While the cultural narrative divides refugees from nativists and finds reasons to bar refugees from entry to countries, Mohsin Hamid not only reveals the refugee perspective, but also questions the idea of nativism itself as a legitimate reason for division. While Exit West follows the story of Nadia and Saeed, it also includes the many other refugees that the couple run into, and the doors present opportunities not only for refugees fleeing war and persecution, but also for everyday people that are looking for a new place to go. In the main plotline, the couple meet and live with other refugees, but the subplots in each chapter – which break from any known characters and jump into a new story entirely – include the magical realism of the doors,
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When Nadia and Saeed are in London, in the midst of fierce political opposition from the natives, one of their fellow countryfolk speaks of the idea of “cutting across divisions of race or language or nation, for what did those divisions matter now in a world full of doors, the only divisions that mattered now were between those who sought the right of passage and those who would deny them passage” (Hamid 155). By breaking down the borders between countries, the doors themselves also get at the fundamental question of what divides people and pits one against another. In Nadia and Saeed’s world of travel across boundaries for escape, traditional divisions between people of race, language, and nation matters less as the world becomes more connected and intertwined. Towards the end of the novel, “all over the world people were slipping away from where they had been” (Hamid 213), and as Saeed’s countryfolk shared, the only division that mattered in this new world of doors was between those who sought passage and those who denied it. It then becomes a moral question, and as nativism was broken down from merit, traditional divisions between people are being challenged, for it stopped becoming a concern with other races or languages. Just as the non-English speaking homeless man is more at home than the Palo Alto woman, degrading the value of nativism and title, people being able to instantly travel across nations leads to less importance of borders and nationality, which only previously restrained these people and refugees from happiness and
When Nadia and Saeed are in London, in the midst of fierce political opposition from the natives, one of their fellow countryfolk speaks of the idea of “cutting across divisions of race or language or nation, for what did those divisions matter now in a world full of doors, the only divisions that mattered now were between those who sought the right of passage and those who would deny them passage” (Hamid 155). By breaking down the borders between countries, the doors themselves also get at the fundamental question of what divides people and pits one against another. In Nadia and Saeed’s world of travel across boundaries for escape, traditional divisions between people of race, language, and nation matters less as the world becomes more connected and intertwined. Towards the end of the novel, “all over the world people were slipping away from where they had been” (Hamid 213), and as Saeed’s countryfolk shared, the only division that mattered in this new world of doors was between those who sought passage and those who denied it. It then becomes a moral question, and as nativism was broken down from merit, traditional divisions between people are being challenged, for it stopped becoming a concern with other races or languages. Just as the non-English speaking homeless man is more at home than the Palo Alto woman, degrading the value of nativism and title, people being able to instantly travel across nations leads to less importance of borders and nationality, which only previously restrained these people and refugees from happiness and