Stylistic Analysis of the short story "The Face in the Mirror"
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Course
Stylistics
Institution
Stylistics
It is the stylistic analysis of the short story "The face in the Mirror" focusing deeply on prototypical discourse structure, collapsing of discourse structures and linguistic indicators of viewpoint.
The prose is the popular genre of literature as compared to poetry and drama. People avoid
reading poems because their interpretation requires unlimited time and an extraordinary mind.
Likewise, people preferred to watch plays as compared than read them, and they are being
written to be performed on the stage. However, people across the world spend their free time
reading exciting short stories and novels. Unfortunately, novels are difficult to analyze
stylistically due to the length and variety of viewpoints and narrators. We can say that the
analysis of a novel requires one whole life. However, we can stylistically analyze the short
stories because they are short in length and viewpoints are not as complex as in novels (Short,
255).
In the discussion, we will be analyzing the short story “The Face in the Mirror” by British
Pakistani Novelist “Mohsin Hamid”. The short story is published on 16 May 2022. It explores
the concerns of identity for the brown-skinned color in America after the tragic incident of 9/11.
Mohsin Hamid is a British Pakistani novelist, famous for his cross-cultural novels such as
“Moth Smoke”, “Reluctant Fundamentalist”, "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia",
“Exit West”, and “The Last White Man”. He is considered one of the contemporary writers
of Pakistan, who is writing in the contemporary era. His famous post-9/11 novel "Reluctant
Fundamentalist" dealt with the hazardous impacts of 9/11 upon the Muslim world. The character
of his novel “Changez” is the victim of 9/11, where Hamid wants to convey that Americans
,must realize that all Muslims are not terrorists just like all Americans are not undercover
assassins.
He has received various awards for his novels such as the "Asian American Literary Award" for
"Moth Smoke", "Aspen Words Literary Prize" for "Exit West" etc. Equally important, he was
considered one of the world's 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine in the
year 2013. However, his works are also being criticized to represent a limited and one-sided
perspective of the Muslim world (Mohsin Hamid).
Context of Story:
The whole story dealt with the theme of how the lives of brown-skinned people changed after the
incident of 9/11. The person Anders, who noticed an unusual transformation in his skin color is a
symbolic way to represent a change in reality for Muslims in America. For example, when
Anders sees a fight between white and black, his boss has fired him from the job, he is not
allowed to move freely, and he was forced to leave the place at the end of the story. These all
instances are the symbolic representation of the racial indiscrimination prevalent in America. For
Anders, he is not like previous Anders as “It was not that of an Anders he recognized”.
Plot of Story:
The story starts with the introduction of Anders, a white man. He realized that he had been
transformed into a brown-skinned man at the beginning of one morning. He was in a state of
fear, anxiety, and confusion as he was unsure whether it was Anders or someone else lying in his
bed. He went to the bathroom to see his reflection in the mirror however the reality haunted him.
The rising action of the story proceeds further where the fear of losing his reputation as a
brown man restricted his movement for several days in the house. Likewise, he feared that the
, white man would kill him or banish him if the truth would be revealed to them. He used a hoodie
and gloves, and every means to hide his color when he went outside. He does not want to reveal
his changed color to the world therefore he opts to hide. As a result, he also lost his job.
On the other hand, Anders decided to visit his father's home to inform him about his change of
identity. His father gave him a rifle, whose purpose is to protect Anders from the violence of
white men. Meanwhile, the climax occurs when the white militants started to clear dark people
out of the town. Anders would be confronted by the militants, and he would be ordered to leave
the house. He was prepared and not prepared to face the same calamity. Likewise, three pale-
skinned militants entered his house to ask him to move out from the white man's location.
Consequently, Andrew shifted to his father's home, where the condition of his father is getting
worse day by day. He was ill since the death of his mother and the time of his departure comes
near. The story comes to a resolution when one morning, Anders lost his in front of his eyes,
unable to do anything. After the funeral ceremony of his father, Anders realized a sense of new
courage and strength. Now, there will be no white man because his father is the last white man,
who had been buried. The death of his father gave him the courage to accept his physical self
instead of idolizing his father, who is a white man. He realized the worth and value of his
existence, which is not based upon the color of our skin. The mirror in the face, which is a black
face has been accepted by Anders.
Prose Analysis of “The Face in the Mirror”
Discourse Structure:
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