Secondary Source Blueprint (Goyal)

I. Goyal, Yogita. ““We Are All Migrants”: The Refugee Novel and the Claims of Universalism.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 66 no. 2, 2020, p. 239-259. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2020.0019.

II. Identify the thesis of the article or chapter, aka WHAT is its central argument?
A. “In this essay, I draw on Said’s meditations on exile to critique Mohsin Hamid’s representation of the migrant as a universal figure in his acclaimed 2017 novel Exit West. 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’s equation of migration with storytelling, exploring how such a claim reorders our understanding of the novel’s 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.” (240-241)

B. The destruction of the boundary between immigrant, refugee, and citizen is harmful to the unique understandings and difficulties of various types of people. The novel Exit West harmfully portrays these groups as global citizens, which devalues the individual experiences of other groups. The idea of exile creates a defined boundary between various groups.

III. Analyze and describe HOW the argument is organized.
The first section contains a hook made up of quoting and summarizing an author which the writer of this paper would continue to draw from. It also contained some historical context and an introduction to the literature that the author would be quoting in later parts of the essay. This section also contained the thesis statement and began to support her claim. (239-242)

The author then follows this with a lot of I say evidence (not Exit West). These are examples that provide a lot of context, both on the language used in the essay and historical background to help us understand the text that follows. (242-245)

The section that follows introduces Exit West and begins to add commentary for the academic essays that follow. It uses summaries and quotes to give us the general progression of Exit West for the reader’s benefit. It follows the general template of dueling summaries, presenting the ideas of Hamid against the other academics presented in the previous paragraphs. (245-248)

The meat and bones of the essay follows this, where the author begins to offer commentary on the ideas presented in the other sections. It also attacks the use of magical realism and techniques that the author uses. It summarizes the previous sections and articles. (248-253)

The conclusion neatly sums up all of the arguments made in the previous sections, restating the thesis and bringing in all of the context, definitions and thoughts presented in the previous sections. (253-256)

IV. List three rhetorical strategies you would like to apply to your own essays.
Good introduction, involves the reader and drives the reader to continue reading.
Thesis is presented early, which allows the reader to understand the They Say and I Say very early on and makes the overall argument clearer.
Not overly wordy, sentences do not use weird diction.

V. (Optional) List any rhetorical moves you do not want to imitate.
The phrasing of the essay can make it difficult to understand, it frequently jumps around between ideas.