The Punjabi Immigrants’ Perspective on British Culture Represented by Major Characters in Hanif Kureishi’s “My Son the Fanatic”

This story is dominated by two major characters, Ali and Parvez and another supporting character, Bettina. The character background of Parvez is that he is a moeslim. He had grown up in Lahore where all the boys had been taught the Koran. The narator also tells the reader about what happened when Parvez studied Koran, that to stop him falling asleep, the Maulvi had attached a piece of string to the ceiling and tied it to Parvez’s hair, so that it would him to wake when his head fell (2008: 9). The job of Parvez itself is included as a working class job because he is a taxi driver (Kureishi-Ragheb, 2008: 5) and he also likes to spend his time with his friends, who are also Punjabis taxi drivers, in cabbies’ office. From these sort of identity, it can be concluded that Parvez is a Punajabi working class who came to England as immigrant and he is a Moeslim and had also taught about Koran.
Furthermore, the character of Ali in the short story also shows that he is a moeslim, although in beginning of the short story mentions that there are changes happen to him. The changes themselves are growing praying (2008: 9, 16), growing beard (2008: 8), thinking about Jihat (2008: 12) which make him considered has a strong belief of Islam. His relationship with his father is not good enough, as it is seen from the conlicts inside the story. From these description, it can be said that Ali is a Moeslim who sticks up with Islam religion. He, then, makes a differences in terms of appearance and thinking. He thinks that Western hates people like them (2008:11) and it ‘was a sink of hypocrites, adulteres, homosexuals, drug takers and prostitutes’ (2008:12).
Bettina, in this story, is a prostitute and has a friendship with Parvez. This relationship can happen it is something common for having friend from the same working-class job although Bettina’s job is prostitute. The feeling of friendship can be seen from the proof that “he had rescued her from a violent client”. Furthermore, it...