John Updike, one of America’s eminent 20^th century novelists, provides his own fictionalized presentation of the Muslim other within the American socio-cultural context in his 22^nd novel, Terrorist. This novel is abundant with binary representations of Muslims whose acts and interactions with fellow Christian and Jewish Americans are scripted by their respective religious values. Updike’s exemplifications of Islam and Muslims within the American context are investigated through the problematizing of Muslims’ socio-cultural imperfections within the lens of orientalism and psychology of (im)perfection. Imperfectionalism as used in this paper refers to the inconsistent, unreliable and unpredictable characteristics that define the Muslim Other in comparison to mainstream American society.  Using themes of ‘religious differences,’ ‘differences between religions,’ ‘social differences,’ ‘gendered and exotic differences’ and ‘optimized differences,’ Updike’s Muslim characters are presented as flawed and faulty in their beliefs and conviction. In addition, Updike’s representation of Islam rests on its blemishes including its disregard for self-improvement and modernity. Designs of orientalism and imperfection as seen in this novel frame the Muslim other as the imperfect version of the perfect non-Muslim American.

Keywords: 9/11; Muslims; American novel; differentiation; imperfectionality 

Abrahamian, E. (2003). The US media, Huntington and September 11. Third World Quarterly. Vol. 24(3), 529-544.

Arif, M. S. & Ahmad, M. (2016). Exploring John Updike’s Terrorist as a neo-Orientalist narrative of the Arabo-’Islamic’ world. Journal of Advances in Humanities. Vol. 4(5), 554-561.

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture: Discussing Post-Colonial Culture. London: Routledge.

Bush, G.W. (2001). President Bush addresses the nation. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html

Conrad, J. (1920). The Secret Agent (10th ed.). London: Methuen.

Curtis, M. (2009). Orientalism and Islam: European thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gamal, A. (2011). “Encounters with strangeness” in the post-9/11 novel. Teaching American Literature. Vol. 4(4), 50-76.

Geaves, R. & Gabriel, T. (2004). Introduction. In R. Geaves, T. Gabriel, Y. Haddad & J. Idleman (Eds.). Islam and the West Post 9/11 (pp. 1-12). New York: Routledge.

Gregory, D. (2004). The Colonial Present. Oxford: Blackwell.

Herman, P. C. (2015). Terrorism and the critique of American culture: John Updike’s Terrorist. Modern Philology. Vol. 112(4), 691-712.

Kalin, I. (2004). Roots of Misconception: Euro-American Perceptions of Islam before and after September 11. In J. Lumbard, (Eds.). Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition, Revised and Expanded: Essays by Western Muslim Scholars (pp. 143-187). Indiana: World Wisdom Inc.

Kalmar, Ivan. (2012). Early Orientalism: Imagined Islam and the Notion of Sublime Power. New York: Routledge.

Kumar, M. P. (2012). Introduction: Orientalism(s) after 9/11. Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Vol. 48(3), 233-240.

Little, D. (2002). American Orientalism: the United States and the Middle East since 1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Manqoush, R. A., Hashim, R. S. & Yusof, N. M. (2014a). Metatextuality of transnational marriages in Updike’s Terrorist. International Journal of Literature and Arts. Vol. 2(1), 10-15.

Manqoush, R. A., Yusof, N. M. & R. S. Hashim. (2014b). Islamophobic irony in American fiction: a critical analysis of Lorraine Adams’ Harbor and John Updike’s Terrorist. American International Journal of Contemporary Research. Vol. 4(3), 73-80.

Mansutti, P. (2011). Ethno-religious identities and cosmopolitan echoes in John Updike’s ‘Terrorist’(2006) and Joseph O’Neill’s ‘Netherland’(2008). Altre Modernità. 105-123.

Marandi, S. M. & Z. Tari. (2012). Orientalist feminism; representation of Muslim women in two American novels: Terrorist and Falling Man. International Journal of Women's Research. Vol. 2(1), 5-20.

Mirzayee, M., Royanian, S. & Shabanirad, E. (2017). September 11 and the outbreak of neo-Orientalism in John Updike’s Terrorist. World Scientific News. Vol. 86(3), 226-241.

Peek, L. (2011). Behind the Backlash: Muslim American after 9/11. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.

Said, E. (2003). Orientalism Once More. Retrieved from http://www.iss.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/iss/Documents/Academic_publications/said_lecture.pdf

Smith, A. (2006). Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing. In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (Ed.). Color of Violence (pp. 66-73). Cambridge , Massachusetts: South End Press.

Stoeber, J. (2018). The Psychology of Perfectionism. Theory, Research, Applications. London: Routledge.

Updike, J. (2006). Terrorist. New York: Penguin.

Wood, J. (2006). Jihad and the Novel. The New Republic. Retrieved from https://newrepublic.com/article/64175/jihad-and-the-novel

Zabihzadeh, S. R., Hashim, R. S. & Raihanah M.M. (2017). Women and psychological trauma of 9/11 in Amy Waldman’s The Submission. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. Vol. 23(1), 49-59.