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DOI :10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327   IUP :10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327    Full Text (PDF)

Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

Baturay Erdal

Existentialists, while seeking meaning within the depths of human existence, examine human freedom, responsibilities, and choices. As individuals are responsible for every choice they make, a state of anxiety emerges as an intrinsic part of their existence during these choices. Meanwhile, space serves as the stage upon which human beings exist and navigate their existential journey, marked by these very responsibilities and decisions. In his novel Exit West (2017), British Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid addresses the issue of migration, which has become a global problem today, rendering the existential journeys of the protagonists Nadia and Saeed to produce a literary solution to this global issue. He invites his readers to witness not only a story of migration but also an existential journey through the magic doors he opens by using magical realism in the novel. He problematizes borders as the greatest locus of the age and facticity in the existential sense. Consequently, he attempts to demonstrate how this anxiety can be transcended in various spaces constructed using the magical realism technique. Each space reconstructed by the author promises new opportunities for the characters to make sense of their existence on the path to authenticity. Thus, the anxiety-inducing boundaries of geographical borders become an existential issue in the novel, while the imaginary line between ontological space and physical place disappears.

Keywords: Existentialism, Ontology, Anxiety, Mohsin Hamid, Space

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APA

Erdal, B. (2024). Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, 34(1), 77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


AMA

Erdal B. Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies. 2024;34(1):77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


ABNT

Erdal, B. Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, [Publisher Location], v. 34, n. 1, p. 77-96, 2024.


Chicago: Author-Date Style

Erdal, Baturay,. 2024. “Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.” Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 34, no. 1: 77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


Chicago: Humanities Style

Erdal, Baturay,. “Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.” Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 34, no. 1 (Nov. 2024): 77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


Harvard: Australian Style

Erdal, B 2024, 'Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West', Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 77-96, viewed 23 Nov. 2024, https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


Harvard: Author-Date Style

Erdal, B. (2024) ‘Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West’, Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, 34(1), pp. 77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327 (23 Nov. 2024).


MLA

Erdal, Baturay,. “Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.” Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2024, pp. 77-96. [Database Container], https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


Vancouver

Erdal B. Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West. Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies [Internet]. 23 Nov. 2024 [cited 23 Nov. 2024];34(1):77-96. Available from: https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327 doi: 10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327


ISNAD

Erdal, Baturay. “Existential Anxiety and Spatial Reconstruction in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West”. Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 34/1 (Nov. 2024): 77-96. https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2023-1393327



TIMELINE


Submitted20.11.2023
Accepted18.03.2024
Published Online21.06.2024

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