From romantic novels to country folk music, we are conditioned in western society to notice small side plots and watch them come full circle at the conclusion of a story. So Why does Mohsin Homid break this inclination in his 2017 novel Exit West with miniature vignettes sprinkled throughout the story which never show up again. There is a certain disappointment with the conclusion as the expectation of the vignettes reemerging is diminished. Why did Homid choose to format his novel this way? Nasia Anam in her article “The migrant as a colonist” believes this structure works well by breaking the convention of a general novel, exposing themes not seen in the primary plot. On the other hand, Yogita Goyal in her Article “We are all Migrants” argues this approach as unethical as it oversimplifies the current refugee crisis and takes away the historical and geopolitical context needed to fully develop this discussion. In this essay, I will examine these vignettes to argue that while Homid uses them to introduce the primary themes of the novel in a unique and nuanced way, the vignettes fail to ethically represent the politics associated with the global refugee crisis seen today.
In order to fully understand how Homid’s vignettes relate to the novel as a whole, we will have to take a deep dive into how the content encompassed within them. Each vignette brings the primary plot with Nadia and Saeed to a sudden halt and illustrates an event that is happening between people somewhere else in the world who have walked through the magical doors featured in the novel, which transport a person to another part of the world. The first Vignette explores how people tend to negatively label others based on appearance before becoming acquainted. Another discusses how open-mindedness can lead to cooperation. Another exposes how people change as they move through life. Another looks at the relation of nativists and the power they feel over migrants who come to their nations. Another discusses how the magic doors are used to show how people must seek adventure to prevail in life. Essentially these vignettes to tapping into the primary themes necessary to synthesize an effective immigration novel, but they stand alone, never applying to the plot behind Nadia and Saeed.
What I believe to be the most important vignette seen in this novel takes place in Vienna Austria when an unnamed women witnessing a massacre by a military force in the public streets due to the migration into the city from the magic doors. The story applies some of the historical context seen in the novel exposing how while the conflict was brutal and chaotic, it was not in comparison to the world wars of the earlier century. In addition to this, the vignette is successful in decentralizing the main characters, building a larger world to help the reader understand the scale of the consequences seen with the door. While the vignette still doesn’t help analyze the deeper meanings of migrant’s issues, it helps strengthen the main plot by making to key ideas Homid wishes to express clear to the reader.
Citation:
Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West. Penguin, 2017.
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