Literary Analysis of the Nether and Disgraced Research Paper 2022

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Literary Analysis of The Nether and Disgraced
Literary works are written by authors with the intention of bringing to the audience a
particular aspect of the society which they believe is concerning and therefore, needs to be
addressed. All forms of art and culture are a reflection of the elements which are present in the
society. They attempt to portray the social evils as well as the efforts of the human kind to revolt
against the prevalence of such social evil with the objective of transforming the society for the
better. The thesis statement of this paper is to analyze two pieces of literary work. One of them is
titled “Disgraced” as written by Ayad Akhtar and the other is titled “The Nether” as written by
Jennifer Haley. The stories and the main message of the literary pieces have been analyzed in the
context of this paper with the intention of bringing out their outcome in front of the readers.
The play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar is a novel that deals with the themes of Islam phobia
and it also the quest for the identity of Muslims. The play is focused on the main protagonist
whose name is Amir Kapur and his wife Emily. Both of them try hard to struggle with their
conflicts regarding the religion of Islam. On one hand where Amir has a strict, hostile and a very
radical concept of Islam, Emily on the other hand acts moderate and has a more liberal stance

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towards the same. Both the characters are often seen being in a rift because both are in search of
their identities. Both have their individual struggles in commenting against their individualistic
interpretations of the religion of Muslim (Akhtar). In the book, it was written that “A man, a
waiter, looking at you ... not seeing you. Not seeing who you really are. Not until you started to
deal with him. And the deftness with which you did that. You made him see that gap. Between
what he was assuming about you and what you really are” (Akhtar). This shows that the staunch
character of Amir arose from the fact that his religious identity often made him a victim of the
evil gaze of the society. No one acknowledged his presence and was often the prey of racism.
Amir being an expressive man of violence and rage, being bitter towards his own
interpretations, contrasts the character of Emily who often is seen to deal with the situations
calmly and arguing her stand point with sufficient logic and reason. The character of Amir
Kapur, has a severe confession towards the dark nature of humanity. In this play by Ayad
Akhtar, Amir has been represented a husband with dark, violent and destructive impulses
(Akhtar). The rift regarding their ideologies affected their relationship to this extent that Amir
Kapur had ended up striking his wife, resorting to violent means. The play thus had a ending
which shocked the audience since both Amir and Emily had an official separation. Through the
character of both of them, the playwright wanted to instill a powerful question among the
audience that the moderate or radical vies of Islam are irreconcilable or not (Akhtar).
The play has a major role in having an impact over the effect of prejudice in the modern
society. One of the incidents as mentioned in the book regarding the aspect of modernization is
present in the quote “You know how much easier things are for me since I changed my name?
It’s in the Quran. It says you can hide your religion if you have to” (Akhtar). This reveals the
hypocrisy of the character. The religious book of the Muslims, the Holy Quran, was being quoted

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in order to change or hide the religious nature of an individual. Thus, an attempt was made to
modernize oneself by taking recourse to religion. Through the character of Amir Kapur, the play
portrays that there had been an underlying prejudice in the society irrespective of the
modernization. There had been severe struggle between what was rational and between the
strong interpretations of the religion. Even when Emily tried to prove her point rationally, Amir
did not want to appreciate it. He had been very stubborn and refused to the logical interpretation
of Islam (Akhtar). He saw Islam as a collection of mere ideas which had been traditional and
which played an important role in promoting savagery.
The fictional character that Amir had adopted in America had a lot to say about the
character in real. He had been violent in his means and his actions represented very clearly that
he had been a strong believer of the Islam. Being violent is not an attitude of a foreign land, or of
a person who has adopted a foreign character. Violence had always been the only extreme means
of attitude of the radical Islam believers (Akhtar). The play with the portrayal of the character of
Emily, and Amir and also with the religious views of Islam actually speaks of the tragic love
story between a couple who had been rifted apart due to religion. Through them, the playwright
effectively paints the picture of juxtaposition of two different forms of identities, which are the
transnational identity and the national one. There is an underlying responsibility throughout the
play which has effectively arose when Amir was reminded of his American identity. Through the
character of Amir, there has been a complex nature of intermingling of the nationalist
contradictions. There has also been a portrayal of the theme of anti – black racism all throughout
the play with the portrayal of Amir Kapur as the savage black man, who sought to violence,
contradicting his own religion (Akhtar).