Exploring the Reclaimation of Self in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This study examines Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist to propose a healing journey from fragmentation to integration for trauma survivors. Changez suffers from the fracturing of a hybrid selfhood following the 9/11 incident as a traumatic event in the selected narrative; however, his reintegration with society reflects the prescriptive account of trauma recovery in the narrative. By returning to Pakistan, engaging in a cathartic emotional outpouring with an American, and owning his cultural heritage, Changez’s self-discovery shows that restoring fractured selfhood is realistic through processing experiences of fragmentation. The study also confronts the mischaracterization of South Asians’ recovery as radicalization by Western narratives, instead demonstrating Changez's journey towards rehabilitation as an "applied recovery" with real-life significance for trauma survivors. By reframing traumatic memory as a shareable burden for unburdening, the protagonist builds hardiness and counters externally imposed discourses through his own narrative power, ultimately disrupting intergenerational trauma transference. Using Judith Lewis Herman's triphasic model of trauma recovery as a theoretical lens, the study analyzes Changez as a representative of trauma survivors to offer a dynamic transformative model for reintegration of fractured selves rather than pushing survivors towards post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSDs).