The subject of cults is one that is equally fascinating and terrifying to me. I’m intrigued by how they work- yet horrified by how they can completely upend a person’s well being. Both of these books display very telling signs of cult tactics being used against characters. Reading these books was similarly a fascinating and scary experience. At the very least, less so that my readings about other cults, as at least I know the events in this book are fictitious, not real accounts of the awful manipulation that real people are unfortunately burdened with. Firstly, cults typically have a charismatic leader. John Leal in Incendiaries certainly qualifies. He is able to tell tales of his bravery and chivalry while being in a North Korean prison camp. He can preach to a crowd at an anti-abortion march, clearly holding everyone’s attention. “Instead of trying to talk across the noise, he held up his palm, indicating he’d wait. More people turned in his direction. (135-136). Farooq isn’t the leader of ISIS by any means, but he is Parvaiz’s entry point and quickly becomes friends with the young man. Seclusion is also a common cult tactic; Phoebe and Parvaiz begin spending a lot of time with John Leal and Farooq respectively. They are both preyed upon in difficult times in their lives. Phoebe is grieving the loss of a friend, Parvaiz is trying to learn his identity as a man in a matriarchal family. I thought an interesting parallel between these books is that the victim of the cult was at least somewhat manipulated into joining by way of their father. Farooq earned Parvaiz’s trust through grand tales of his father’s bravery. John Leal got to Phoebe through connections with her father, who publicly admits being involved with Jejah at the end of the novel. This brings to my mind a theme that I’ve also observed through books such as Boy, Snow, Bird and TI, being the cyclical nature of family mistakes. Being mistreated as a child leads to you mistreating your own family; your grandmother was stuck as an unhappy wife, you will be stuck in a house that isn’t yours; you join a cult, your child will follow. I feel it also speaks to the negligence of fathers in these two books. Pheobe’s father doesn’t become involved at all until after she’s been suspected of terrorism, and the Pasha’s father leaves the family, comes home long enough to impregnate his wife, and leaves once more. Even Karamat is unsympathetic to what his son is going through, caring more about his own public image. Information on cults: http://cultresearch.org/category/cults-the-basics/
3 Comments
4/12/2019 07:40:05 pm
I agree that cults make me lose as much sleep as they do fascinate me. This is a terrifying world. And a very confused nation we live in. It has been nice to see multiple sides of the world's experiences through not just Christian but also Muslim lenses; two often contrasting entities that both so remind me of the same ends. Congrats. You have a very neat little blog here.
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Maria Toney
4/13/2019 01:54:55 am
I can honestly agree with you on cults being super terrifying. Though it does make me wonder, how do the leaders become so charismatic? How do they know that they'll be able to draw in a crowd and be able to keep them together? And while I do know that there are extremists in every religion, I think it was important to see them through the lenses of two of the major religions in the world. But the way you phrased how going through a cult and taking a child along is actually very chilling. To bring a kid into a cult when they have no idea what it is-much less actually knowing what a cult does is very terrifying. And I won't stop thinking about that for a while.
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Erik M
4/16/2019 09:35:18 pm
I had not considered that there could be cult elements in Home Fire. Your post made me think about this. It is not as pronounced as in The Incendiaries, but is there. Negligence of fathers is something I did pick up on, it is an interesting twist in this class of Women in Lit.
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