and it smacked of lowliness…. I had changed; I was looking about me with the eyes of a foreigner, and not just that particular
type entitled and unsympathetic American” Hamid 2007, 124
He no longer felt as a Pakistani, because what the people of Pakistan did can not be understood by him and ethnocentric view of Europe is in a
static society. For those of Changez, Pakistan now is the other. Alienation Changez against tradition analogous to the relationship
with the brothers and the surrounding community. Meeting with European knowledge to open a different perspective, so that tradition and religion
foreign to him like the alienation of himself against his culture. After living many years with them, one day he realized that his birthplace to be
foreign to him.
4.2 In BetweennessThird Space
Between Space as a cultural meeting space, a place of distinction overlaps. The exchange of value and meaning that occur are not always
dialogical, but may contradict and conflict. In this novel, Between Space a meeting between the European culture with the indigenous culture of
Pakistan. The conflict in the space between represented by conflict in the relationship with the Alien American Changez. Changez represents the
culture of Pakistan, while Americans represent European culture. The difficulty will be the occurrence of a dialogue between Pakistan
and the indigenous cultures of Europe, seen from the cultural conflicts that are represented by Changez and Americans. Conversations that occur
between Changez and the American peoples hard to say as a dialogue in the true sense.
“You seem worried. Do not be; this burly fellow is merely our waiter, and there is no need to reach under your jacket, I assume
to grasp your wallet, as we will pay him later, when we are done.”
“ Come, tell me, what were you looking for ? Surely, at this time of day, only one thing could have brought you to the district of
Old Anarkali -- named, as you may be aware, after a courtesan immured for loving a prince -- and that is the quest for the
perfect cup of tea. Have I guessed correctly ? then allow me, sir to my favorite among these many establishment. Yes, this is the
one. Its metal chairs are no better upholdstered, its wooden tables are equally rough, and it is, like the others, open the sky.
But the quality of its tea, I assure you, is unparalled” Hamid 2007, 2
In the text, we can see that the speech of Americans are not written in full, which means Changez does not listen and did not care. Changez is
always busy with his thoughts, when the Americans say to him. In storytelling, dialogue Changez and Americans are always interspersed
with depictions of the background description, which describes such places in pakistan.
No occurrence of intercultural dialogue due to an essentialist boundaries formed by the second value of each culture or by a perpetrator
culture. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, essentialist border between Pakistan culture with European culture is indicated by the occurrence of
the events of the twin towers bombing WTC on September 11, 2001 in America.
“I turned on television and saw what at first I took to be a film. But as I continued to watch, I realized that it was not fiction but
news, I stared as one-and then the other- of the twin towers of
New York’s World Trade Center WTC collapsed” Hamid 2007, 72
The occurrence of attacks on 11 September 2001 as a sign of boundary between the culture in which Changez grew up with a new
culture offerred by Europe. The boundary of the culture reveals an essentialist cultural identity, which makes it difficult both cultures to
dialogue. “I wonder now, sir, whether I believed at all in the firmness of
the foundations of the new life I was attempting to construct for my self in New York. Certainly I wanted to believe; at least I
wanted not to disbelieve with such an intensity that I prevented myself as much as was possible from making the obvious
conection between the crumbling of the world and the impending destruction of my personal American dream” Hamid 2007, 93
Attacks on 11 September 2001 marked the gaps in The Reluctant Fundamentalists as a regional development strategy provides a place for
self or a hybrid identity is formed, there is an area which should be sought. The development of main character search would be Between
Space, or the development itself in the understanding of hybrid identity, can be seen from the actions he did after the incident on 11 September
2001 attacks on the WTC. This can be interpreted that at that period of cultural conflict within Changez very big. European culture and as if the
two worlds apart for him.
4.3 Memory and Novel Structure
