Analyse af Hanif Kureishis 'My Son the Fanatic'

The text is written by Hanif Kureish, and is a short story called “My son the fanatic”. The theme in the text is the “father-and-son conflict”. The story Hanif is trying to tell us through this short text is how a religion can create a huge conflict in families who is immigrated in England, when one of the other immigrates to the English way of life, and the other doesn’t.

The text is a short story about a Pakistanis father, and his son. The story deals with a father-and-son conflict. Parvez, the father, is an immigrate who lives in London with his wife and his son Ali. Parves is immigrated to the west area, and therefore he lives the way they do. He drinks alcohol, and eat pork, even though it is against his religion. His son is studying accounting, and Parves have work very hard to get to pay for his education, and every thing else he needs for his school, like books and good suits.

But Parvez is worried for his son. He had changed, and therefor he starts to search Ali’s room, trying to find a clue. He can’t find anything, but notice that Ali’s room is getting more and more empty. Together with his friend, Bettina, which is a prostitute he saved from a violent client, they suspects Ali to be on drugs. Later in the story Parves finds out that it is because Ali is very religious, and he “dislikes” Parves because he doesn’t follow their religious live style. Ali says to Parvez, that he has given his things to charity, and that he preys 5 times a day. In the beginning Parves understands, and are ready to prey with Ali, but he loose his mind and he hits Ali.