Contextualizing Self (Re)Invention in Modern World: An Urban Sociological Perspective of Exit West
Abstract
The current study questions the impacts of differentiating characteristics of incongruous social locales of modern urban cities and traditional chaotic city in transforming the lives and characters of two individuals in the selected novel. It chooses Exit West by Mohsin Hamid as the text under discussion. It also underscores how salient features of the dichotomous social locales help them to (re)invent themselves in the phenomenon of self-exploration in the differently located geographical terrains. The paper seeks guidance from the critical insights of (Bhaba, 1994; Ashcroft, 2000; Berman, 1988) to analyze and highlight the challenges that modernity and tradition pose to them to intervene in their journey of self-realization. It goes on to underline the causal adumbration that engages them to oscillate between the two opposite poles by bringing them in a fix of ambivalently divided affinities. Subsequently, it aims to highlight how the gravitational pull of the ephemeral modernity and the solidified tradition intrigue to be the determinants of their destiny under different circumstances, clandestinely
Authors
Shiraz Ahmed
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan
Moazzam Ali Malik
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan
Muhammad Ehtsham
Assistant Professor, Govt., Zamindar Postgraduate College, Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan
Keywords
Tradition, Social Locales, Urban Sociology, Self (re)invention, Modernity