The Ambivalent Nature of Colonial Mimicry in Hanif Kureishi’s “My son the fanatic”

The negative aspects of the underlying narrative dichotomy in Hanif Kureishi’s “My son the fanatic” have not yet been explored through the lens of Homi Bhabha’s theory of colonial mimicry. Taking its cue from Bhabha’s theory, the main question of this essay is to examine how colonial mimicry in Kureishi’s storyworld functions as a menace to the colonizer’s Western structure and values. Colonial mimicry, in Bhabha’s words, is “structured around ambivalence […] an indeterminacy.” Therefore, it is “at once resemblance and menace” (122, 123). In Kureishi’s story, the father’s nearly fulfilled desire to mime the hegemonic culture is challenged by his son’s revolt against it by attempting to remove everything that represents Western culture. The son fundamentally questions his father’s ability to enact cultural reform by mimicking the colonial culture, accepting his inferiority to it, and deviating from his Islamic obligations. Kureishi’s story, therefore, represents the two aspects of colonial mimicry. On the one hand, the father has been enacting a full imitation, resemblance, or cultural integration into the colonizer’s land in order to fulfil his dreams. On the other hand, his son revolts against what represents the Western culture and way of life. The conflict between the two poles brings about the central conflict of the story as well.