Exit West Essay

1641 Words7 Pages

Beginning in the the Middle East, then onto an island near Greece, a house in London, and finally a small refugee town in California is the progressively eastward journey that the reader and the protagonists go on throughout the novel “Exit West”. Written by Mohsin Hamid, this is an eye opening novel in which the author gives the story of a young middle eastern couple who are forced to leave their homeland and become refugees. Written in 2017, it is very clear that though this story comes with the addition of some fantasy elements in the form of teleporting doors, it reflects the actual lives of many current Middle Eastern refugees throughout the world. Hamid gives these real refugees faces in the form of his characters Saeed and Nadia, the young couple forced to leave their home due to the increasing violence from the progressing militant presence which is comparable to ISIS. …show more content…

But by the end of the novel, it is seen that these horrible experiences that the male protagonist, Saeed, goes through will not cause him to change in a negative way, but rather cause him to mature. He does this through prayer, as in his eyes, prayer connects him to being “a man who stood for community and faith and kindness and decency… like his father.” So it is seen that throughout the novel he will make connections with people of his homeland and his parents through prayer, in all the different places him and Nadia stay at, and through these connections he will exhibit growth in these four qualities which he believes are characteristic of a great