Easy There Tiger<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Born for more than this, drift<\/p>\n
Easy there, tiger, you\u2019re hungry. Shine.<\/p>\n
But tigers can\u2019t fly\u2026<\/p>\n
How\u2019d you do it? The Fundamentals<\/p>\n
Big cat like you, up there, peering down for your prey<\/p>\n
Missed a lion higher up\u2014snatched<\/p>\n
You\u2019re a part of the Pride now<\/p>\n
On a cloud atop a cloud<\/p>\n
Beneath her, you<\/p>\n
Too far from the lair, predator or prey?<\/p>\n
The world is your oyster<\/p>\n
But you\u2019ve already found the pearl; good on you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crack\u2014the shell splits open, blood<\/p>\n
Beware our wrath<\/em><\/p>\n Dust and ash and flags and<\/p>\n Falling into her own depths<\/p>\n Desire\u2019s caught up, time to pay for your prey<\/p>\n Were you afraid? No.<\/p>\n But eventually<\/p>\n She will have to leave here.<\/p>\n You too, tiger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Reluctant Fundamentalist <\/em>by Mohsin Hamid is a story of the chic, shining American dream of a Pakistani-born New Yorker named Changez, a dream that descends into ugly, antiquated chaos in the aftermath of 9\/11. This poem mirrors the modernity of the book, as well as its narrative. In it, I have represented Changez as the tiger, both in reference to his time spent at Princeton and the fact that he is intensely ambitious\u2014or as his boss at the Wall Street firm put it, \u201chungry\u201d<\/em> (p. 9). His seemingly perfect but inwardly tortured love interest in New York, Erica, is represented by a lion, as Changez described her thus: \u201ca lioness: strong, sleek, and invariably surrounded by her pride,\u201d (p. 22). I describe Changez\u2019s newfound success as an oyster, and Erica as the pearl, in reference to Erica\u2019s novel, which she compared to a \u201csharp speck in side [her]\u201d that she turned into a \u201cpearl\u201d (p. 51).<\/p>\n The \u201coyster,\u201d the world, then cracks with the arrival of the 9\/11 attacks, and the poem takes a sharp turn from an upbeat, newsy, \u201cNew York\u201d tone to one that is somber, dirtier, and darker. America goes to war in the desert, patriotism sees a massive resurgence, and America falls into a hurt and nostalgic introspection, in the same way that Erica, her fragile mind shocked, has a \u201cfear that she might slip into her own depths,\u201d (p. 86). The lines, \u201cDesire\u2019s\u2026 No.\u201d recall Changez describing the lack of chemical sterilization of Pakistani meat foods, as he says, \u201cThese are predatory <\/em>delicacies, delicacies imbued with a hint of luxury, of wanton abandon\u2026 we are not squeamish when it comes to facing the consequences of our desire,\u201d (p. 100). This is akin to Changez\u2019s own predatory desire to become a wealthy elite in the cutthroat finance industry and to be with a stunning girl from the upper rungs of society. And of course, after 9\/11 he must face disastrous consequences. Finally, the last three lines refer to when Erica was placed in a mental hospital, and the nurse told Changez that \u201ceventually, she will have to leave here,\u201d not knowing the gravity of those words as they foreshadowed Erica\u2019s suicide. The words also encapsulate Changez\u2019s destiny, as he becomes compelled to leave the life he has created and abandon the United States for Pakistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Easy There Tiger Born for more than this, drift Easy there, tiger, you\u2019re hungry. Shine. But tigers can\u2019t fly\u2026 How\u2019d you do it? The Fundamentals Big cat like you, up there, peering down for your prey Missed a lion higher up\u2014snatched You\u2019re a part of the Pride now On a cloud atop a cloud […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7955,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7955"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ubiquivoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}