Hamid weaponizes a projected readership’s own stereotypes against it

Evidence

The text parodies the prejudices of a projected readership that, in Ilott’s terms, “prefers broad analysis and general stereotypes.” In throwing these prejudices back at the reader and the American interlocutor, Hamid brings us uncomfortably close to having to revise the coordinates of “commonsense” positions about Muslims and fundamentalism. To that extent, the book directly counters many of the main foundational tenets of Islamophobia. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 470

Categorization

• XREF: The reader’s core hinge work: ‘using Hamid as evidence rather than illustration’ — this is the mechanism by which the dramatic monologue forces reader self-revision.
• QUESTION: Does the parody technique require a specific imagined reader to work? What happens when actual readers share the projected prejudices?