Changez's The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Introduction The Reluctant Fundamentalist, like many first-person narratives, is a fictional autobiography. Changez, the protagonist, is an intellectually ripe and mature narrator who looks back on his past happenings during his stay in America. Although he is only twenty five at the time of narrating the story, he feels his life completely over-turned rather metamorphosed. Like many first-person narrators, he has become wiser after his experiences in America on 9/11---the time when history is taking shape. Looking back on his life, he remembers his brilliant career in juxtaposition of his love for mentally unhealthy Erica and his love for his homeland---facing the shadow of impending war. The story's first-person narrative situation is
o Anterior Narration: Narration preceding the events in time. o Simultaneous Narration: Narration occurring at the same time as the events. o Intercalated Narration: Narration situated between two moments of action as in epistolary novels.

 Narrative Levels Genette (1985, 1988), Bal (1985), Mcquillan (2000), Abbott (2002), Kenan (2003) provide the following categories: o Extradiegetic Level: It is external to any diegesis in the sense that at the time of narration the narrators are not the part of the story. o Diegetic Level: The events themselves. The level at which an event or existent is related to a given diegesis. o Hypodiegetic Level: A narrative embedded within another narrative, sometimes called a meta-diegetic narrative or pseudo-diegetic narrative (e.g. the monster‟s account in Frankenstein).  Typology of Narrators o The narrative level to which the narrator belongs o The extent of his participation in the story o The degree of perceptibility of his role o His reliability  Narration, Focalization, and Narrative Situations Genette (1980, 1985, 1988), Bal (1981, 1983, 1985), Brewer (1984), Stanzel (1984), Lonon (1990), Kenan (2003) classify