Liberal fiction can perform open-mindedness while firmly endorsing one worldview

Evidence

Thus, the text itself, with its peculiar Janus-faced attitude to so many of the contemporary issues it mulls over—from war to inequality to moral responsibility—performs its own limitations: a surfeit of apparent empathy that would putatively allow for a range of perspectives and at the same time a very firm endorsement of one viewpoint in particular. Here, for all his complacent arrogance, our protagonist Henry Perowne is a guarantee of the good intentions and superior capacity of the middle-class white male, backed up by the assembled achievements of Western civilization set against the barbarians at the gates. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 120

Categorization

• XREF: Directly gives the vocabulary for reading whether Naqvi and Hamid ‘contest’ or ‘reinforce’ — the reader’s explicit hinge question. Perowne as ‘guarantee of the good intentions’ of the dominant group parallels what to check for in Changez’s narration in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
• SEED: Possible essay angle: the ‘performed limitation’ test — a diagnostic for liberal fiction that stages diverse voices only to ratify the existing order; could frame close readings of both novels.
• DEFINE: Names the mechanism by which a novel quietly reinforces rather than contests the dominant fear — the reader’s central task is told exactly what to look for.