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Class, Alienation, and the Metamorphosis of Power: A Marxist Reading of Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man
Abstract
Abstract
This paper explores the novel The Last White Man (2022) by Mohsin Hamid with the help of Karl Marx's theory of alienation, psychoanalytical analysis and archetypal analysis. The novel is situated in a "white-becoming-black" society that creates an interesting metaphor for the proletarianization of the bourgeoisie. To analyze the capitalistic structures and their effect on the four forms of alienation (alienation from the product of labor, alienation from the process of production, alienation from fellow worker and alienation from species-being), this study symbolically reads the whites as the bourgeoisie and the blacks as the proletariat. The paper demonstrates that Hamid's novel is a critique of capitalist social relations and also a roadmap to lessen the alienation which can be done by class consciousness, solidarity and self-actualization. The transformation process is analyzed in the light of the characters of the novel, particularly Oona and Anders and his father, in the context of psychological violence and how class oppression can be understood, and identifies possibilities for human connection and understanding. For example, new keywords are introduced that are associated with Marxist alienation, class consciousness, and capitalism, the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie, and self-actualization.
This paper explores the novel The Last White Man (2022) by Mohsin Hamid with the help of Karl Marx's theory of alienation, psychoanalytical analysis and archetypal analysis. The novel is situated in a "white-becoming-black" society that creates an interesting metaphor for the proletarianization of the bourgeoisie. To analyze the capitalistic structures and their effect on the four forms of alienation (alienation from the product of labor, alienation from the process of production, alienation from fellow worker and alienation from species-being), this study symbolically reads the whites as the bourgeoisie and the blacks as the proletariat. The paper demonstrates that Hamid's novel is a critique of capitalist social relations and also a roadmap to lessen the alienation which can be done by class consciousness, solidarity and self-actualization. The transformation process is analyzed in the light of the characters of the novel, particularly Oona and Anders and his father, in the context of psychological violence and how class oppression can be understood, and identifies possibilities for human connection and understanding. For example, new keywords are introduced that are associated with Marxist alienation, class consciousness, and capitalism, the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie, and self-actualization.