Disgraced

Emily is an artist who seems to have a White savior complex but does not understand her own privilege as a White woman. She has a history of dating men of color, one of which (as Emily and Amir joke) supposedly spoke little English and greatly upset her parents. Emily is upset by a racist waiter but pressures Amir to help Imam Fareed without comprehending how this might put Amir’s career in danger. At the climax of the play, Amir victimizes Emily by becoming violent and turning on her the full brunt of his anger at his failure at work along with the secondary anger of her affair with Isaac. In the last scene, Emily admits that she and her obsession with Islam were naïve. She idealized Islam and did not want to hear the less romantic aspects of growing up with the religion from her husband’s experience. Emily separates herself from her life with Amir entirely, rejecting the apartment, refusing to take her portrait of him, and telling him not to write. 

When Abe enters in the first scene, he is idealistic and looks up to his Uncle Amir. Abe, who was named Hussein by his parents, changed his name to Abe Jensen in order to Americanize himself and make his life easier, living with the split identity of a Muslim who has assimilated in the United States. To Abe in the first half of the play, Amir has achieved the American Dream, and changing his name is an acceptable price to pay. Like Emily, Abe believes that Amir can separate the imam’s case from Muslim identity and help him without realizing that Amir’s life is balanced on his ability to deny his Muslim identity. When Abe sees what Amir has done to Emily and the way Amir’s self-hatred has destroyed his life, Abe seeks new role models and fully embraces his own Muslim identity. With this, he also embraces the anger that Amir described from his own understanding of being a Muslim and the mission to fight for the propagation of Islam.

Isaac is a White Jewish curator at the Whitney, a prominent museum in New York. Like Emily, Isaac takes a neo-liberal view of Islam, romanticizing it for its art and cultural contributions while denying his own prejudices. Although Isaac is not especially religious, he reveals his underlying Islamophobia by telling Emily that Amir only sees her as a prize because she is White. As Amir drinks more and provokes Isaac, Isaac responds by insulting Amir by calling Muslims animals. Isaac is manipulative and charismatic, potentially using his position as a curator to gain favor with Emily. When Jory catches Isaac and Emily kissing, Isaac immediately attempts to gaslight his wife and tell her that she did not see what she saw. In the end, Isaac’s influence does launch Emily’s career as an artist. But he demonstrates that although he is more deeply in denial than Amir, he is no better in terms of appreciating when the people of the religion he grew up with manage to successfully dominate, even if that domination is achieved through violence.