Exploring Global Identities in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West

Abstract

Identity cannot be compartmentalized, as Amin Maalouf argues. Neither is it established on a rigid core of a single affiliation like the restrictive essentialist identities of some political/religious groups wreaking havoc in the world. Identity changes encompass various affiliations in a unique way for every individual. However, this does not refer to the absence of a cultural, religious, or national identity. Maalouf's concept encourages peace. The refugee crisis and the tumultuous events of the last few decades led to a devastating confrontation between rival restrictive identities that could have been avoided if the parties and the world had given up the redundant notion of singular restrictive identities. Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (2017) tells the story of two people falling in love in a disintegrating world. Their identities change as they escape their homeland to different parts of the West, highlighting the effects of their mobility and change of places and contexts. Using Maalouf's argument, this paper investigates how characters' identities change due to the catastrophe in their own country and the world they move into. The narration's tone, details, and character delineation show identity and notion stereotyping, especially in the Muslim world. As implied in Exit West (the major topic of this study) but expressly addressed in The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), the novelist compares a restrictive, rigid fundamentalist identity with another fundamentalist identity.