigrated to the West, in two substantially different novels. Kip in The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid in fact move on very different historical chessboards, the end of the Second World War for the former and 11 September for the latter; however, both respond to events by retracting their affiliation with the West, and adopt a position in clear conflict with England and the US. If from an ideological point of view this is presented as a radical choice, from the standpoint of social identity their path is undeniably complex: the choices of both in fact mark a journey that leads them to review the adoption of a model of multicultural and nomadic identity in favour of a sedentary one. Notions of identity in relation to nation / nationalism, to the male gender, and to religion emerge as central stages of a path revealing a painful inner conflict and marked by contradictions. The essay ends with an in-depth examination of the significance of the term 'fundamentalism,' which for Hamid becomes the basic concept of the work to the point of deserving a place in the title: this confirms the fact that the purely ideological meaning seen in a linear anti-imperial perspective contrasts with a whole series of inconsistencies on the psychological and behavioural level on the part of the two characters.