My Son The Fanatic

Introduction: My son the fanatic (by Hanif Kureishi) first published in The New Yorker in 1994. Is about a son and a father’s difficult relationship, and about how the son Ali becomes a religious fanatic and how they deal with the different ways they live their lives.

Setting and characters:

Parvez is an immigrant from Pakistan. He is a cab driver, and I believe him to be around 40 years of age, because his son is in his adolescence. Parvez enjoys his job because he gets to work late shifts where the roads are more clear and he does not have to spend so much time with his wife, because he sleeps at day. They live in England and Parvez has fullyinto western culture and the English way of life, instead of holding onto Pakistani beliefs and culture. Parvez likes English culture and wants the rest of the family to adopt a Western lifestyle also.
It seems like Parvez totally opposes his background and the Muslim faith the muslim way of life does not seem to interest him or impact his life in any shape or fashion.

Ali was a straight A student and excelled in sports.efore his interest shifted completely to religion. Because of his disgust for the Western way of living, Ali has completely ended all of his relationships with his English friends, his English girlfriend, and he’s even given up playing all sports. He has also got rid of Western possessions. Ali is quick to judge his father when he does anything not true to the Muslim faith. For example, when they are at a restaurant talking Ali shuns Parvez for drinking alcohol and eating pork, two things that strongly goes against his religious beliefs. Parvez does not speak to his wife very much and especially not about any of his worries. Instead he talks with a prostitute named Bettina who Parvez drives as a passenger, but they become friends. Parvez feels that he has lost his son, because his dream for Ali was that he adapts to English culture, getting a normal job, and a wife. Parvez struggles to come to terms with his son’s religious fanaticism, and finds it difficult to tackle. He does not understand why his son opposes the Western life style that Parvez has adopted and how he could be lured to Islamic extremism.

Theme and putting the text into perspective:

The theme of the story is the conflict between Pakistani immigrants wanting to adapt to British society and finding that their children feel alienated and oppose this and turn to find identity in their roots. This causes a generation divide between parents trying to integrate and live a Western life style and their children who feel marginalized and are influenced in to becoming religious fanatics. The children suffer identity crisis and feel torn between to cultures, and they easier find acceptance and identity among the Islamic fanatics causing them to oppose their own parents for religious faith.

Conclusion

The story shows the overwhelming difficulties that second generation Pakistani Muslim immigrants are experiencing in the UK, and that they are welcoming an extremist Islamic identity as they feel alienated. This causes conflicts and struggles in the Muslim families. But what is a father to do, the more the father in this story tries to persuade his son that it is best to integrate to a Western way of life, the more the son struggles against it, and it ends up with a clash between generations and cultures.

Rettekoder a = fejl i brugen af den ubestemte (a/an) eller den bestemte (the) artikel b = substantivet/verbet/adjektivet/adverbiet er bøjet forkert bi = bindestreg mangler g = genitiv/ejefald k = kongruens o = ordstilli ov = ordvalg of = ordklassefejl p = præpositionsfejl pr = forkert pronomen sp = sprog st = stavefejl u = udelad
? = noget mangler/sætningen mangler et led

Super godt indhold - du formår at få belyst de vigtigste elementer og temaer i teksten på en klar og struktureret måde. Meget flot! Men forsøg i højere grad at inddrage analytiske begreber som plot, narrator, point of view, antagonist, protagonist, osv. Det er disse begreber, der gør dit essay fagligt, og som er med til at trække dig op. Det ville også være fint hvis du kunne perspektivere teksten til en anden relevant tekst vi har læst.

Rigtig godt rent sprogligt - få alvorlige fejl. Men enkelte steder udelader du ord/sætningsled, og det er en skam, når nu resten er godt. Så sørg for at få læst mere korrektur næste gang.

Fokuspunkter til næste aflevering: * Sjuskefejl (du udelader ord/led) * Ordvalg (”got” Du er hermed skrevet på kagelisten Husk at ”got” KUN skal bruges når det betyder ”at få” i datid) * Kongruens

Karakter: 10pil op

--------------------------------------------
[ 1 ]. P 1,