In Mohsin Hamid’s novel, Exit West, two different types of openings in buildings become meaningful symbols in Saeed and Nadia’s home. Doors are symbols of hope and prosperity, while windows are symbols of panic and death.

Windows reminded civilians of the inevitable destruction of their city. Since windows are translucent, they exposed the violence in the streets. As the fighting became worse, stray bullets commonly entered homes through windows. Or, bullets could break windows, and glass shrapnels can be deadly. As a result, residents begin placing household items, such as bookshelves, in front of windows. Nadia claims that her own windows looked like “amorphous black works of contemporary art” (72). She sees them as shapeless black modern symbols of destruction. Although they have many negative aspects, the people of the city depend on windows. They need them for light and for warmth.

Doors became an escape route for the citizens of the falling city. Since they shielded residents from the outside world, doors created the illusion of stability. Magical doors that transported a person to another part of the world existed in rumours. Most people thought that the rumours were nonsense, but “began to gaze at their own doors a little differently” (72). Unlike windows, people did not depend on doors. They were a privilege.

By showcasing minor characters with the freedom to migrate instantaneously through doors, Exit West shows that people immigrate to other countries to find possibility, which often takes different forms. One is that is demonstrated is love.

Early in the novel, the people who go through the doors follow the classic narrative of the endangered refugee in search of safety. What we see with Saeed and Nadia, life in their own city became impossible, without freedom, privacy, or financial opportunities there was no opportunity to deeply love and thrive together. The two travel through a door to a new beginning in hopes of growing their love, but also in search of safety together.

Later, in Chapter 9, the wrinkled Brazilian man goes back and forth between Brazil and Amsterdam until his relationship with the Dutchman turns into a romance: “A week later a war photographer…[was] a witness to their first kiss, which she captured, without expecting to, through the lens of her camera, and then deleted, later that night, in a gesture of uncharacteristic sentimentality and respect” (176). He migrated to find love.

Or even the maid in Chapter 11 chooses not to migrate at all because she assumes nowhere else in the world can accept her and no possibilities exist outside her community. Even the love and support of her daughter can’t convince her to begin the journey to a new life. Whatever the initial motivation behind migration, the characters in the novel all search for new possibilities, which can mean safety, opportunity, or love.

Upon finishing Exit West, and realizing Nadia and Saeed were the only characters given names in the story, I was immediately reminded of The Stranger by Albert Camus. While both stories make the conscious decision to leave some characters unnamed, I believe the reasons for doing so could not be more different.

As I read it, The Stranger left all Arab characters unnamed as a dismissal of their complexity, they were Arab and that was all the reader needed to know. It very effectively dehumanized them, subjecting them to a singular trait amongst characters as complex as Muersault.

I felt that Hamid decided to leave all characters besides Nadia and Saeed unnamed to humanize the two, by allowing them to function as singular people rather than a mouthpiece for all migrants everywhere. As soon as the first page Hamid is deliberate in naming his main characters. “His name was Saeed and her name was Nadia” (3). By naming them, and giving them fully developed, individual personalities Hamid is creating human characters that happen to migrate, not migrants that happen to be people.

What I found even more interesting about the lack of names in Exit West was that for me at least, it helped to humanize and connect all of the unnamed characters. By describing the person who helped Nadia and Saeed pass from Mykonos to London as, “a partly shaved-haired local girl” (117), and the person in Vienna fighting for protection of the migrants as simply, “a young woman” (109), the supporting characters are able to speak to a universal human experience. While every character in the book is fully developed and complex, by naming so few of them, it reminds readers that anyone could be put in the position of the migrant. It helps to break down the NATIVE/migrant binary, by not describing characters as specific people but rather in more general, easy to relate to terms. It prevents readers, from removing themselves from the Migrant experience because they are not named Cathy or Dave of whatever the name may be. Instead, it forces us (the reader) to reflect on the idea that many of us are young women or young people, and thus are no different from any character in the book.

I loved how the naming of Nadia and Saeed made them individual, human characters, and I also felt that not naming everyone else reminded me that we are all humans, capable of having the same experiences.