Amis’s characterization of Atta pathologizes the terrorist as sexually repressed

Evidence

The most notable of these works is his attempt to imagine “the last days of Muhammad Atta,” in which the terrorist ringleader is depicted as a constipated, sexually repressed nihilist with no special interest in either Islam or politics but is instead excited by “all the killing—all the putting to death” (122). The idea of an uptight renunciate driven to atrocity because he is not getting enough sex is somewhat limited both as social critique and as psychological profile; elsewhere in The Second Plane Amis cites “serious commentators” to the effect that “suicide mass-murderers are searching for the simplest means of getting a girlfriend” (67). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 98

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete example of a novel/fiction that reinforces Islamophobia by depoliticizing the terrorist’s motive — a contrast case against Hamid’s Changez, who is fully political and articulate.
• SEED: Angle for the reader’s analysis: pathologizing vs. politicizing the Muslim protagonist — Amis’s Atta vs Hamid’s Changez as two poles of narrative treatment.