Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Generic frameworks and active readership in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
AU - Ilott, Sarah
N1 - This is published under my soon-to-be-married name, Sarah Ilott.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - This article considers the role of the reader-as-judge in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It builds upon and extends the idea of the cathartic function of authorship as a response to trauma by alternatively considering the activation and empowerment of the reader that is enabled by the dramatic monologue style of Hamid’s novella. Indications that the reader is called upon to make active decisions can be found in the second-person address that is directed beyond the pages. The layering of different genres also means that readers have to choose what they believe to be the most suitable generic framework for understanding the novella. Marking a new intervention into the study of this novella, the article argues that The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an example of a contemporary dramatic monologue that encourages a more active way of reading by calling for readers’ discernment and judgement, while resisting comfortable closure. The article considers how and why the novella functions as a dramatic monologue, before moving on to those matters that the reader is being called upon to judge, and the wider implications of this readerly positioning in relation to the politics of mourning.
AB - This article considers the role of the reader-as-judge in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It builds upon and extends the idea of the cathartic function of authorship as a response to trauma by alternatively considering the activation and empowerment of the reader that is enabled by the dramatic monologue style of Hamid’s novella. Indications that the reader is called upon to make active decisions can be found in the second-person address that is directed beyond the pages. The layering of different genres also means that readers have to choose what they believe to be the most suitable generic framework for understanding the novella. Marking a new intervention into the study of this novella, the article argues that The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an example of a contemporary dramatic monologue that encourages a more active way of reading by calling for readers’ discernment and judgement, while resisting comfortable closure. The article considers how and why the novella functions as a dramatic monologue, before moving on to those matters that the reader is being called upon to judge, and the wider implications of this readerly positioning in relation to the politics of mourning.
KW - genre
KW - dramatic monologue
KW - 9/11
KW - national allegory
KW - reader
KW - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
U2 - 10.1080/17449855.2013.852129
DO - 10.1080/17449855.2013.852129
M3 - Journal article
VL - 50
SP - 571
EP - 583
JO - Journal of Postcolonial Writing
JF - Journal of Postcolonial Writing
SN - 1744-9863
IS - 5
ER -