earticle

영어

John Updike’s Terrorist depicts the life of Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, an 18-year-old high school student born to an Irish-American mother and an Egyptian Arab father, raised in the United States, focusing on the major themes of religion and America. Notably, the themes of religion and America are unveiled by contrasting two extreme cases: Islamic religious extremism embodied by Ahmad and the prevalent secularism in American society. In this novel, religious extremism and secularism collide, reminding the reader of the anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world, ultimately providing insight into why terrorist attacks such as 9/11 occurred in the United States from the perspective of terrorists. This paper traces Ahmad’s transformation from an ordinary high school student into a violent terrorist, with a focus on the gradual shift of his religious passion from purity to violence, thereby contrasting the United States with the Islamic world and examining the conflicts between the two worlds.