Abstract:

This study focuses on exploring spatial dynamics and liminality in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. The study applies the theory of liminality, initially proposed in Arnold van Gennep’s Rites de Passage (1960) and later on explored by Victor Turner (1969). The study is exploratory and inductive in its approach that falls under qualitative research method. Selected passages of the text from the novel are discussed and analysed. Main characters, Saeed and Nadia, go through three stages of liminality that completely transform their personalities. In the pre-liminal stage, there are different factors which lead to the detachment of characters from the society. In the liminal stage the major characters display transition and move towards incorporation stage in the large-scale societies and highlight the effect of behavioural changes on the stage of corporation. This research study concludes that the main characters in Hamid’s (2017) Exit West completely transform their personalities at the end of the novel. They go through three stages of liminaliy – pre-liminal (separation), liminal (transition), and post-liminal (corporation). Different factors such as death, migration, love, separation, multicultural experiences contribute to the transformation of the main characters, Saeed and Nadia.

Keywords: