When people read, they are taken to another person’s world and forced to see things through a new lens. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Hamid attempted to use the feelings already inside the reader to create the world. In “Enduring Love of the Second Person,” Hamid writes “to try and show, after the terror attacks of 9/11, how feelings already present inside a reader – fear, anger, suspicion, loyalty- could color a narrative so that the reader, as much as or even more than the writer, is deciding what is really going on.” He wants to use the second person to pull the feeling already in ourselves into the material that is used to make the set for The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A passage that really elicited an emotional reaction from me that …show more content…
These assumptions were, as all are, based on my prior experiences, both fictional and in reality. Once Changez and the American left to go to the hotel, the waiter and another followed them. It was not clear that they were being intentionally followed, but it was dark and the American was in a foreign land. In the very last paragraph, Hamid writes “Perhaps our waiter wants to say goodbye as well, for he is rapidly closing in. Yes, he is waving for me to detain you… But why are you reaching into your jacket, sir? I detect a glint of metal. Given that you and I are bound by a certain shared intimacy, I trust it is from the holder of your business cards.” (page 184) As I read this my mind set the stage of a spy movie. I have read many spy themed books, seen the movies, and have often had daydreams featuring fight scenes and danger. My brain took the feeling I feel when I walk in the dark, one of suspicion and paranoia, and applied it to book. I assumed that Hamid knows this feeling and was intending for me to feel this way using sentences like: “From your backwards glance, sir, I gather you have noticed that we were not alone in our desire to depart.” and, “You, sir, on the other hand, seem ready to bolt.” (page 176) The phrase “not alone” and the word “bolt” are consistent with the feelings I have when walking in the dark. These are also common scenes in spy books and movies. The protagonist is confronted in the middle of the night after being misled by someone they thought they could trust. The protagonist then pulls a gun and dispatches of the assailants. I assumed that this is what the scene was when I first read it. As I look back, I find a lack of evidence for a scene like this. Maybe it is just an innocent exchange; maybe the waiter does just want to say goodbye. I have no evidence except for the initial feelings that were stirred inside of
Claudia Rankine uses the second person point of view in Citizen: An American Lyric, and because of this choice it creates some moments that lead the reader to think critically about what is going on. One example of this can be found on page 66 when Rankine writes, “What else to liken yourself to an animal, the ruminant kind?” (Rankine) This quote in the context of the lyric puts the reader into a position where they feel how much words and actions that they think nothing of, can make people of color feel both segregated and alone. Incorporating this point of view into a rhetorical question also forces the reader to think about the problems at hand as if it is directly happening to them. However, Rankine not only uses the word “you” to make her lyric second person, but quite possibly the most moving and memorable moment of the book includes other pronouns of the second person point of view. In a quote that reads, “I they he she we you turn only to discover the encounter to be alien to this place.” (Rankine) Rankine shows that through the use of many different pronouns she is capable of including everyone in the story, thus pulling them in and giving them a sense of involvement is what is happening. This use of “you” and other pronouns is what makes Claudia Rankine’s writing style nearly unmatched in drawing readers in and actually making them care about real world problems. However, point of view is not the only literary tool that Rankine has on showcase is Citizen: An American
Amir notes the change he and Baba experienced in American—“For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his” (129).
In other words, double-consciousness can be described as an attempt to make peace with the clashing values of African heritage and European upbringing within an African American individual. Such an obstacle has the potential to be quite damaging to one’s sense of identity. The psychological theory of double-consciousness can be explored in the writings of African American authors. The works of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and the first chapter of Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man demonstrate the challenging collision of two cultures within the protagonists shaping their identities, and surprisingly aiding them to achieve a stronger sense of self than...
Perspective allows people to see another person’s point of view. In the essay “The Cabdriver’s Daughter” by Waheeda Samady, she addresses her perception versus society’s opinion of her father. In her eyes, her father is a person capable of displaying kindness and expressing his profound knowledge while for some Americans, he is their preconceived notion of what a terrorist might look like. She challenges people to look past his scars and the color of skin, and “look at what the bombs did not destroy” (19). To her, he is the man that has lived through the Soviet-Afghan War, persevered through poverty, and denied these experiences the power of changing him into a cantankerous person. Samady feels prideful of her father’s grit through his past experiences yet feels sorrowful thinking about the life he could have lived if the war had never happened.
I. Intro. - Imagine you are sitting home one night with nothing to do. Your parents have gone away for the weekend and there is absolutely no one around. So you sit around that night watching TV for awhile but find nothing on worth watching. You go on upstairs to your room and get ready for bed. Turn off the lights, lay down, and close your eyes. All of a sudden you here a crash of glass in your kitchen. You rush to your feet and put your ear to the door listening to what’s going on downstairs. You begin to hear the voice of two men as they start going through the living room, making their way to the stairs, right outside your room. What do you do? You aren’t going to confront them since its just you—remember you thought you heard two of them right? Well you are really stuck in your room and all you can do is sit there hoping that they leave soon and don’t harm you. Now if it were at my house things would be a little bit different. For starters I would get out my shotgun from my closet and begin to see what is gin on down stairs.
In both Bor and Strate’s articles the authors draw the reader in to their viewpoints using emotional appeals. Bor draws you in immediately by including a picture of his daughter on an ultrasound machine at 20 weeks and an image of her at 2 years old. By doing this, he gets the reader emotionally invested in a huge dilemma our
Milan Kundera contends, “A novel that does not discover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral” (3). In this it is seen that the primary utility of the novel lies in its ability to explore an array of possible existences. For these possible existences to tell us something of our actual existence, they need to be populated by living beings that are both as whole, and as flawed, as those in the real world. To achieve this the author must become the object he writes of. J.M. Coetzee states, “there is no limit to the extent to which we can think ourselves into the being of another. There are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination” (35). Through this sympathetic faculty, a writer is able to give flesh, authenticity and a genuine perspective to the imagined. It is only in this manner that the goal of creating living beings may be realized. Anything short of this becomes an exercise in image and in Kundera’s words, produces an immoral novel (3).
The novel Night demonstrates that the human spirit can be affected by the power of false hope, by religion, and that one will do whatever it will take to survive for oneself and family.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
Ambiguity in literature after World War II reflects and explores issues of self and society. These two ideas often work against each other instead of coexisting to form a struggle-free existence. J. D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, and Richard Heller illustrate this struggle with their works. These authors explore ambiguity through different characters that experience the world in different ways. Identity, while it is an easy concept, can be difficult to attain. These authors seek out ambiguity with the human experience, coming to different conclusions. Ambiguity becomes a vehicle through which we can attempt to define humanity. J. D. Salinger’s novel, Catcher in the Rye, Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Ball Jar, and Richard Heller’s novel, Catch 22 explore ambiguity experienced through an attempt to find self. Each experience is unique, incapable of fitting a generic mold created by society.
Such is the fast-paced world and style of Hakim Bey’s writings. Sporadic and rarely rounded up for interrogation, Bey’s Ontological Anarchism pervades all his writings, on topics as varied as “Islam and Eugenics”[1], “The Information War”[2], “The Evil Eye”[3], a critique of multiculturalism[4], and Celtic-African entheogens[5]. Hakim Bey’s zine writings and early 90’s hipsterism have made him known to some as “The Marco Polo of the Subunderground”[6] and a counter-cultural guru to many more.
The power of the written word has been utilized across the span of human history and the conflict between Bill the infamous novelist and Jean-Claude or the prisoner who is a writer of almost no renown is my focus here. In Bill we see a writer trapped by his success, a man who would have gladly traded his fame for ambiguity and the freedom it entails except that this would compromise his name and his legacy. The written word has facilitated all of Bill’s dreams while crushing him beneath the weight of their meaning to others. Jean-Claude is a prisoner of a Maoist extremist group in Beirut led by a man who believes they are the beginning of a “world revolution.” (233) Jean-Claude is introduced already imprisoned
Horan, Thomas. "Revolutions from the Waist Downwards: Desire as Rebellion in Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, George Orwell's 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World." Gale Cengage Learning. Literature Resource Center, 2007. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
The question of the racial, religious, and socioeconomic identity of Shahid becomes a central question posed as Shahid undergoes translation from his Pakistani ancestry to his desired identity as a Briton. Shahid's translation parallels the translations of the former Asian colonies of Britain into their new postcolonial identities. Unfortunately for Shahid, the struggle over The Satanic Verses catches him as he is translating himself, presenting him with a series of tough choices.
Paris, Bernard J. Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature. New York: New York University Press. 1997.