Disgraced

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2012

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Summary

Scene Summaries & Analyses

Scenes 1-2

Scenes 3-4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Symbols & Motifs

Cultural Names

Since he was hired at his firm, Amir has carried and protected the secret of his real name. Emily knows that Amir changed his last name from Abdullah to Kapoor but does not seem to know the full extent of his change in identity. She doesn’t learn until Scene 3 that Amir changed his social security number and doesn’t know why Amir’s boss would have bought him a statue of a Hindu god as a gift. Amir is Pakistani and has been pretending to be Indian because he needs to hide the fact that he is Muslim from his Jewish bosses, regardless of the fact that he no longer practices the religion. Before discovering his real name, the Jewish partners are favoring Amir, grooming him to become a partner himself. Amir muses that his mother would be angry to see him working with Jewish men, but perhaps she would be less upset because he isn’t doing so under the family name.

For Amir, the distinction between Pakistani and Indian feels arbitrary. Both of his parents were born in present-day Pakistan, but his father was technically born in India because he was born before the partitioning of India, and his mother was born after. The region’s new name represents a division in India that caused the country to split due to irreconcilable disagreements of religion. In the United States, anti-Muslim sentiment rose exponentially after September 11. Although the people of Pakistan and India descend from one country, people from India do not face the same level of fear and discrimination as people from Muslim countries. For the partners at Amir’s firm, their supposed resentment toward Muslims is rooted in the Israel/Palestine conflict. The discovery of Amir’s real last name immediately changes their perspective of Amir.

Amir’s nephew, Abe, has fully Americanized his name because he recognizes that assimilating makes his life easier. His original name, Hussein, carries particular cultural associations for Islamophobic Americans who only recognize the name because of Saddam Hussein. This association became apparent during the presidency of Barack Obama when conservative detractors would emphasize his middle name, Hussein, while attempting to prove that Obama was un-American. At the start of the play, Abe is still Muslim but assimilated into American popular culture. His new name, Abe Jenson, represents the dual nature of his Muslim-American existence. But in the last scene, Abe has reclaimed his name and rejected his American style and identity. With this rejection, Abe accepts the persecution that comes with using his old name and the potential that the United States will reject him and revoke his citizenship.

The Velásquez Painting

At the beginning of the play, Emily is painting Amir and mimicking the style of Diego Velásquez’s Portrait of Juan de Pereda, which was a painting of Velásquez’s Moorish slave, whom he eventually freed. Emily asserts that the painting is more complex and intimate than Velásquez’s other paintings, suggesting that the artist saw Juan de Pereda as even more human than other subjects. Emily’s interpretation, called Study After Velásquez’s Moor, is inspired after an incident when a waiter is rude to Amir because, as Emily explains, he only saw his race until Amir showed him who he really is. Although the audience never sees the painting, it becomes a significant central image in the play. Emily paints Amir in his six hundred-dollar shirts while posing as the slave, intending to reveal her husband’s true nature and humanity beneath the stereotype of his race. However, what Amir and Isaac see is that the painting reveals the Moor beneath the man.

By casting Amir as a Moor, the play also references Shakespeare’s Othello. Like Amir, Othello is a dark-skinned Muslim whose ambition has brought him to a prominent and powerful place in society. Othello is deceived into believing that his White wife, Desdemona, has been unfaithful, and he flies into a jealous rage and murders her. Amir learns that Emily has been unfaithful and turns his rage about both his career and her infidelity into domestic violence. As Moors who have achieved success in a predominantly White society, both men are destined to fail. Amir is unenthusiastic about the painting because he feels that Emily is designating him as her “very own personal Moor” (45). The painting also indicates Amir’s Muslim ancestry, something he has taken great pains to conceal.

While Amir sees the painting as demonstrating that Emily sees him as a Muslim slave—an inferior, when Isaac and Emily are alone at the dinner party, Isaac suggests that the painting reveals a different racialized power dynamic in their marriage. Isaac demonstrates his own prejudice by asserting that Amir in the painting is looking at Emily as if he is ashamed, angry, and proud because, “The slave finally has the master’s wife” (70). Although marrying a White woman is connected to Amir’s determination to assimilate, Isaac’s statement frames Amir’s feelings for his wife as if they are an act of revenge for racial oppression. This White male anxiety about hypersexualized non-White men stealing White women is one that permeates the history of the United States. Isaac confirms his deep-seated prejudice against Muslims when he calls Amir an animal.

Pork Tenderloin

Emily makes pork tenderloin for the dinner party with Isaac and Jory. When Isaac arrives, Emily asks if he eats pork, and Jory replies that he eats it as often as possible to make up for lost time. The pork is significant because both Amir and Isaac were raised in religions that forbid the consumption of pork. Amir was a devout Muslim as a child, so he likely kept the dietary laws, and Jory’s response suggests that Isaac kept Kosher and avoided pork when he was younger as well. Despite the differences in their religions, both agree on the subject of pork. The fact that both are eager to eat it that night demonstrates that neither practices their religion with the same devotion as they did when they were younger, yet, their prejudices against one another are deeply ingrained.

For Amir, success requires assimilation. He proves his loyalty to the United States by rejecting his Muslim identity, which includes changing his name, working with a Jewish firm, and marrying a non-Muslim White woman. Serving pork and drinking alcohol—also forbidden in Islam—reaffirms his denial of his religion. But Amir admits that he cannot fully escape the feelings instilled by his Islamic upbringing. Amir’s drunken confession that he felt a small amount pleasure about the September 11 attacks is met with much more horror than his admission of feeling pleasure when the Palestinians successfully attack the Israelis. These situations involve the deaths of innocent civilians and horrific violence, but because of the patriotism associated with September 11, Emily, Isaac, and Jory see the statement as anti-American. As Amir says, “I guess I forgot… which we I was” (63).

As much as Isaac defends Islam and demonstrates his own distance from the religion of his upbringing, his hatred and dehumanization of Muslims comes out when Amir provokes him. Amir, who was taught as a child to hate Jewish people when his mother spat in his face for loving a Jewish girl, gives Isaac the same treatment by spitting in his face. And as much as Amir protests his Muslim identity, he cannot escape being seen as a Muslim. After Amir mentions that the Quran gives men permission to beat their wives, his assault on his own wife becomes a political act, regardless of the fact that it stemmed from his own uncontrolled rage rather than a belief that domestic violence is right. Both Isaac and Amir can eat pork and deliberately stop practicing rituals and traditions but combatting the values that are instilled in childhood is a much more difficult challenge.