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The Stranger
Erica is a beautiful and popular Princeton graduate, with whom Changez falls in love. She has strong feelings for Changez, though she sometimes seems to view Changez as an exotic foreigner more than a true friend and lover. A writer, she is nostalgic for Chris, a childhood friend and boyfriend who died a year before she and Changez met. After 9/11, she falls into depression and mental illness, focused around an obsessive nostalgia for Chris that thwarts any possibility of a relationship with Changez. By the end of the novel, she may have killed herself, though Changez in his life in Pakistan still thinks fondly of her and imagines – though without any real hope – that she will someday come to him. That the name “Erica” is contained within the word “America” is no coincidence, and Changez’s relationship with Erica can be seen as analogous to his relationship to America.
Erica Quotes in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The The Reluctant Fundamentalist quotes below are all either spoken by Erica or refer to Erica. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
When my turn came, I said I hoped one day to be the dictator of an Islamic republic with nuclear capability; the other appeared shocked, and I was forced to explain that I had been joking. Erica alone smiled; she seemed to understand my sense of humor.
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Chapter 4
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“I’m more unsettled than nervous,” she said. “It’s like I’m an oyster. I’ve had this sharp speck inside me for a long time, and I’ve been trying to make it more comfortable, so slowly I’ve turned it into a peal. But now it’s finally being taken out, and just as it’s going I’m realizing there’s a gap being left behind.”
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Chapter 7
Quotes
“Are you missing Chris?” She nodded, and I saw tears begin to force themselves between her lashes. “Then pretend,” I said, “pretend I am him.” I do not know why I said it; I felt overcome and it seemed, suddenly, a possible way forward.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
Not, of course, that I actually believe I am having a relationship, in the normal sense of the term, with Erica at this moment, or that she will one day appear, smiling and bent against the weight of her backpack, to surprise me on my doorstep. But I am still young and see no need to marry another, and for now I am content to wait.
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Erica Quotes in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The The Reluctant Fundamentalist quotes below are all either spoken by Erica or refer to Erica. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
When my turn came, I said I hoped one day to be the dictator of an Islamic republic with nuclear capability; the other appeared shocked, and I was forced to explain that I had been joking. Erica alone smiled; she seemed to understand my sense of humor.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4
Quotes
“I’m more unsettled than nervous,” she said. “It’s like I’m an oyster. I’ve had this sharp speck inside me for a long time, and I’ve been trying to make it more comfortable, so slowly I’ve turned it into a peal. But now it’s finally being taken out, and just as it’s going I’m realizing there’s a gap being left behind.”
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Chapter 7
Quotes
“Are you missing Chris?” She nodded, and I saw tears begin to force themselves between her lashes. “Then pretend,” I said, “pretend I am him.” I do not know why I said it; I felt overcome and it seemed, suddenly, a possible way forward.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
Not, of course, that I actually believe I am having a relationship, in the normal sense of the term, with Erica at this moment, or that she will one day appear, smiling and bent against the weight of her backpack, to surprise me on my doorstep. But I am still young and see no need to marry another, and for now I am content to wait.
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