My son the fanatic The generation gap is a dilemma which frequently occurs among immigrants, and in his short story My son the fanatic, Hanif Kureishi brings up the issue concerned. Kureishi introduces us to a father, who’s alarmed and puzzled by his sons’ strange behavior, which proves out to be against his own values. During this, Kureishi touches on the topics fanaticism and religion, and how these can change ones behavior towards ones family. Kureishi also focuses on how people relate to their
“My son the fanatic” is a short story by the author Hanif Kureishi first published in The New Yorker 1994. In the story we meet the Pakistani immigrant Parvez and his son Ali. Parvez migrated from Pakistan before he got his son. They now live in London, England, where Ali was born and raised. Working as a taxi driver Parvez haven’t had an ease getting money, but with dedication, he has raised enough money for his son to get the dream education as an accountant. But lately Ali has acted significantly
It is about Parvez, a Pakistani immigrant living in England, that has largely assimilated to the normal British lifestyle. His son Ali originally seems to have done so as well; at some point, however, Parvez starts noticing obvious changes in his son’s behaviour: he gets rid of his personal possessions such as CDs, videotapes, books and clothes as well as his TV and stereo system
In “Men in the Sun” and “My Son the Fanatic”, both authors discuss the way in which a nostalgic relation to the past and the loss of one’s sense of self, as a result of being uprooted or displaced, lead to unsuccessful or poor assimilation to new communities. Ghassan Kanafani employs frequent flashbacks and shifts of narrative perspectives as formal mechanisms to reflect that people who either cling to or are troubled by their past always have great difficulty adjusting to a new way of life. Hanif
My Son the Fanatic by Hanif Kureishi My main focus in this essay will be on Hanif Kureishi’s “My Son the Fanatic”, I’ll be making a short analysis of the short story’s structure as well as narrative technique and characterizations of the people we meet throughout the story, I will furthermore touch upon the themes and message. Last but not least I’ll make a discussion regarding the true villain in the story. Hanif Kureishi is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and a novelist. He is
The short story “My Son, the Fanatic” by Hanif Kureishi, is about the relationship between a father and a son. The plot is told in third person’s point of view and has two main characters, Parvez, the father and Ail, the son. Parvez is an immigrant who has lived in England for 20 years, considering this is the period of time he has worked as a taxi driver. It is also suggested that the community where the main characters live, is home to a lot of immigrants, discovering that the father mostly works
Literary Analysis of My Son the Fanatic Written by Hanif Kureishi, the short story My Son the Fanatic develops through the conflict between a father and his son. In the story, the father Parvez who works as a taxi driver immigrated from Pakistan to England with his family twenty years ago. His son Ali is a college student in England. When Ali was behaving abnormally, Parvez’s suspicion led him to discover that Ali had turned into a religious Muslim. Parvez, although born as a Muslim, does not
after. In the short story “My Son the Fanatic” by Hanif Kureishi (1994) we get to meet Parvez who is miserably trying to build his relationship up with his son again. The theme is, father-son-relationship, which is only one-sided. Parvez seems to do everything in his power to get on his sons good side, but fails. The story also has Multiculturalism as a theme. It displays how multiculturalism has failed in a society, and how it can ruin a relationship between a father and a son. The main character in
short story 'My Son the Fanatic ' as the colloquially labelled 'Pakish ' men, Parvez and Ali, struggle to make peace with their hybrid identities following their internalisation of the East/West binary. However, their conscious othering of Pakistan, also creates an intergenerational conflict between the pair as Parvez - born in Pakistan and living in London- unsuccessfully attempts to mediate between the two cultures by living hedonistic Western lifestyle, while his English-born son Ali, rejects
Not fighting back, Ali simply says, “So who’s the fanatic now?” (p. 430). Parents’ main concern in life is to provide for their children to ensure a brighter future. Sometimes they must make hard decisions that children do not quite understand. Parvez experienced religion as a burden when he was younger