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I. Citation:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Goyal, Yogita. \u201c\u2018We Are All Migrants\u2019: The Refugee Novel and the Claims of Universalism.\u201d MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press, 23 June 2020, muse.jhu.edu\/article\/758170.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n II. Thesis:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Goyal’s Thesis:<\/strong> The refugee, much like Said\u2019s exile, is both concept and condition, and, most of all, a legal entity subject to new and old technologies of surveillance, capture, detention, torture, and death. As Said explains, even though displacement is \u201cunbearably historical\u201d (174), it can create \u201ca discontinuous state of being\u201d (177), hence the many universalisms and abstractions of the literature of migration and homelessness. Although often seen as a custodian of an elite Eurocentric canon (whose exclusions he critiques but remains bound within), Said is, I think, aware of these contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this essay, I draw on Said\u2019s meditations on exile to critique Mohsin Hamid\u2019s representation of the migrant as a universal figure in his acclaimed 2017 novel Exit West<\/em>. I propose that Hamid naturalizes the fact of migration in a way that evacuates the specific historical experience that generates it, rendering banal what must remain historical. Along the way, I consider Hamid\u2019s equation of migration with storytelling, exploring how such a claim reorders our understanding of the novel\u2019s relationship to place. I also examine how the refugee novel as a genre reckons with the difficulties of representation in relation to debates in visual culture, as well as in response to a number of recent calls to stage the contemporary refugee in connection with past histories of racial dispossession. Placing such efforts next to vital developments in the emerging field of critical refugee studies, I probe claims to the singularity of the refugee, as well as attempts to create itineraries of ethical and historical relation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My Words:<\/strong> Goyal believes that Mohsin Hamid makes migration too normal, too universal. Goyal wishes to persuade the reader that Exit West<\/em> is romanticized and that it portrays modern immigration from an unrealistic almost idealistic perspective. With his method of storytelling, the reader is left with little detail besides inferences and guess. There is a lot left unsaid and not understood such as place, context, time, culture and more. In doing so, he overshadows and overlooks the historical context and anguish of migration overall. Basically, the novel is almost too positive (not inherently good) and\/or neutral. Goyal analyzes Exit West<\/em> as a genre that tackles issues of representation, namely the way that modern migrants are portrayed in light of racist past practices. Goyal looks at assertions that the experience of being a refugee is unique and attempts to establish moral and historical linkages between various migrations. Thus, the argument is tied to Said’s contention that immigration laws should be viewed as such because everyone experiences travel and exile at some point in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n III.<\/strong> Analysis:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Goyal starts off with reviewing Edward Said’s thoughts on exile by quoting Said one after another. Said’s contention that there is a “rift forced between a human being and a native place” is evident. Said encourages taking into account the historical circumstances underlying migration and then criticizes the rise of nationalism in the contemporary refugee genre. Said becomes a major voice Goyal uses within the entire article that Goyal often returns to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After this, Goyal addresses what Hamid was trying to argue and convey in Exit West<\/em>. Said and Goyal’s opinions on the genre of migration novels are at odds with this debate. Goyal believes that Hamid’s general thesis, which is that we are all migrants, falsely romanticizes the experience of migration due to the fact that it generalizes far too much and does not address the context and history of it all. Goyal firmly believes that we need history and historical, if we render it too relatable or common, then it loses its place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Goyal then provides context for the reader by quoting various scholars (ex. Morrison, Nguyen) the historical significance of migration and how it contributes to xenophobia. By citing these additional voices, Goyal reinforces the idea that being a refugee is a difficult grueling experience, and by emphasizing the “we are all migrants,” notion that Hamid tried to convey, it lessens the suffering that real migrants go through. Goyal then goes back to their criticism of Exit West<\/em>, asserting that readers are drawn to Hamid’s book because of its idea of acceptance and love in its storytelling. However, Goyal emphasizes the main point of Exit West<\/em>, since it ignores history and the persistence of xenophobia, undervalues the actual complexity of modern migration. As said before, Exit West<\/em> is romanticized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n IV. Three Rhetorical Strategies:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Sources and expert voices. Having a good connection or source can really help further or add to an author’s claim\/argument. A strong one can really make a difference or have some leverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Example: In a prophetic essay, Edward Said explains that \u201cour age\u2014with its modern warfare, imperialism, and the quasi-theological ambitions of totalitarian rulers\u2014is indeed the age of the refugee, the displaced person, mass immigration\u201d (\u201cReflections on Exile\u201d 174). For Said, this reality prompts a complex meditation on the uneasy though fecund relationship between criticism and exile. Exile, Said suggests, is \u201cthe unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home\u201d (173). He concedes that \u201cexile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.\u201d Yet he notes that \u201cmodern Western culture is in large part the work of exiles, \u00e9migr\u00e9s, refugees.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n (pg 239)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Rhetorical Questions. By using rhetorical questions, it made the reader question the authors arguments or topics being challenged with said questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Example: If the refugee is a creation of law, what does it mean to render her myth, metaphor, or universal human? Why not try to provide interiority to the familiar icon of a Muslim woman in a veil or a young man with a stubble increasingly attracted to Islam instead of following their ordinary lives through phones, magic doors, and strained conversations about love? (pg 250)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Strong counter argument with evidence. Specifically with Goyal, they use text evidence from the novel to support their counter argument. Directly countering what is stated in the text is, to me, a very bold method that when done correctly is very persuasive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Example: At the end of her life, \u201cit seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can\u2019t help it\u201d (209). To claim that \u201cwe are all migrants through time\u201d surely risks banalizing the experience of migration in the way that Said had warned against, turning a particular experience into a metaphor for the human condition, undifferentiated by place or power. While it may be a truism to note that much of the world is on the move, we also need to stratify forced migrations, as well as understand why paths of migration follow colonial histories or current geopolitical agendas of militarized states and how such movements empower new forms of white supremacy and global fascisms. (pg 251)<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n V.<\/strong> Rhetorical Moves to Not Use<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Too many voices used. Although having many sources and voices helps towards good ethos and logos which in turn can help to further an argument, too many voices and sources can blur and muddy the overall argument. The reader can get lost and forget the authors argument because it gets drowned out by these experts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n -Pledge VVB<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I. Citation: Goyal, Yogita. \u201c\u2018We Are All Migrants\u2019: The Refugee Novel and the Claims of Universalism.\u201d MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press, 23 June 2020, muse.jhu.edu\/article\/758170. II. Thesis: Goyal’s Thesis: The refugee, much like Said\u2019s exile, is both concept and condition, and, most of all, a legal entity subject to new and old … <\/p>\n