Exit West

Background of the Novel

Exit West is the fourth novel by the renowned Pakistani-British writer Mohsin Hamid. It was published in 2017.  It has taken the issue of migration, the reasons behind it, and its impacts on the individuals. Its title symbolically tells how individuals leave their homelands in the third world and settle in the west, attempting to change their identity. It has claimed much fame for successfully portraying a multi-dimensional picture of this issue. It secured its position as a finalist for the ‘Man Booker Prize.’ 

It is a contemporary novel that tries to dig into the problems that cause migration. Some of the prime significance are terrorism, conflicts going on in the third world, the discontent of citizens of their governments, worsening financial situations, rampant religious extremism, and the problems due to space created by the quitting of the global powers responsible for maintenance of peace. 

A writer feels what he sees, and he can’t help it except to pen it and present it before the people to let them know what he/she has seen and felt. Hamid has done the same and shared the horrible experiences of this journey. Exit West’s geographical location can’t be exactly pinpointed. Still, its context can be easily found in contemporary Syria where conflict was going on between the American supported forces and Russian backed forces at the time of writing of this novel.

It tells the sad tale of how one feels when his home is in the conflagration; it relates how one feels when he is about to leave his/her homeland forever. It isn’t just a story of Saeed and Nadia; it is a story of millions of people who fled their homeland due to fundamentalist Islamic militants and global forces that create and promote problems to meet their ends. Hamid hasn’t named the area to which the protagonists belong, and this makes its appeal universal. He has made it the story of all the refugees coming from across the world to the west.

Migration is an unpleasant process during which thousands of people lose their lives. They face the hardships, and when they reach where they want to go, they find detention centers there to welcome them. Even if they are welcomed, they have residential and financial problems which make them live like underdogs. Shortly, migration is a catastrophe, and Exit West is its universal picture that tries to show the world its horrible face. Hamid also portrays the globalization impacted life, telling the reader how distances have shrunk, and people have come closer virtually.

Exit West Summary

Chapter I

The novel starts with an unknown, third-person narrator telling the story of two persons, namely Saeed and Nadia. They, for the first time, see each other in an evening training center. The city and place are not named, nor is the time mentioned. They assess each other in sight but don’t approach each other. One day Saeed approaches her and asks her to have coffee with him, which she declines. But he hasn’t lost hope and still thinks about her.

In the black door vignette, the focus shifts from Saeed and Nadia to an Australian’s apartment. A dark-skinned person comes to a white woman’s residence through the black door. He stands near her for a few whiles and then leaves through the bedroom window. Saeed’s family and his apartment are shown. The love between his family members and their enduring relationship is described. He is shown looking through the family telescope, and in the background sound of automatic gunfire can be heard.

Saeed is eventually able to convince Nadia for her date with him. They discuss Nadia’s appearance, who is clad like a conservative religious woman, but she doesn’t offer a single prayer. She tells Saeed that she does so that men don’t mess with her.

Chapter II

A description of Nadia’s childhood and family is given. She renounced her faith when she was a college student, and this led to the breaking of relations between her and her family.  She decided to move out of the family house, and this infuriated her family members, so she left everything behind. She works for an insurance company and earns her livelihood.

Saeed and Nadia’s relationship gets stronger after the first date. They talk about the places they would visit together and discuss refugee camps. He comes to her apartment and joins her in smoking joint. She doesn’t want him to be seen by anybody coming to her apartment. For this purpose, she drops her robe to the ground floor so that he can come to her unnoticed.

When they take their first joint together, a vignette describes a drunk man in Japan following two Filipina girls and angry over their presence in his country. He thinks that these outsiders should know their place and touches the ‘metal’ in his pocket.

Now the conflict in the country enters Nadia’s life, and her cousin loses life in a bomb blast. Saeed is there to console her, and to strengthen the relationship with him; she breaks up with the person she is already in a relationship with.

Chapter III

In this chapter, Saeed and Nadia are shown using their cellphones. Cell phone and its impact on their lives are described. The cellphone is the only way to be in contact with the world. Cell phone provides the way out for them to mentally escape from the dreary world in which they are living. Nadia uses social media to order drugs when the drug exchange point is destroyed. Militants take hostage a number of people in their town, and in a government forces attack, they are killed. After this attack, they take drugs together for the whole night to forget the terrible event. In this situation, when all around there are killings, Saeed’s family is worried that he may have been killed when he doesn’t come home.

At the same time, in another vignette, a black door is shown. This is  La Jolla in California, and there a man asks police about a marked area, which is his property, whether migrants are coming. He is told to leave, but he has nowhere else to go. Curfew is imposed as the militants’ area of influence begins to grow.

Nadia and Saeed regularly meet at restaurants, but at their closure, he is invited to Nadia’s apartment. They spend their time together, and Nadia asks him for being physical and intimate, which he refuses by saying that he can’t do it before marriage. They keep contacting through phone after that, but with the growing militancy, the government decides to shut off the mobile phone services. This closure brings to a halt their contact.

Chapter IV

With the deteriorating situation, Nadia and Saeed are eager to meet each other but can’t, and the unavailability of mobile phone service is also a hurdle in their contact. They don’t meet for many days. People stock the daily need articles to avoid problems when there is a shortage. She goes to the bank and then the market where people grope her. When she returns to her apartment, she sees Saeed waiting there for her. They go inside, and again when she asks for sex, Saeed responds negatively. He asks her to be his wife, which she refuses mildly by saying, ‘I don’t know.’ Saeed returns to his house.

A fourth vignette is shown in which a man stands at an apartment door. He is a brave man, having a pistol in his hand guarding the apartment. Another man enters there through the black door; he has a Russian assault gun in his hand. He has come to fight in their city. The first man stands there as a guard so that the second one can safely enter the city and take part in the fight.

Fight breaks and spreads widely and fastly. The city is taken by fighters, and there are bullet shots and ammunition being fired constantly. Nadia and Saeed lose their jobs because companies have stopped working, and their workplaces are closed. The government forces have started airstrikes to weaken the influence of the militants who are now taking the neighborhoods. Many doors have opened to the fighters, and they are coming through these portals. Saeed is concerned about Nadia’s safety and asks her to come to their house for residence. She joins him when his mother is shot by a stray bullet, and the militants are now becoming a threat to the security of alone living females like Nadia.

Chapter V

Nadia comes and joins Saeed and his father at their home after his mother’s funeral. She is accepted by Saeed’s father as her daughter, and she accepts him as a father. Still, they haven’t married. She occupies Saeed’s room while he sleeps in the living room. During this period, the town and its neighborhoods are taken by the militants. The new regime is fierce, and constantly murders are reported from in and outside the town. But they have no option, and they live carefully in the town. They start eagerly searching for a black door to escape from the town as it’s no more fit for living. They find an agent who can help them get out of there using a safe black door.

While Saeed and Nadia await the agent, another vignette is shown. It is in Dubai, where a Tamil family comes there through a black door and is intercepted by cameras. Drones come for surveillance, and they are arrested quietly. Nobody comes to know what has happened. The focus again moves towards Saeed and Nadia, who secure a black door. Saeed asks his father to go with them, which he refuses. He wants to stay there in the town near his wife’s grave and wants to stay near his siblings and other relatives. He asks Nadia to take care of his son until he is out of danger. He hopes that ultimately they will get married one day. Nadia agrees to his request and promises that she will take care of his son, leaving the question regarding marriage unanswered.

Chapter VI

Nadia and Saeed leave secretly and pack their luggage in small packs so that nobody comes to know about it. The black door that the agent has chosen for them is in a dentist’s office. Saeed asks Nadia to go first, and he follows. It opens into a public bathroom in an island in Greece named Mykonos. It is an island occupied by migrants like Nadia and Saeed, who have left their countries due to the same problems. They go out and purchase the essentials. They set up camp for their residence.

A vignette is shown in which a young woman in Austria is going to participate in the demonstration to support migrants. Recently a massacre has taken place in which the people from Saeed’s country have killed the natives. The natives are furious and want the migrants to be taken out of their country, but some of the natives oppose this idea and have arranged a demonstration in the zoo. She wants to stop the migrant camp from being relocated from the zoo. She is going to the zoo from her workplace via train but for the sake of her security exits and goes there on foot because the infuriated mob may harm her.

Life in Mykonos is hard, and they work hard for their subsistence. They try to find a black door to get out of there. Saeed finds an acquaintance there who tells them that he will help them reach Sweden, he is paid money, but he never appears again. They find a newly discovered black door but find it already guarded. Nadia goes to the clinic to treat a cut on her arm, and there a girl promises to find her a black door. She leads them to a black door that is newly opened, and it is not guarded.

Chapter VII

From Mykonos through the black door, they arrive in London. The black door which opens in London is at a bedroom in a house whose residents are away. Through this black door, dozens of migrants arrive and occupy rooms at the house which they have occupied. The housemaid registers a complaint at the local police station because migrants are arriving incessantly, and there is no space left at home. Some of the migrants arrive through the black door and leave for the city while others intend to occupy this place permanently. She wants police to vacate the migrants because they have illegally occupied it. Meanwhile, in the nearby area, the migrants keep arriving and causing tension in the local residents. When the police come to vacate them from the building, they organize a peaceful sit-in, and thus the police leave. Attacks are organized to intimidate the migrants, but they stay steadfast. 

The migrants are pouring in, and London is being occupied by them. Londoners intend to leave the city because they have no place left for them. In this chapter, a vignette is shown in which a Kentish clerk decides to commit suicide because a black door has opened in his second bedroom. Through this door, migrants arrive, and his stay is threatened at his own home. Through this black door, he arrives at a seaside town in an African country Namibia and relocates there, asking his relatives to visit him there.

In London, Nadia and Saeed have no way to earn their livelihood, and their source of subsistence is money and rations from local charities. The same is the case with their fellow residents in that house. The government tries to enforce law and order because the riots intending to harm migrants are on the rise. Nadia and Saeed’s love is not as vigorous as it used to be and has started faltering. Still, they protect each other because there is no one else to care for them. In the end, the government decides to cut power supply to the migrant occupied areas, namely Kensington and Chelsea.

Chapter VIII

London has changed into a new city and divided into two parts. One is light London, and another is dark London. Light London is occupied by the natives where the power supply is intact while the dark London is occupied by the migrants where the power supply has been cut. There is segregation seen in the people, and now the house occupied by Nadia and Saeed has been occupied by Nigerian migrants. 

Nadia and Saeed often fall in quarrels with each other. She lives now with the Nigerians and spends her time with them. While Saeed has affiliated himself with his own countrymen and spends time with them. He wants somebody who can emotionally support them and stays by his side in this time of hardship. He misses his father, and he started to seek the peace of mind in religion. In contrast, Nadia is fine with her surroundings and the new environment because she finds it much better than her former country.

Another vignette is shown in which the gifts of black doors are shown. In this vignette, a young woman is shown to appear through a black door in Tijuana, Mexico. She finds her lost daughter through a black door who has not seen her since long and is shy when she meets her. She finds her in an orphanage and is reunited.  In London, the situation is out of control, and the military is intending to raid or attack the area occupied by migrants because they have illegally taken hold of it. Military invades, and in an attack, a number of migrants are killed when a cinema catches fire, and they are burnt alive. This tragedy brings the fight to a halt, and thus the natives come to accept the reality that the migrants are now part of the city.

Chapter IX

New changes with the acceptance of global mobility take place, and new residences are built for the migrants. The government approves cities, residential apartments, and other structures to support the migrants. This leads Nadia and Saeed to move and work at London Halo, a newly establishing migrant settlement. This area is being established to provide residence to the millions of people who have migrated to London. A system is established to give each migrant their own home; the more he/she works, the easier he/she will be able to earn their home. 

Nadia and Saeed also register themselves in this program expecting to earn their own home. Though life is improving, both of them are not happy with it. Nadia dreams of the girl she has met in Mykonos. While Saeed’s thoughts are haunted by his father, he has come to know that he has died recently. He is sad due to this news and misses him.

In this chapter, the ninth vignette is shown. In Amsterdam, a wrinkled old man comes through a black door to an old man’s residence. This wrinkled man comes through this door again and again, and thus they become friends. The wrinkled man takes the native Dutch to his country Brazil for a visit through the black door. They are seen kissing each other, and a photographer takes a shot of this scene. Later he deletes their picture out of respect.

Saeed and Nadia continue to work in London Halo; they still take care of each other though distances are widening. Saeed has come close to his foreman and admires him. Nadia works at a place where the majority of the workers are women. Nadia doesn’t feel comfortable here and suggests to abandon their plans of home here and leave for California. To this suggestion, Saeed agrees.

Chapter X

They arrive in America and begin a new life at Marin, San Francisco. Their residence is at a high up on a hill near the sea. Nadia works at a food cooperative while Saeed is changing fastly; he goes to worship with the local preacher. He has changed into a silent person, and religiously devout. He is growing distant from Nadia. Saeed falls in love with the preacher’s daughter but still doesn’t want to leave Nadia. He has found happiness in the preacher’s daughter. But still, they remain loyal to each other despite the emotional gap that is increasing. While Saeed is in love with the preacher’s daughter, Nadia is trapped in memories of the girl she has met in Mykonos.

In the tenth vignette, a woman is shown who doesn’t migrate physically through the black door. She is a rich old woman from Palo Alto. She ponders at the migrants and the global migration that is taking place. She feels sympathy for the migrants because she thinks all human beings are migrants, some across space, and some across time.

Chapter XI

They spend time together in Marin, but shortly after their arrival, Nadia suggests that she moves out of the hut in which they are living. Saeed tells her to stay there, and he will move out of there. She silently packs her luggage and leaves for her workplace where a bed is offered to her. She comes in a relationship with the head cook of her workplace. In the first days, they contact each other and meet each other frequently, but with the passage of time, they lose contact and drift apart.

In this chapter, another vignette is shown where a maid refuses to join her daughter. She prefers to stay as a servant at the house she is working in and doesn’t want to go to an unknown land. She prefers to stay at Marrakech instead of opting for the black door to go to a new land.

Chapter XII

Nadia and Saeed meet at a restaurant fifty years later in their native town. There are many things which have changed, and there are many which are still the same. They discuss their past over a cup of coffee. They talk and enjoy time together, embrace each other, and part, not knowing whether they would be able to meet again or not.

Analysis of Characters in Exit West

Saeed

Saeed is the male protagonist of the novel. He is a young Muslim man, whose city of birth or country is not named. He is a quiet, thoughtful, respectful, young man. He is in love with Nadia and wants to make her his wife, which she refuses. He is a rebellious person who wants to explore the world; he wants to enjoy his life but is not let by the conditions. He loves his family, especially his mother, who is later shot by a stray bullet and dies.

This affects him much, and he decides to leave his hometown for some other place. He wants his father to accompany him, but he refuses and asks Saeed to go. He goes through a transformation that is gradual and dangerous. He is a religiously moderate person who, amidst the increasing militancy and increasing extremism, stays so and doesn’t become a fundamentalist.

He has a deep connection with his home and country, which he doesn’t want to lose. We can see his acquaintances as a migrant are his compatriots, and he eventually falls in love with the preacher’s daughter.  He is a devout Muslim and doesn’t want to impose his religion on others, nor he allows others to interfere in this personal matter. He finds religion as means to connect him to his past life and a source of emotional support. 

He stays loyal to Nadia, but due to her behavior, he changes. Nadia blames him for his excessive attachment to his native culture, and that may be the reason she doesn’t want to marry him. He is a person of strong moral character. He helps those people whom he admires and respects and enjoys his life among his exiled countrymen. Saeed has some hard-fast principles which he follows, and an example of it is abstinence when Nadia offers him to have it.  He is a strong man, having a strong moral code and principles to lead a life in accordance with them.

Nadia

Nadia is a strong, independent, and self-made young woman. She is a non-conformist and has renounced her faith and abandoned her family. She is a wise person and knows how to use something in her favor; an example of it is the use of robe. She is a non-religious person and doesn’t have any religious ties. She doesn’t like her culture and surroundings and escapes it to get rid of it as much as possible. 

In sharp contrast to Saeed, she doesn’t want to get married and has relationships with men before him and continues later when they break up. She has renounced her native culture and everything related to it, either good or bad. She evolves and is later sexually attracted to women but still doesn’t change her loyalty towards Saeed. She is a caring person and keeps her promise, which Saeed’s father has asked her at the time of parting. She believes in being independent and autonomous.

Saeed’s Father

Saeed’s father is a gentle, eastern man. He deeply loves his wife and is affectionate towards his children. He is a university professor and has met for the first time his wife at a cinema. She has led over him in many matters; she has strong sexual desires and dominates him. He is content with his life and children. He is devastated when his wife is killed. Due to financial reasons, he couldn’t retire formally and taught as a visiting faculty until the end. He often thought that if he had chosen a profession that could pay better, he would have had a better life. He is a kind and moderate person the way a university professor should be. 

He accepts Nadia as she comes to his home and doesn’t judge her like the rest of the people in society. He takes her as a daughter and wishes her to be his son’s wife. When he is asked by Saeed to join them and leave for another country, he refuses. The reason for it is his love for his wife, whose grave is at a small distance from their residence. He wants to stay with his relatives and doesn’t want to lose contact with the place where he grew up and spent a major part of his life. We can conclude that he changes less throughout the novel and represents a traditional eastern character.

Saeed’s Mother

She is a kind and loving mother, a typical mother character. She is a retired schoolteacher and has typical characteristics of people in this profession. She met her husband for the first time in a cinema but didn’t make any move, rather her husband proposed to her and they got married. She was a clever person. Saeed came into her life when she had given up hopes regarding bearing children. She aged, but her mind remained youthful, and she shared jokes with sexual innuendos even when Saeed had become an adult. 

She is a typical mother character who is worried about her children. When the city’s situation worsened, she showed much concern for her son and persistently asked him to be careful. She was nervous then and spent much of her time in prayers. In the end, she became the prey of the militants’ stray bullet and lost her life.

Nadia’s Parents

In stark contrast to Saeed’s parents, Nadia’s parents are conservative and religious people. They are not on good terms with Nadia because she is an open-minded person and wants to break the chains of tradition. They break with her, and she leaves them forever.

Saeed’s Boss

He is a kind person and runs an advertising agency, instead of typical bosses he is a person who believes in comradery and a compassionate relationship with his employees. He is sad when they part after the government closes all the businesses due to the increasing militancy. He tells his employees that he will welcome them all after the militant regime is over.

The Musician

The musician is Nadia’s boyfriend, and he is the first person with whom Nadia had sex. He is a womanizer and uses Nadia to fulfill his physical needs. He is not interested in her beyond his physical needs. He doesn’t care about her emotional needs and physically exploits her. She still meets him, and they have sex frequently. Nadia decides to end all this mess and choose Saeed as a partner. She spends her last evening with him before the breakup, and he asks her to have sex for a final time, and she agrees. Later he regrets that if he had asked for something better, but it can not be undone. He is killed a few months later after the break up with Nadia.

The Volunteer

The volunteer is a young girl who is eighteen or nineteen years old from the island of Mykonos. She has no formal medical training and works at a clinic. Nadia meets her for the first time when she injures in an escape from men near the beach. She comes to the clinic for first aid and meets her. They form a good friendship, and later she joins her several times to smoke joints together. When they tell her that they want to get out of this country to a better place, she finds a black door, and they reach London through that portal. Nadia misses her when her relationship with Saeed deteriorates and fantasizes about having sex with her.

The Preacher

The preacher is a black person from Marin in California. He runs a shelter home there, and Saeed often goes there and volunteers to help him. His wife is from the country to which Saeed belonged and is now dead. He understands a little bit of his language and religious practices. He has a beautiful daughter, and Saeed falls in love with her.

The Preacher’s Daughter

She is a young girl whom Saeed wants to avoid. The reason for it is her beauty because it attracts him, and he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with her. She finally has a conversation with him when she asks him about his native country and city. He comes to know that her mother belonged to the same city to which Saeed belongs. Nadia hasn’t met this girl and doesn’t know about her, but she senses that there is somebody whom Saeed meets. She senses that some girl is there who lifts Saeed’s bad moods. When Nadia quits, Saeed comes to a relationship with her and marries her.

Themes in Exit West

Escape

Escape is an instinctive step that humans take because they are never satisfied with the things that they have at hand or around them. While in some cases, people escape because they don’t find the situation favorable, instead it is threatening. The same is the case with migration, which takes place because, in the majority of cases, the persons who intend to migrate, find the situation unfavorable to them. The theme of escape in Exit West is most obvious when Nadia and Saeed leave their country through the black door and reach Mykonos.

From there, they find another through which they reach London and then using another reach, California. This manifestly tells of the discontent of the characters.

Escape is not shown in a single form; on some occasions, it takes place in the form of migration, some instances are in the form of drug addiction, and in some places, it is demonstrated in the form of illicit sexual relationships. The characters try to find a place of respite and try to escape from wherever and whatever they are. Nadia finds in her phone an escape from reality, and she watches different things to avoid the reality that she is alone and in a worn-torn city. One difference between Nadia and Saeed is that the former wants to escape the city and all her past forever while Saeed doesn’t want so. He wants to leave the city temporarily and wants to return when the conflict is over.

Religion

In religion, human beings find emotional relief. It is a source to connect with traditions, gives hope, and offers a way to vent the harmful emotions. In the same way, Saeed tries to find peace of mind in religion, because he finds himself in a void. He also finds an empty space inside himself; for the inner and outer fulfillment, he tries to seek his peace in religion. As the novel moves forward, we see a development in Saeed that his attachment grows with religion, and probably he gets what he is seeking.

 In contrast to him, Nadia moves away from religion because it has created problems in her life. Religion, according to her, has made her relationships break with her family, and it has led to ruinations in her city. Thus it carries positive connotations for Saeed while negative for Nadia. Religious motifs are scattered in the novel, and it is an identity that the majority of the people don’t want to lose. Its impacts on human beings are undeniable, and it is the reason that the author has made it one of the main themes, though not explicitly asserted.

Borders, Division and Fear

Human beings, based on different identities, want to create and revise borders. It is evident from history and is happening since the existence of the state. In the modern world, global and regional forces try to assert themselves and, for this purpose, try to redesign the borders. In this novel, Islamic militants are shown who don’t avoid killings and other barbarous steps to meet their ends. They want to redefine borders while the government wants to maintain them the way they are. As a result, tragedies take place like migration, trauma, and loss of lives and property. 

This concept of borders creates alienation among human beings and thus divides them into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ One other than those of one’s own group is hated and prevented from entering the borders. Those violating the borders are harassed while some lose their lives. This is shown very well in this novel that how this all happens with Saeed and Nadia. It narrates how they suffer, and their acquaintances lose their lives.

Love and Connection

Human beings, as social animals, have the inability to lead life in isolation, try to create a connection with each other. This connection is both emotional and physical, which manifest themselves in different forms. As migrants, Saeed, and Nadia try to establish relations with other migrants to get rid of the feeling of being aliens. They love each other and care for each other’s needs. Saeed tries to find fulfillment in her and wants to get married to her, which she doesn’t want because of some unknown reasons. 

As a result, Saeed seeks it somewhere else and falls for the preacher’s daughter. When they migrate, they try to lay the foundation of a hybrid culture, which is an amalgamate of their native culture and the culture to which they have migrated. This hybrid culture is an attempt to create a connection between the migrants and fulfill their emotional needs.

Despite being at the same place and with the same motives, the refugees don’t want to lose the identities they carry from the native countries. They make their factions according to their native identities, which shows that they want to maintain and strengthen their connection. Nadia and Saeed have cut all the connections with their past, but still, they struggle to keep the last one alive by keeping their love. When it dies, they break their connection and meet about fifty years later and don’t spend much time together. Thus love and connection are shown as the dominant motifs in life through this novel.

Refugees and Migration

Refugees and migration is the central theme in Exit West. As discussed earlier, refugees move from one land to another due to financial, security, or other problems. Migration is a bitter experience during which people lose lives, some become disabled, and some find it hard to get out of the trauma.

In this novel, all these problems are depicted very well. It reflects the real-life migration and the essential issues associated with it. It tells the story of those countries where the war and militancy are on its peak and ruining the lives of the inhabitants. It explores the stories of refugees, their good and bad experiences, and tells the world how it is to move from one part of the world to another as a migrant. The author also explores refugee and non-refugee migration in the novel, describing the choices that people make.

Global Mobility

This novel is based on a realistic narrative, with the exception of a single factor, which is black doors. These are the doors that can transport a person from one place to another instantly and can be used at any time. Though it is the magic realistic part, it doesn’t affect the credibility of the rest of the story because we see mobility in the world with the rise of globalization. Black doors transform the phenomenon of migration and subtract the risk factor from migration.

They make distances, hurdles, and dangers obsolete and thus make migration easy. They are accessible to anybody who can find them. Thus they mildly suggest the acceptance of global mobility, and the author tries the readers to recognize the importance of this phenomenon. This is a suggestion of a borderless world. Hameed explores the answer to the question of a borderless world with black doors. The black door, in simple words, is acceptance and recognition of free movement without any restrictions.

Ties that Bind

The story of this novel is not a love story because love comes to an end when Nadia refuses Saeed’s marriage proposal. There are more other ties that bind human beings and have an important role in human life.

There are many examples of such love in this novel, as Nadia and Saeed keep meeting each other though they are no more in love, it is the promise and care which they consider their responsibility. They belong to the same country, and it is another tie that keeps them united. They are migrants, and thus they identify themselves as the same. They are facing hardships and want to settle in a new land; this is another tie. They are facing hostility from the natives, and it can be named as another tie that makes them the chips of the same block.

Thus there are a number of ties that bind us, and in life, their importance can’t be denied. In this novel, in the characters Nadia and Saeed and others, the author has tried to explore these ties. An attempt is made to know what new ties may be formed if the world is made borderless.

Exit West Literary Analysis

Exit West is a psychological journey from the east to the west. It explores the possibilities of a new world if we do away with certain restrictions. He has beautifully done it through the use of magic realism employing ‘black doors.’ The author has depicted the incidents artistically using exquisite imagery of the homelands of the migrants who leave it because of the rampant fundamentalism. The plot is perfect as it moves from the happenings that begin the relationship between Nadia and Saeed and tells the reason for the failure of their relationship, juxtaposing it with a number of universal factors. Being a modernist work, it shows the dystopian image of the problems created by global powers and the results borne by innocent citizens. It brings the real narrative through a fictional genre and puts forth the question of migration before the readers and let them decide if it matters to the world. Symbolic representation of things in the novel makes the issues and debate regarding them acceptable because it puts forth all the problems and factors involved.

Genre

Exit West is a fictional work, and it can be classified as a novel. It is a modernist, contemporary work whose focus is migration and its multidimensional analysis.

Magic Realism

In this work, the realistic narrative of migration is mixed with the magical element of black doors, thus fantasizing the issue. Magic realism has made the author able to explore the world the way it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. For example, he has made migration cozy by using black doors and suggests the eradication of borders. Thus through magic realism, he has explored an issue that is still considered taboo i.e., a global state without borders and restrictions.

Symbolism in Exit West

Black Door Vignettes

Black door vignettes are used as a symbol that represents resolution, hope, and love. As we move from initial chapters to the later ones, we notice a change in these vignettes, and this is the portrayal of a hope that migration would change the world into a better place if it is freely allowed. It is an appreciation of a borderless world and a message of liberty of human beings from the atrocities of state, its machinery, and factors that try to control the state. It is an acceptance of a new world order.

Pale-skinned Woman and Dark-skinned Person

In the first vignette, a pale-skinned woman is shown who forgets to turn on the alarm before going to sleep. And thus, a dark-skinned man enters her apartment through a black door. The pale-skinned woman represents the middle class of the western world who consider migrants as a threat to their lives, jobs, and country. While the dark-skinned man is a symbol of the third world whose denizens live from hand to mouth. He tries to move carefully and moves the way if his neck is bound; this shows how the migrants are careful while they move to the west and the problems they face in their countries, respectively.

Japanese Man and Filipino immigrants

In another vignette, when the Japanese man follows the Filipina girls who have emerged from a black door represents the prejudice locals feel for the migrants and the aggressive attitude they show.

Antagonists

Antagonists in this novel are the militants and fundamentalist forces which forces the citizens to either accept them as their rulers, otherwise die or flee the city. Another antagonistic force in the novel is xenophobia and hatred.

Climax

This novel has its climax in different instances when the protagonists face problems due to their arrival in different countries, and they face opposition. This ultimate climactic point is the break up between Nadia and Saeed when they part their ways.

Motifs

Black Doors

Black doors are used as a motif, and they define the situation in which though the person knows where it leads, it is not known what the exact destination is. Thus it opens the questions that what would it lead to if borders are opened, and migration is accepted. What would happen, will people isolate themselves or open their bosoms to the migrants.

Nadia’s Robe

Nadia’s robe is a recurring motif, which in her native country represents her being in conformity to the traditions while that in the west refers to an extremist tendency.

Point of View

The novel is narrated from a third-person omniscient point of view, where the narrator describes the events with complete knowledge.

Setting of the Novel

The spatial setting of the novel in initial chapters is an unknown city in the middle east, which changes from there to Greece, then to London, from there to California, and finally, in the end, shifts back to that unknown city in the Middle East.

Tone

The tone of the narrator is passionate, and he tragically describes the issue of migration, arousing sympathy for protagonists and the rest of the immigrants.