Social Oppression and American Cultural Imperialism: The Crisis of the Muslim Minority Groups’ Identity in Terrorist by John Updike (original) (raw)
Related papers
Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 2011
In his 'post-9/11 novel' Terrorist (2006) John Updike portrays Ahmad, an American high school boy struggling to come to terms with his hyphenated Arab-Irish-American identity in a multi-ethnic US American environment. Trying to redefine his place as a citizen in a 'western' culture, the stereotypical ascriptions of ' Arab' and 'Muslim' influence the protagonist's self-perception and his identity formation as he "fits the racial profile of white anxiety" (Davis 2001: 48). Updike's representation of a young Muslim-American in post-9/11 New Jersey employs all sorts of clichés and has been heavily criticized by reviewers for the stereotypical and hollow depiction of his young protagonist. In this paper, Updike's fictional interpretation of Islamist terrorism as a literary response to 9/11 and the "Clash of Civilizations" is investigated.
Academy of Education and Social Sciences Review, 4(2), 223–235., 2024
This article studies the Negotiation of Muslim Identity in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012) that Muslim characters practice after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. The paper, moreover, evaluates the Muslim characters encountering the backlash, discrimination, harassment, othering, religious profiling, media propaganda, and alienation despite their complete integration and assimilation into the hostland identity. To explore how the Muslim Immigrant characters, as members of the minority out-group(MO), adopt the strategies of identity negotiation and construct the reactive Muslim identity in the selected play in the post-9/11 American context, The Social Identity Theory by Tajfel and Turner (2004) is used as the theoretical model through the textual analysis and Close Reading Method. The paper, furthermore, aims to study the Muslim characters struggling with the identity crisis and the derogatory treatment from the majority in-group Americans (MI). It also adds to research on the selected play the comprehensive understanding to the readers about the identity negotiations and Muslim identity construct after the 9/11 attacks in America.
2020
This essay explores the dominant rhetoric of American society in the wake of 9/11 as seen through fictional narratives by Muslim-American writers, it also delves into how that rhetoric was shaped by politicians and the media. The novels employed in this essay are The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, Home Boy by H. M. Naqvi and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. The essay examines the temporality of the novel, in particular when it comes to historical fiction, and to what extent time is under the author's control. It looks into migration and the myth of return in immigrant writing and the power of nostalgia both in writing and politics, such as with Donald Trump's infamous slogan "Make America Great Again". Additionally, it analyses the attacks on September 11 as a national trauma that destroyed Americans' illusion of invulnerability and looks at how trauma can be translated in writing. It scrutinises the cultivation of fear both on a domestic and nationwide scale, in particular it focuses on the fear of the imagined 'other' cultivated by the American administration and media following 9/11. This leads into the legitimisation of war, principally the War on Terror; a war that has cost upwards of $6 trillion as of 2019. It discusses Americans' fear of Muslims and, the oft-forgotten other side of the coin, Muslim-Americans fear of American society at large. Throughout, it looks at how the novels at hand both translate and shape experience, arguing that fictional narratives have the potential power to bridge the gap between Muslim-American immigrants and the rest of American society and increase empathy for an ethnic minority that has, in past years, been painted as the 'radical enemy.'
The present study compares the conditions of protagonist of the novel "Changez" with the colonized nation. The Study shows the place of Muslims and Muslim countries in the eyes of Americans after 9/11 incident. Changez as postcolonial subject represents the state of the Muslims, colonized by Europeans. In America his way of living represents him hybrid, who, leaving his native culture adopts the culture of another country. 'Other'is the most important element of postcolonial theory found in the novel. After 9/11 incident Changez feels that he is 'other' means not fully human. Americans' changing attitude makes him diaspora. Before the fall of World Trade Centre he never remembered his home. As a nativist he has beard in protest and leaving his job comes back to Pakistan. Moreover, research will describe the values and demands of the Muslims who were well settled in America since long? The paper will focus on the sudden changing attitude of Americans to Muslims after 9/11 incident.
The present study compares the conditions of protagonist of the novel, Changez, with the colonized nation. The study shows the place of Muslims and Muslim countries in the eyes of Americans after 9/11 incident. Changez as postcolonial subject represents the state of the Muslims, colonized by Europeans. In America his way of living represents him hybrid, who, leaving his native culture adopts the culture of another country. 'Other' is the most important element of postcolonial theory found in the novel. After 9/11 incident, Changez feels that he is 'other' means not fully human. Americans' changing attitude makes him diaspora. Before the fall of World Trade Centre, he never remembered his home. As a nativist, he has beard in protest and leaving his job comes back to Pakistan. Moreover, research will describe the values and demands of the Muslims who were well settled in America since long? The paper will focus on the sudden changing attitude of Americans to Muslims after 9/11 incident.
“The Image of Islam in the Post 911 Era in John Updike’s Terrorist”
2020
This research paper is an attempt to explore the image of Islam manifested in the post 9/11 American literary contexts, an image that revives in the Orientalist studies that intellectually emerged as Neo-Orientalism. In their discourses, many neo-Orientalists overemphasize a distorted image of Islam as an anti-modern, anti-democratic, and anti-Western ideology that is based on antagonism and terrorism against the non-Muslim Western 'Other'. Consequently, Muslims are distortedly depicted as terrorists who hold a Jihadist agenda against Westerners generally and Americans particularly. These neo-Orientalist misrepresentations of Islam and Muslim have highly affected the post 9/11 American literary canon. Published in 2006, John Updike's Terrorist is considered one of the remarkable novels that centers on examining the nature of Islam and the features of Muslims, within the framework of neo-Orientalism. Pivoting around Edward Said's anti-Orientalist approach, this study aims at offering a critical reading of the depiction of Islam and Muslims in Updike's Terrorist. Discussion principally depends on analyzing different quotations from the novel, which represent the nature of Islam and the temperaments of Muslims. The study has concluded that Updike, in Terrorist, misrepresents Islam as an intolerant, antagonistic, anti-Other, and violent religion that constitutes an existentialist threat to the United States.
ORIENTALISM IN JOHN UPDIKE’S NOVEL TERRORIST
JOHN UPDIKE’IN TERRÖRİST ROMANINDA ŞARKİYATÇILIK, 2018
One of the characteristics of American literature since September 11 has been its preoccupation with the discourse of terrorism as writers attempt to comprehend both the reasons and results of the terrorist attacks. The long history of antagonistic conflict between the West and Islam always re-surfaces in the outbreak of new atrocities, and literary responses to September 11 reflect this tendency. As we enter second decade after September 11, the response to September 11 has mostly been in the form of a discourse on terrorism. John Updike, a veteran novelist of great repute, tries to understand the reasons and results of terrorism. However, his efforts fail to engage effectively with the “Other” as he depends on Orientalist biases and stereotypes. The author’ s work portrays individual terrorists as stereotypes of Muslims and then connects those stereotypes to a constructed discourse about Islam. His fictional terrorists’ individual actions are presented as manifestation of their backward and violent religion. These characteristics are then used to contrast with a progressive and enlightened West. The binaries Updike is building on, was anticipated in the theoretical field by Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American literary theoretician. Said states that Western discourse creates prejudices towards non-Western cultures by labeling them as the “Other.” He argues that this discourse continues to manifest itself after September 11. Based on Said’s Orientalism theory, the present paper analyzes John Updike’s novel Terrorist’ s depiction of Islam and Muslims.
Istanbul University Press, 2024
The increase in terrorist attacks at the verge of the 21st century and the politics of associating Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists have brought the subject of Islam and Muslims under serious investigation among scholars of the humanities and social sciences. New vocabulary words such as jihad [struggle], Sharia [Islamic law], Dar alHarb [house of war], Dar al-Islam [house of Islam], hijab [headscarf], al-Qaeda, mujaheddin [jihadist], Taliban, and kafir [disbeliever] were introduced into political and intellectual debates along with new phraseologies such as Islamic terrorism, Islamic extremism, Islamization, Talibanization, Islamic fascism, Islamic jihad, the Green Terror, and Islamic bomb into the daily lexicon to malign the image of Islam and Muslims and to strengthen biased arguments. This chapter aims to analyze the literary response of Muslim writers regarding diaspora and the negative projection of the Muslim identity and stereotypes, especially after the 9/11 incident. The questions are addressed through select literary texts on topics such as how the Muslim identity and hijab identity came under the spotlight of racial and cultural discrimination in Western societies. The study discusses texts such as the Pakastani-Brit H.M. Naqvi’s (2009) Home Boy, PakistaniAmerican-Brit Mohsin Hamid’s (2007) The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Lebanese-American Laila Halaby’s (2007) Once in a Promised Land, Palestinian-Egyptian-Australian Randa Abdel-Fattah’s (2005) Does My Head Look Big in This?, Indian-British Shelina Zahra Jan Mohamed’s (2009) Love in a Headscarf, and Bangladeshi-British Monica Ali’s (2003) Brick Lane. The chapter argues that, despite the ongoing international propaganda campaign against Muslims, they have revisited and reclaimed their identities and resisted and exposed the biases in the contemporary discourses against Islam and Muslims.
The Backlash of 9/11 on Muslims in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist ( by Isam Shihada )
This paper examines how Muslims are harshly treated after the backlash of 9/11 in in Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist and how they become victims and legitimate targets of hate crimes, negative media stereotypes, physical beatings, disappearance, racial profiling, interrogations at American airports, and detentions in secret places. It addresses how such treatment sheds light on the questions of Muslim integration in the American society, citizenship, multiculturalism, identity, and alienation, belonging, and national affiliation. It also disrupts the dominant American official discourse, which links Islam with terror and portrays Muslims as potential terrorists and a threat to America and values of Western civilization. I also argue that Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers a counter literary response not only to the American public rhetoric but also to the dominant literary discourses that prevailed after 9/11, inflamed the American sentiments, and consolidated stereotypes against Islam and Muslims. The study concludes that Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist renders a stark warning message, through its character (Changez) that the harsh treatment of Muslims, American domineering policies, and the blind War on Terror will force many ordinary Muslims to relinquish the American Dream, like Changez, and turn into radicals. The study also reveals that the American reaction toward Muslims after the tragic attacks on 9/11 have been blind, indiscriminate, and disproportionate to such an extent that the very concept of multiculturalism on which the American society is based is threatened. The American society will be prone to internal fissures and disintegration if they fail to accept the “Other” and fail to stop blaming all Muslims for few isolated tragic incidents that they are not actually responsible for. Finally, the research concludes that the mistreatment of Muslims, promotion of Islamophobia, and the War on Terror that followed 9/11 may lead to the exclusion and alienation of Muslims in America, disintegration of the American multicultural society, and the rise of Islamic radical groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Keywords: Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Muslims, post-9/11 fiction, War on Terror
The Backlash of 9/11 on Muslims in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Social Science Research Network, 2015
This paper examines how Muslims are harshly treated after the backlash of 9/11 in Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist and how they become victims and legitimate targets of hate crimes, negative media stereotypes, physical beatings, disappearance, racial profiling, interrogations at American airports, and detentions in secret places. It addresses how such treatment sheds light on the questions of Muslim integration in the American society, citizenship, multiculturalism, identity, and alienation, belonging, and national affiliation. It also disrupts the dominant American official discourse, which links Islam with terror and portrays Muslims as potential terrorists and a threat to America and values of Western civilization. I also argue that Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers a counter literary response not only to the American public rhetoric but also to the dominant literary discourses that prevailed after 9/11, inflamed the American sentiments, and consolidate...