Dramatic Monologue and Political Resistance: A Jamesonian Reading of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of English Language, Ershad University of Damavand, Damavand, Iran

Abstract

The present article endeavors to examine Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist so as to attest to the political resistance effected by its formal aspects. The researchers are inclined to survey Hamid’s novel in the light of the mind-sets of the illustrious contemporary philosopher and literary critic Fredric Jameson. According to Jameson, it is a falsehood to think that the form of a work of art should be considered to be less important than its content owing to the fact that the formal aspects of art embody resisting possibilities and are prone to galvanize the reader into subversive activity. The question the article poses is that whether the novel’s development of dramatic monologue can provide the reader with a unique opportunity for political resistance. In this regard, the formal aspects of the novel can silence the American citizen in order to enable the reader to perceive the world through the eyes of the novel’s Third-World speaker.

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References

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Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 28, Issue 1
August 2023
Pages 119-137

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