Tracing the Transformative Issues of Post-Colonial Man Through Mohsin Hamid’s “The Last White Man”

Abstract

The study aims to provide a postcolonial analysis of Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Last White Man (2022) employed by Homi K. Bhabha's concept of hybridity, mimicry, and ambivalence in the book " The Location of Culture"(1994) as a theoretical framework. The narrative unfolds in a world marked by such complex issues of identity crisis, culture hybridity, racism, colonial legacies, etc. Hamid focuses on examining the drastic change of characters without acknowledging why it occurs. The research study is significant in postcolonial literature by tracing the transformative issues in the postcolonial narrative with a global perspective. Thus, the study utilizes a non-empirical research method and textual analysis technique in the selected text from the theoretical framework of Bhabha’s “hybridity” (1994), which describes the emergence of new cultural forms from multiculturalism. Further, the difficulties that arise from attempting to let go of one's colonial history and embrace a new identity are revealed by Bhabha’s “mimicry” (1994). Examining the conflicting emotions white men face exemplifies Bhabha's concept of "ambivalence” (1994). Subsequently, Hamid probes the third space, an ambiguous and in-between space where cultures intersect and produce new meanings. Finally, the findings are based on the characters confronting questions of identity negotiating and engaging with the complex interplay of rapidly changing new worlds and meanings. In The Last White Man, the white man attempts to fit in and adapt to the majority culture.