Breaking Up with Traditional Romance Plots in Exit West
Nadia and Saeed met in a marketing class. Their relationship begins simply but quickly becomes the cornerstone of Mohsin Hamid’s mass migration novel, Exit West. At first glance, Hamid’s novel is stylistically similar to other redundant refugee novels. However, a more in-depth look shows how the central purpose of Hamid’s novel is to break traditional narrative plots. Most importantly, he does not leave us with a fairytale ending for our main characters. Unlike the countless books, movies, and media that only present the traditional love story to marriage pipeline, Hamid doesn’t uphold this traditional narrative convention and instead leaves us with two characters forging their own separate lives. By presenting this new idea, Hamid gives himself a platform to present a new outlook on migration. Although Exit West consistently breaks our expectations, Hamid leaves us with a final scene where Nadia and Saeed meet again years later, and we’re left questioning what their relationship might have been. If Hamid is fulfilling our expectation for an ending featuring our love interests together, why does it leave me so grossly unsatisfied? When Hamid returns to a final scene between Nadia and Saeed, he undermines his formal project of breaking traditional narrative plots, whether they concern migration or romance.
Exit West is more than a fact dictionary about migration – it’s an artful story with a love story nestled at its center. This romance setup provides Hamid a platform to explain a simple idea in a way his readers can easily understand. He then builds off these ideas to explain to readers larger concepts about mass migration. For example, chapter 11 begins with a general statement: “All over the world people were slipping away from where they had been” (Hamid, 213). This claim, although simply written, may appear convoluted due to its expansiveness. But Hamid concludes this sentence with Nadia and Saeed’s relationship: “as Nadia was slipping away from Saeed, and Saeed from Nadia” (Hamid, 213). By examining the slow decline of their relationship on a microlevel, readers can understand the bigger picture of Hamid’s claims. Hamid centrally uses this method to explain breaking traditional narrative conventions. By breaking the love story plot first and forcing readers to consider a new outlook, Hamid is better equipped to convince us to change our perspectives on mass migration. This love story is more than artful prose – it’s a utility tool for Hamid’s persuasive writing.
Hamid breaks our expectations of love stories to challenge readers to consider a new perspective on the traditional migration plot. Migration is not a cheerful word in current media. In fact, Nasia Anam explains how public discourse, journalists, and speculative fiction all center migration around one word: apocalyptic (Anam, 653). Literature surrounding mass migration paints this topic in that same light. Anam explains, “The proximity of the coming apocalypse is a shared feature of these works” (Anam, 654). From literature to the broader field, the world is terrified about the change that migration brings. Yet, Anam goes on to describe how Hamid breaks this cycle. Exit West portrays one of our biggest fears as something that is simply normal. She says, “This is perhaps the most radical aspect of Hamid’s novel: its insistence of defusing the apocalyptic by normalizing it and integrating it into the fabric of human life” (Hamid, 674). Hamid uses Exit West as a platform to show how migration doesn’t have to be world-ending. Just as Hamid breaks our love story expectations, he also breaks our migration expectations. He best implements this idea while Nadia and Saeed are in London (Hamid, 166). Tensions are rising and the refugees are scared. An attack seems inevitable while these foreigners huddle in their stolen homes. And then, the tension lifts. Electricity is turned on. The refugees breathe again. Violence, at least this once, was avoided. Despite our expectations while reading, migration in London does not become apocalyptic. Hamid is rewriting our perspective on what migration can be – from characteristically apocalyptic to potentially hopeful.
Although Hamid upholds his central theme of rewriting our expectations throughout Exit West, the final two pages of this novel arguably destroy much of his work. Hamid ends Exit West with Nadia and Saeed unexpectedly meeting 50 years later in their home country, reminiscing about what their relationship might have been, Nadia even saying, “Imagine how different life would be if I had agreed to marry you” (Hamid, 230). Their conversation implies a small, shared desire for their relationship to rekindle. Saeed even offers another later rendezvous by saying, “He..said if she had an evening free he would take her..and she…said she would like that very much” (Hamid, 231). This wishful, romantic ending is not fulfilling Hamid’s purpose for Exit West. Yogita Goyal critiques Hamid for over-portraying the romance plot as a tool to make Exit West more palatable to readers. She argues, “But its central scaffolding of a romance…makes the novel available” (Goyal, 245). Hamid’s resurfacing of the love story fulfills Goyal’s point that the novel is too romantic. Although Hamid made a change in the traditional narrative by having Nadia and Saeed break up, he is folding that difference back into the expected sameness. In other words, Hamid is taking the central purpose of his novel and undoing much of his work by ending with an overly romantic meeting between two characters that should be happily living their own separate lives. Hamid is arguably reducing his status from an inspirational author to a contradictor of his own argument.
Although Exit West is a groundbreaking novel that explores how traditional narrative plots can be rewritten, Hamid should have ripped out the last two pages of his book. Through his novel, Hamid emphasizes the importance of accepting change. In an interview, he even expresses, “Becoming comfortable with transience and that fact that everything ends is very important” (Thanh Nguyen, 1). Hamid believes change is necessary, yet by leaving readers with a final scene between Nadia and Saeed, Hamid counteracts his own argument. He makes me less convinced to accept change to my views about the traditional love story plot, and even less persuaded to change my opinions about mass migration. Hamid’s novel is still a work of literary art that I thoroughly enjoyed. Yet, despite Exit West’s many successes, Hamid took the wrong exit ending this novel.
Works Cited:
Anam, Nasia. “The Migrant as Colonist: Dystopia and Apocalypse in the Literature of Mass Migration.” Project Muse, Johns Hopkins University Press, Sept. 2018, muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/711837/pdf. Accessed 03 Oct. 2024.
Goyal, Yogita. “‘We Are All Migrants’: The Refugee Novel and the Claims of Universalism.” Project Muse, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020, muse.jhu.edu/article/758170. Accessed 06 Oct. 2024.
Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West. Riverhead Books, 2017.
Thanh Nguyen, Viet. “Refugees, Optimism and Literary Roots: Viet Thanh Nguyen and Mohsin Hamid in Conversation.” Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2018, www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-mohsin-hamid-viet-thanh-nguyen-20180527-story.html. Accessed Oct. 2024.
Acknowledgments
I had an amazing conversation with Dr. Churchill while I was brainstorming ideas for this essay, and the topic of this essay is not fully my own. I give much credit to Dr. Churchill for helping me think about this topic and expand on how I could write my essay around it. I am extremely grateful for her help and ideas.
drafting groups comments:
Tate:
Hi Kaitlyn,
I have read you essay a couple of times now, please forgive me if some of my comments are repetitive!
One thing that has stood out to me is your thesis, it is clear, has a question that is answering, a good crux. There is enough to talk about. This being said, I almost feel that the evidence presented in the middle goes a little bit broader than what you are trying to say. Your best ideas (like the maid/ending) kind of get stuffed down to the bottom of the essay leaving the focus of the middle a little confusing. The change paragraph talking about Nadia is good, but I am not entirely clear on how that paragraph supports the crux.
Generally, you have a good use of direct quotes and summaries throughout the essay. The paragraph that begins “Hamid uses Exit West as a platform for our conventional narratives to be shaken.” is really important to your argument, but at times seems a little too speculative.
Your writing style is fantastic, it is very clear and without clutter. There are some generalizations here and there (eg. “Change, especially drastic change like migration, is something we have been programmed to view in a negative light.”) which could be made more specific/direct, but overall I would say that 99% of the time your essay continues to build arguments.
The only other thing, looking at the rubric, that could be beneficial go consider are the Janus-faced sentences. I am sure you have made changes since this draft was published, that might be one of them. For me, at least, they are not necessary to understand the flow of your argument.
Fantastic job with this essay. I am totally on board with your points, you convinced me. If you end up making changes, I would be happy to reread your essay. Keep up the good work!
Tate
Will:
Hey Kaitlyn!
You did an excellent job writing this essay and having an intriguing start to it! I really enjoyed and connected with your statement about forcing your brother to watch princess movies as a kid, because my little sister used to do the same. The way you were able to set up your main introduction points and then follow with your own clear thesis/thoughts allowed the essay to flow well, but I did feel as if the intro was a little lengthy in order to dive into your argument and its main points. Granted, this could be on purpose with the style of writing you have, but If I had to give any ideas to help it would be to condense the 1st two paragraphs with each other. One area of strength was how you were able to keep this essay in your voice the entire time while having little to no clutter. This goes into how easily you transitioned from your quotation sandwiches.
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