THE RELUCTANT ORIENTAL: MANIFESTING THE 18TH CENTURY EUROPE’S LATENT EGYPTIAN THROUGH CHANGEZ

Abstract

This paper analyses Mohsin Hamid’s bestseller The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the light of Edward Said’s theorization of Orientalism to assert that the occident’s attitude of exclusion that the British exhibited towards the Egyptians is still prevalent in the White man’s attitude towards the Muslims. Changez moulds himself in the Western construct only to be expunged from the circle and renounced as the other who is doomed to destruction. We also contend that Said’s conceptualization of Orientalism based on what happened in Egypt is valid even now, more so after 9/11.