One day when Holly and the narrator go for a walk through Fifth Avenue on a beautiful Autumn day Holly seems interested in the narrator’s childhood without really telling him about her own, even though talking about herself is something she does quite often. ‘… it was elusive, nameless, place less, an impressionistic recital, though the impression received was contrary to what one expected, for she gave an almost voluptuous account of swimming in summer, Christmas trees, pretty cousins and parties: in short, happy in a way she was not, and never, certainly, the background of a child who had run away’ (54).
Holly’s character has such a dramatic flair that the reader nor the narrator never really know what to expect from her. On some occasions she will openly talk about outrageous taboos with perfect strangers and on others she will claw like a cat anyone who gets too close to her: ‘I asked her how and why she left home so young. She looked at me blankly, and rubbed her nose, as though it tickled: a gesture, seeing often repeated, I came to recognize as a signal that one was trespassing’ (20).
Holly is not only a physical paradox of a girl and a woman, but so is her personality, she has an odd mixture of child-like innocence and street smart sexuality. This is most apparent in Holly’s chosen profession, the one dubbed ‘the world’s oldest’. Holly seems to always have a man banging on her door or passed out in her apartment asking more for their money or another ‘appointment’. Holly’s first real conversation with the narrator takes place some time after the midnight hour when she escapes from one of her drunken clients via the fire escape and knocks on the narrator’s window. Much to his surprise, she is wearing only a robe and asks if she can stay in his apartment until the man in her’s passes out or leaves. ‘…
The Essay on The Unreliable Narrator
In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the narrator is a very pleasing, intelligent individual named Changez. Changez is speaking with an unnamed American man throughout the entire novel, and is doing so without the conversational input of the American. In other words, this novel is one strung out monologue, seeing as Changez is the only one to speak or think. This puts the reader in a situation in ...
any gent with the slightest chic will give you fifty for the girl’s john, and I always ask for cab fare too, that’s another fifty,’ Holly says to the narrator nonchalantly (26).
This is do to the fact that Holly doesn’t permit herself to believe that she is a prostitute. Her idea of love keeps her from that: ‘I mean, you can’t bang a guy and cash his checks and at least not try to believe you love him’ (82).
Holly labels all of the men that she has sleep with as ‘rats’ but gives that rattiness a certain allure that makes it acceptable to her. She feels that she has to if she is going to continue to make a living out of it. And not only that, but she hopes to secure her financial future just as easily.
