Parvez’s Wife Character Analysis

Parvez’s wife, Ali’s mother, remains unnamed throughout the story, and only shows up in two passing references. She is significant for her absence. A Pakistani immigrant like Parvez, she represents how he has forgotten and abandoned his cultural identity in exchange for full assimilation into English culture, as he confides not in his wife, but his regular customer, the English prostitute, Bettina. Parvez’s wife appears in the story only when Parvez is ordering her around. One of these incidents in particular enrages Ali. Ali remembers, and holds against Parvez, the time that he ordered his wife to cook pork sausages, despite the fact that Muslims don’t eat pork, because Parvez saw it as part what was required of them if they were to fully assimilate into English culture.