Rhetorical Analysis: The American Voice

Mohsin Hamid’s use of dramatic monologue in the form of a one-sided conversation creates an opportunity for Changez, who can be depicted as a representation of the Muslim population, to narrate another side of the story resulting from the 9/11 tragedy. By not incorporating his interlocutor’s voice–mirroring the reader–the American voice, which previously dominated the dialogue in media, is forced to listen. Changez’s experiences as a Muslim after the pivotal attacks on the American soil brings to focus the other, often hidden, dimension of emotions that flooded the people who inherited the same title as the antagonists. As it is evident but not realized, most of the rhetoric resulting from the 9/11 attacks were fueled by Americans who felt justified?. The American “tantrums” acted out on “the stage of the world” inciting …show more content…
Through the phrase “those who attacked you,” Hamid makes a subtle jab at the irony of innocent Muslims often being grouped with the select few that felt compelled to harm America (168). The bitterness in Changez’s tone hints at an Anti-American sentiment, and because the history is depicted exclusively through Changez’s eyes, the reliability of the narrator is questionable. This unreliability also appears to invest in the American listener as he questions Changez about the details of his recollections; as a result, Changez directly addresses this issue stating, “I am, after all, telling you a history… it is the thrust of one’s narrative that counts, not one’s accuracy of the details” (118). His claim does not create a sense of reliability in the narrator but puts into question the reliability of all history in general. This push for considering and questioning the truth behind the dominant narrative pushes the readers to ponder about the information that mass media is